Social Linguistics: Case Study of Language Rights and Ethnic Conflict

This essay delves into the field of social linguistics, examining the impact of cultural norms, social expectations, and societal structures on language use, with a specific focus on language rights and ethnic conflict in Kenya. The paper begins by defining social linguistics and its relationship to linguistic anthropology, highlighting various factors such as religion, gender, education, and status that influence language within a community. It then addresses the critical issue of minority language loss, exploring the political, economic, and social forces contributing to this phenomenon, with particular attention to the role of language policies and their limitations. The essay uses the case of Kenya to illustrate the complexities of ethnic conflict, particularly the role of language in political mobilization, voting patterns, and government policies. It examines the historical context of ethnic tensions, the impact of language group divisions, and the consequences of ethnic discrimination in government and civil service. The paper concludes by suggesting potential solutions to mitigate these issues, emphasizing the need for equal resource distribution, inclusive government policies, and addressing the root causes of ethnic divisions to foster national unity and stability in Kenya.

Running head: SOCIAL LINGUISTICS 1
Social linguistics
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The case study of more national, group and minority language rights situations
Abstract
Social linguistics is a study of how cultural norms, context, and social expectations affect
the way language is used. It is simply ho society affects the use of language. Sociolinguistic is
related to linguistic anthropology. Different variables, such as religion, gender, education, status,
affect the way a group of people or community speaks (Sharma, 2018). Language use is not just
affected by social practices but also by social classes. Wealthy people or those in royalties have a
way of speaking different from the poor in the society. Social linguistics was started by, in
Japanese and Indian. Language is the most important form of communication in business and
also in our social life today.
Minority language problem
The main problem facing language today is language loss. People are adopting new
languages or existing languages that they were not their mother tongue. The loss of minority
languages is due to several factors. One of the factors is politics. Political reasons make people
speak foreign languages for a long time that they lose their mother language. Politicians use
languages to communicate with people, even those who do not come from their community or
language group. They use the language that most people understand, such as English, to
communicate. Economic forces also affect the way of the language of people. Other factors
include mass media, ecology, natural disasters, and religion.
The major cause of language loss is the language policies being implemented. A lot of
people expect the policies to protect the languages from eroding, but this is not true. Policies try
to control the loss, but all the other factors cannot be controlled using these policies. Let us take a
case; for example, the Hebrew and the Irish language were considered to have been saved from

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erosion by nationalist ideologists (Lasagabaster, 2017). Policies do not always work. For
example, when a group of minority people is prevented by policies from speaking a certain
language or writing it, the group continues using it. In the Franco regime, for instance, the
dictator prohibited the use of Basque language by the Basque people because they refused to
obey the dictator's rules. Their language was said to be animalistic by the dictator. The Basque
people, however, did not stop using their language, but instead, they started forming
underground education centers where they taught their children the language (Segawa, 2019).
After the death of Franco, the people formed their government and standard the Basque
language.
The Spanish constitution still prevents the Basque language from being used for
employment. This shows that government policy contributes to language loss, but it is not the
only factor as people still find a way around the policies. The policies were brought about by
assimilation and colonization, where the colonizers force the natives to speak their language and
abandon their language.
The other reason for language loss, as seen earlier, is social reasons. Early in 1913, there
was a lot of Turkish minority speaking Greek in Greece (Pia, 2018). Due to resettlement, the
Turkish moved back to Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon, and this resulted in many of the Turkish-
speaking Greek moving to Greece. A treaty of Lausanne was later signed, which made over a
million Greeks and almost half a million Muslims being exchanged; however, those Greeks that
lived in Istanbul and the Turks who lived in western Thrace were not included in the exchange.
The decision of whether a person was Greek or Turkish was based on origin and religion and not
language as people had adopted different languages. This created a group of minorities speaking
Greek in Turkey and another one speaking Turkish in Greece. These two minorities, however,

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lost their language and joined the majorities. Moreover, another fundamental issue confronting
language today is language barriers and discrimination of the communities based on their
language. Individuals are receiving new dialects or existing dialects that they were not their
primary language. The loss of minority dialects is because of various components. One of the
components is governmental issues. Political reasons cause individuals to communicate in
unknown dialects for quite a while that they lose their mom language. Government officials use
dialects to speak with individuals, even the individuals who don't originate from their locale or
language gathering. They utilize the language that a great many people see, for example, English,
to convey.
Financial powers likewise influence the method for the language of individuals. Different
variables incorporate broad communications, environment, catastrophic events, and religion. The
significant reason for language barriers is the language approaches being executed. Many
individuals anticipate that the arrangements should shield the dialects from disintegrating,
however, this isn't valid. Strategies attempt to control the trouble; however, the various variables
can't be controlled utilizing these arrangements. Let us take a case; for instance, the Hebrew and
the Irish language were considered to have been spared from disintegration by patriot ideologists.
Arrangements don't generally work. For instance, when a gathering of minority individuals is
forestalled by arrangements from communicating in a specific language or composing it, the
gathering keeps utilizing it. In the Franco system, for example, the tyrant denied the utilization of
Basque language by the Basque individuals because of the way that they would not comply with
the tyrant's guidelines. Their language was said to be bestial by the despot. The Basque
individuals, be that as it may, didn't quit utilizing their language; however, rather, they began
shaping underground training habitats where they showed their kids the language (Segawa,

