Language policy and language reforms in nation and state building. Analytical overview

Abstract

This analytical overview deals with language policy and language reforms (and language in general) as a tool and an object of policy as exemplified by state and national construction in different countries of the world. The problems of contemporary understanding of language policy and attitude towards it are described. The overview offers a division of language strategies on pragmatic, mixed (pragmatic-protectionist), protectionist and nationalist, based on the experience of a number of states. A particular attention is focused on the analysis of growing competition of languages in a modern world (the division of languages on effective and ineffective («home») languages is suggested), the existing mechanisms of  regional bilingualism in different countries, and the political games, concerning variant reading of terms «state language» and «official language» on the post-Soviet space. A new consideration of latinization of the Turkish and the Kirghiz languages as examples of politically oriented reforms is proposed.