Words of the World

Abram de Swaan is Chairman of the Amsterdam School of Social Research (ASSR) at the University of Amsterdam.

• Preface ix1 Introduction: the global language system 11.1 The global language system: a galaxy of languages 41.2 A historical atlas of the world as a language system 61.3 Supercentral constellations in the present language system 111.4 Scope and approach of this book 171.5 Plan of the book 202 The political economy of language constellations 252.1 Languages as ‘hypercollective goods’ 272.2 The communication potential of a language: the Q-value 333 Language, culture and the unequal exchange of texts 413.1 Texts as commodities in international exchange 423.2 Protectionism and free trade in cultural exchange 473.3 Monoglossia, polyglossia and heteroglossia 533.4 Discussion 574 India: the rivalry between Hindi and English 604.1 Characterization of the Indian constellation 614.2 State formation, nation-building and language unification 634.3 The vicissitudes of language policy in India 694.4 Discussion 735 The triumph of bahasa Indonesia 815.1 Gandhi’s dream 815.2 The rise of Malay 835.3 The demise of Dutch 865.4 The rejection of Javanese 905.5 Discussion 936 Africa: the persistence of the colonial languages 966.1 A two-by-three comparison 996.2 Three francophone constellations south of the Sahara 1026.3 Three English-centred constellations south of the Sahara 1167 South Africa: the survival of the old language regime 1277.1 The language regime under Apartheid 1287.2 Language policy after Apartheid 1327.3 The dynamics of the constellation 1367.4 Discussion 1408 The European Union: the more languages, the more English 1448.1 Civil Europe (1): language unification in national constellations 1468.2 Civil Europe (2): Q-values in the European Union 1518.3 Institutional Europe (1): the public level 1668.4 Institutional Europe (2): the bureaucracy 1718.5 Discussion 1739 Conclusions and considerations 1769.1 Conclusions 1779.2 Considerations 187Notes 194References 225Index 244

"Abram de Swaan is the world's leading political sociologist of language. He has a profound knowledge of the complex history interlinking states and languages and an equally acute understanding of individual incentives to learn languages. Here he applies his insights and methods – with surprising results -- to globalization and its implications for the survival of world languages. Words of the World is both a pleasure to read and a remarkable contribution to political sociology." Professor David Laitin, Stanford University"...de Swaan's view is original and rich to the extent that it sheds new light on this problem...De Swaan's analysis is definitely new and fruitful for an understanding of the relations of power and language" Anais Bokobza, European University Institute, Florence, Italy "De Swaan's study is an impressive tour de force; it presents an original and refreshing social science perspective, is rich in empirical detail, rigorous in its theoretical elaboration, and written in an elegant and accessible style: a path-breaking study of language change and human communication in an age of globalisation." Johan Heilbron, Multilingual Matters "...this book is an important contribution to our understanding of the relationship among languages of the world in the era of globalisation. It is a good addition to the growing body of texts used in increasingly popular courses on 'World English(es)'. Alamin Mazuri, The Ohio State University, USA