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2019). After the demise of Franco, the individuals framed their administration and standard the
Basque language.
The Spanish constitution despite everything keeps the Basque language from being
utilized for work. This shows government arrangement adds to language misfortune, yet it isn't
the main factor as individuals despite everything discover a route around the strategies. The
arrangements were realized by absorption and colonization, where the colonizers power the
locals to communicate in their language and surrender their language.
The treaty for the exchange of the Muslims and the Greeks could have focused on the
language the people were speaking. Those speaking Greek would have been transferred to
Greece while those speaking Turkish would have been transferred to Turkey. This would have
made the minority groups bigger and stronger. Separating the minority groups made them
weaker and led to erosion and loss of their languages.
Ethnic conflicts in Kenya
Ethnicity has become a weapon of mobilization in the political life in Africa (Boone,
2017). In Kenya, ethnicity was used in the year 2008 and 2009 violence that left thousands of
people dead, more injured, and a lot of people homeless. Different language groups choose a
different political organization to support, causing conflicts and hatred among the ethnic groups.
The conflicts are, however, due to the sharing of power where different ethnic groups feel like
they should get more power in the government because they are the majority where else some
minority groups felt they did not have enough seats in power (Nwizu, 2019). However, most of
the people do not even know why they fought as they followed what their ethnic group leaders
were doing. The lack of knowledge and ignorance led to the escalation of these conflicts. There

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are many activists in language groups that advised their respective language groups but didn't
paint for them the whole picture of the best ways to fight for their rights without conflicts.
Ethnic identity in Kenya has always been involved in politics in the whole history of the
country. Although this is true, the hatred among the different language groups didn't exist but
continues to increase as time goes on. When it comes to the voting time in Kenya, ethnicity
serves as the main determiner accompanied by other factors such as gender and ideology. The
post-election violence that occurred involved three of the major language speaking groups,
which are the Luo, Kalenjin, and Kikuyu. As a result of these conflicts, the new president,
President Kenyatta, introduced new posts in the government called Cabinet Secretaries and
Permanent Secretaries to replace the Ministers that made up the old cabinet. These new
secretaries were introduced to help better the affairs of the government of Kenya (Cheeseman,
2019). This tactic has been used by most of the leaders in Africa. They have also started offering
seats to the opposition leaders who lose the elections to help minimize the conflict caused by the
leaders who lost (Gordon, 2019). When they lose, the leaders incite their language group, people,
to hate and oppose what the nominated leaders are doing just because they belong to different
ethnic groups.
The government also passed laws that help other minorities in the country, which are
youths and people with disabilities. A 2-third principle was introduced to allow gender equality
in the government. The laws, however, are not followed as there is not even a single Permanent
Secretary or Cabinet Secretary who is below thirty-five years old. These ratios also appear in the
drafting of power where you find there are a lot of Cabinet Secretaries and other civil servants
from one major language group where else there is no a single nominee from a certain ethnic
group. This is later incited by activists and politicians who just want power, causing the language

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groups to fight each other, forgetting they are all Kenyans. Ethnic discrimination in the
government and among civil servants is a major cause of conflict in Kenya. The conflict was also
seen in 2017 as President Kenyatta was elected for the second time as the President of Kenya.
Some language groups boycotted the elections, saying that there was cheating in the first round
of the election. This caused fear among Kenyans, especially those who were affected by the 2007
post-election violence. Kenyans stayed in fear of not knowing what would happen next. Every
language group watched their leaders waiting for them to tell them what to do next. Kenya has
more than forty-five language groups, each speaking a different language. The national language
for Kenya is Kiswahili, but they also speak English as it is taught in all schools. The studies are
done in both Kiswahili and English, uniting the different language groups together in education.
There has been a type of government called the devolved government that divides the ethnic
groups into counties. Since history, language groups live in one place separate from the other
language group. This type of government divided the ethnic groups into divisions where each
division, which is a county, has its county government (Horowitz, 2018). There is still the central
government that supervises the activities of the county governments.
The central government is also responsible for the resources that are shared by all
counties, such as national hospitals, roads, and schools. Some ethnic groups have been favored
by these divisions as their counties are economically richer than others. Some are on the
highlands where they practice agriculture where else some are in the desert, for example, Garissa
County. Agriculture cannot be practiced in these areas, and also livestock and people die of
hunger there. This causes conflicts between the starving language groups and the wealthy ones as
they feel that the resources are not equally-shared among all ethnic groups as per the constitution
of Kenya, which contains all the laws governing the country.

