In Ethiopia, the overthrow of the military government of the Dergue in 1991 ushered in a period of political reforms which are still in progress, including a policy of recognition of a range of indigenous languages other than the traditionally dominant national language, Amharic. This paper addresses the question of language planning and education in this pluralist, multilingual state. It presents a profile of some of the many languages in use within the country, both indigenous and foreign, and briefly considers their historical role in the education system, touching on the associations of Amharic and the classical Ethiopian language Giiz with Orthodox 'Coptic' Christian-ity, and of Arabic with Islam. An evaluative appraisal of the new policy is offered which, whilst acknowledging the enlightened nature of the reforms in light of current political and linguistic concerns for 'linguistic human rights' (Phillipson & Skutnabb-Kangas, 1995), considers a number of major obstacles to the implementation of the policy, and questions in particular the moves towards the preference of the Roman alphabet to the well-established Ethiopic syllabic writing system. The article points out that, contrary to the intentions of the reforms, the outcome could benefit English at the expense of a significant African language.
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The cultural and social values and the ideologies of a nation or a people are transmitted from generation to generation through language. Language often appears not only as the cement that guarantees national unity, but also as the mold that forms the people into one nation. At the same time language is one of the engine that drives the whole nation toward progress and development. To use this instrument properly it needs policy formulation but to formulate the policy of language is not the simple task throughout the world particularly for the countries which have multi linguistic people is more severe than mono linguistic country. Being Ethiopia is one of the multilingual and multicultural countries, has faced the critical problem of development and implementation of language use policy that could satisfy the needs of various societies in question and contribute to their socioeconomic and socio-cultural development. Gone are the days when the country is described as “prison house of nationalities”. Today historyhas been reversed and Ethiopia has transformed itself into a country wherein the rights and freedoms of citizens, peoples, nations and nationalities are respected. The country has now emerged as a nation in which multi-faceted and encouraging development activities are carried out in the political, economic, social, cultural and linguistic spheres.Though the activities which have been done on development of language policy before gives the direction to the people where shall be gone but the journey is not finished. In relation to the journey of the country some writes said that the current language policy of Ethiopia has not been given equal opportunities for nation, nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia. And other writers including the ruling government said that the language policy gives equal opportunities for all nation, nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia. Owning to these controversies under this analytical paper under chapter one an attempt will be made to reveal the definition, types of language policy and the experience of other federal states. And under chapter two we will try to explain historical development of language policy in Ethiopia, the current language policy and its challenge and the prospective alternative solution of the challenges of the policy.
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