The Language Ecology of Australia's Community Languages
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A U S T R A L I A’ S C O M M U N I T Y L A N G U A G E S
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THE LANGUAGE ECOLOGY OF AUSTRALIA’S COMMUNITY LANGUAGES
INTRODUCTION
Language ecology in a country of immigration such as Australia is the result of a complex interaction between: 1. the backgrounds and pre-migration experiences of a wide range of different groups and individuals; 2. the overarching effect of the dominant language of the receiving community (in this case English) on all of the incoming language users; and 3. the policies (either implicit or explicit) in place in the country of immigration towards the use of languages other than English (LOTEs). This chapter considers under Early Developments the multi-lingual history of Australia and the changing attitudes towards linguistic diversity since European settlement. For the first 150 years or so there were few attempts to quantify or discuss in any depth the contribution of LOTEs to a national linguistic demography. The later parts of the chapter outline the ways in which it has been possible to track the developing linguistic demography of Australia since the mid-1970s, both in terms of immigration intake and language maintenance efforts on the part of community language groups. Special attention will be paid to languages in the education systems. E A R LY D E V E L O P M E N T S
Although English is the national language of Australia, and has been used as such since the arrival of the First Fleet from Britain in 1788, multi-culturalism and multi-lingualism have long been national realities, if not always viewed, acknowledged or promoted in the same ways. This chapter focuses on the languages imported at and after the time of European settlement. Before Federation The late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were characterised first by an accepting but laissez faire attitude towards LOTEs, then by a still A. Creese, P. Martin and N. H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 9: Ecology of Language, 69–83. #2008 Springer Science+Business Media LLC.
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tolerant but somewhat more restrictive approach, resulting largely from the advent of state compulsory education in the late nineteenth century, which mainstreamed monolingual education (Clyne, 1991). There was a vibrant multi-lingual press (Gilson and Zubryzycki, 1967), and the towns of the developing colonies saw the immigration of intellectuals and revolutionaries from a changing Europe. At the same time rural areas in South Australia, Victoria and Queensland were being settled by German-speaking Lutherans, along with speakers of Italian, Irish, Gaelic, Welsh, Danish, French and Polish. The gold rushes of the mid- to late nineteenth century brought with them a further influx of languages in the form of would-be miners from all over the world, including many from China. Bilingual education programs (largely ‘private’ initiatives) were introduced where there was sufficient demand, particularly among the German-speaking Lutheran enclaves, but also in languages such as French, Gaelic and Hebrew
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