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This paper has come to some possible solutions to the problem of ethnicity that every Kenyan
faces from the time he or she is born to his death. The ethnicity division is not just in politics but
also in general services that the common Kenyans need. These services are such as health
services, employment, education, social amenities, and infrastructure, among others. It is a
known fact in Kenya that if two people equally qualified for a job go to a job interview, and it
happens that one of the interviewees speaks the same language as the interview, the chances of
that interviewee getting the job are higher than yours if you don't speak their language. That is
how high the level of ethnicity is. One of the solutions to be considered is the sharing of county
resources. Those counties that have rich soil for agriculture, minerals, ports, lakes for fishing,
and tourism sites that generate income should share the resources with the arid and semi-arid
counties (Petter, 2017). This should be done by the use of the national government, where every
county gives a certain amount of money to the national government, depending on the
productivity of the county. The national government should then divide the money among all
counties to make sure they all get the money to build service centers such as educational
institutions and health institutions. This ensures equality among all language groups.
The country should also rethink the winner-takes-all type of elections. This type of
government is very competitive, and the losing candidates become so angry that they incite their
language groups towards violence. There should be several seats that the candidates who lose to
seats such as presidential candidacy may get jobs that they can help their language groups
through. The competition is very high as all the forty-two language groups are fighting for one
seat, which is the presidential seat.
Indigenous languages of Hawaii and Itelmen

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An indigenous language is a language spoken by the native people of a certain area.
Indigenous languages have stopped being passed from generation to another, and instead, the
speakers adopt other languages and cultures and adopt the cultures of the majority in the
community or the country. Most indigenous languages are at risk of linguicide. There are
language rights recognized by the United Nations for the indigenous people. The indigenous
languages need to be preserved. There are almost 6600 languages in the world today. The
indigenous people make around 6% of the world population but speak almost 4000 languages.
Their language rights are guaranteed under the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (No.
170) of the International Labour Organization. Article 13 of the UN Declaration of Rights states
that indigenous have the right to use, develop, and transmit their language to the future
generation.
This section will focus on the Hawaiians from the State of Hawaii and Itelmen from the
Russian Federation. The Hawaiian language and culture were on the verge of being extinct in the
1970s. However, the Hawaiians have revitalized and develop their language through means such
as promoting their language through teaching it in some public schools in Hawaii. The
curriculum in this state is taught in Hawaii. In the case of the Itelmen of the Kamchatka of
Russia, the government has started programs to save the language from extinction. The programs
include mass media broadcasting using the language. Others are indigenous language classes and
cultural competitions. All the actions done by both governments have saved these two languages
from extinction, and they are successfully developing. I would also suggest the use of technology
such as soft wares containing dictionaries that show the meaning of words in the indigenous
languages. This is because technology is taking over the world, and the easiest way to teach
people nowadays is online.

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Language Rights in Canada
In Canada, Language Rights are presented in two sections. One is the Minority Language
Rights of Education, and the other one is Official Languages of Canada. The Charter says that
French and English are the official languages of Canada (Puigdevall, 2018). All federal activities
and services must be conducted in those two languages, according to the Charter. The Minority
Education part of the Charter also provides French and English as the languages the parents
should be teaching their children on. Canada is bilingual; however, the problem is none of the
minority or indigenous languages are used as the official language. This is a shame as society has
to abandon all its languages and cultures to sink into the big sea of the two majority languages.
Canada should use one of the minority languages as a national language or at least encourage the
teaching of the languages in school to prevent them from erosion.
Conclusion
The erosion of minority and indigenous languages seems inevitable unless their
respective government helps them save their cultures and languages (Strauss, 2018). Conflicts
caused due to linguistic differences are increasing in Africa with time. Programs should be
developed to make sure there is ethnic equality in Africa in terms of the sharing of power and
resources. Through the above analysis, there should be frameworks to be put to make sure that
African understand the value of their culture and restore their indigenous values. This discussion
has considered Social linguistics to be part of the investigation of how social standards, setting,
and social desires influence how language is utilized. It can be learned that this is basically how
society influences the utilization of language. In my opinion, Sociolinguistic is identified with
semantic human studies and various factors, for example, religion, sexual orientation, training,
status. I think these factors influence the way social interactions occur within the communities.

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Some of the studies in the discussion above suggest that linguistic is not directly influenced by
social practices but social classes. In my perspective, those in eminences have a method for
talking entirely unexpected from the poor in the general public. This can be supported by what
was discussed in the discussion above that Social phonetics was begun by in Japanese and Indian
and this implied that language as the most significant type of correspondence in business and our
public activity today. Finally, it has been found in the discussion that political issues cause
individuals to communicate in unknown dialects for quite a while that they lose their mom
language. Legislators use dialects to speak with individuals, even the individuals who don't
originate from their locale or language gathering. They utilize the language that a great many
people see, for example, English, to convey the financial. In my opinion, this likewise influences
how people use their language and various reasons for using their languages. This will be
directed by the social classes and political ranked within those individuals.

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References
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Gordon, R. (2019). Inequality, Patronage, Ethnic Politics and Decentralization in Kenya and
Botswana: An Analysis of Factors that Increase the Likelihood of Ethnic Conflict.
Horowitz, J. (2018). Can politicians exploit ethnic grievances? An experimental study of land
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Lasagabaster, D. (2017). Language Awareness in Minority Language Contexts. In The
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