Language Planning and Policy in Nepal

1980 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 71-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selma K. Sonntag

Abstract The paper is an historical account of language planning and policy in Nepal, from the period of the first unification of Nepal in the 1700's up until the present day, with comments on possible future trends. Emphasis is placed on the period after 1951, when the Rana regime was first replaced by democratic experimentation and later by monarchal rule. The language policy of this post-1951 period is illustrated in the paper by co-ordinating government reports on the education system and development projects, newspaper articles, et cetera to the contemporary history of changes in government, of political party stands, and of Nepal's foreign policies. The author analyzes and comments on this co-ordination, demonstrating how language planning and policy formation is dependent on other political policies and events of the time. The two language policy controversies used as main examples in the paper are the Nepali-Hindi controversy, and to a lesser extent, the Nepali-Newari controversy. Explanations for the dominant role of these two controversies in an underdeveloped country with over forty languages are given.

Author(s):  
Ildar Garipzanov

The concluding chapter highlights how the cultural history of graphic signs of authority in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages encapsulated the profound transformation of political culture in the Mediterranean and Europe from approximately the fourth to ninth centuries. It also reflects on the transcendent sources of authority in these historical periods, and the role of graphic signs in highlighting this connection. Finally, it warns that, despite the apparent dominant role of the sign of the cross and cruciform graphic devices in providing access to transcendent protection and support in ninth-century Western Europe, some people could still employ alternative graphic signs deriving from older occult traditions in their recourse to transcendent powers.


2012 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-53
Author(s):  
Edmund Burke

There is something seriously flawed about models of social change that posit the dominant role of in-built civilizational motors. While “the rise of the West” makes great ideology, it is poor history. Like Jared Diamond, I believe that we need to situate the fate of nations in a long-term ecohistorical context. Unlike Diamond, I believe that the ways (and the sequences) in which things happened mattered deeply to what came next. The Mediterranean is a particularly useful case in this light. No longer a center of progress after the sixteenth century, the decline of the Mediterranean is usually ascribed to its inherent cultural deficiencies. While the specific cultural infirmity varies with the historian (amoral familism, patron/clientalism, and religion are some of the favorites) its civilizationalist presuppositions are clear. In this respect the search for “what went wrong” typifies national histories across the region and prefigures the fate of the Third World.


1981 ◽  
Vol 59 (11) ◽  
pp. 2151-2158 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. M. Ross

The dominant role of comparative physiology (syn. experimental zoology) in the recent history of animal biology is noted. Its objectives, e.g. of contributing to knowledge of phylogenetic relationships and of discovering the origins of physiological functions, are considered to have been largely illusory when the data are examined. It is argued that in reality comparative physiology is concerned only with the description of adaptations, albeit at a sophisticated technical and conceptual level compared with natural history or general morphology. Comparative physiology has not produced any special theory or general explanation for physiological adaptation going beyond Darwin's general theory of natural selection.


Author(s):  
Paolo Desideri

This chapter discusses first the general cosmological principles which lie behind Plutarch’s historiographical work, such as can be recovered through significant passages of his Delphic Dialogues. Second, it investigates the reasons why Plutarch wrote biographies, and more specifically parallel biographies, instead of outright histories: in this way, Plutarch aimed to emphasize, on the one hand, the dominant role of individual personalities in the political world of his own time, and, on the other hand, the mutual and exclusive relevance of Greece and Rome in the history of human culture. Third, the chapter seeks to connect the rise-and-fall pattern, typical of biography, with the general rise-and-fall pattern which Plutarch recognizes both in the Greek and in the Roman civilizations; through that connection one can rule out the idea that Plutarch had any providential view of history. Finally, some reflections are offered on Nietzsche’s special interest in Plutarch’s biographies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-47
Author(s):  
Ikhlas Gherzouli

Summary The paper aims to present a critical review of language policy development in Algeria since its independence (1962) to present time. It takes the policy of Arabization, an important turning point in Algerian history that was troubled with serious problems, as an example of language planning in the country. Data was gathered from policy documents, laws, and newspaper articles. It was then coded into themes before it was analysed employing a documentary research method. To provide a methodical discussion, the first part of the paper explores language policy and planning in Algeria. The second part discusses the impact of Arabization on the country’s current state of policy development in light of the debates over the national educational reforms of 2003. The third part highlights the quandary that language planners face during the processes of language planning and policy making. Lastly, the paper concludes with an evaluation of the process of language policy development in the country. The paper argues that in order to foster sustainable multilingualism and achieve effective educational reforms, a keener recognition of Algerian linguistic diversity by the government is imperative.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Χαράλαμπος Οικονόμου

<p>The aim of the present paper is to map the territory<br />of health social movements and to examine<br />the demands they make as well as the<br />factors that contributed in their emergence<br />and strengthening. The increasing scientization<br />of decision-making process in the exercise<br />of health policy and the dominant role of<br />medical authority and power in doctor-patient<br />relationship constituted two important points<br />on which the criticism and contest of these<br />movements focused. The basic working hypothesis<br />is that health social movements call<br />into question the primacy and infallibility of<br />the orthodox medicine, which is based on the<br />dominant biomedical model in western societies<br />and challenge the institutional and cultural<br />framework of health policy formation.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Mary Lucy Roberts

<p>This thesis makes a contribution to the study of language maintenance and shift among New Zealand ethnic minority communities; it explores reasons for different rates of shift and different outcomes in relation to language maintenance in different communities; and the results are related to wide-ranging issues of New Zealand language policy. Research was undertaken in three minority immigrant groups in Wellington. The Gujarati community in Wellington is a major part of the Indian community totalling approximately 6,000 people at the time of the research; the Samoan community consisted of approximately 16,000 people, and the Dutch of 3,000. 141 members of the Gujarati community responded to questionnaires and interviews about themselves and their children, providing information on patterns of reported language proficiency, language use and attitudes to language maintenance from a total of 327 people. 184 Dutch respondents replied to a postal questionnaire about their own and their children's language knowledge, language usage patterns and attitudes to language maintenance, providing data on 412 people. 93 Samoan respondents filled out questionnaires and responded to interviews about themselves and their 133 children. Thus Information on a total of 965 New Zealanders belonging to minority immigrant communities was obtained. The data collected on patterns of language maintenance and shift is examined in the light of a wide range of language policy issues. The history of language and identity politics, minority immigration in New Zealand, and the immigration histories of the three groups are examined in detail, and the history of language and policy formation in New Zealand, is outlined and evaluated. The research focuses on the process of immigrant language maintenance and shift in the family and immediate community, and also investigates the role of language maintenance education in these processes. Information about language use processes in childhood and adulthood is presented. The Graded Intergeneration Disruption Stages scale, proposed by Joshua Fishman is tested against the information gathered on the three communities and found to be a useful heuristic device. The results of the research show that while processes of language maintenance and shift occur in all three communities, these processes take very different forms in each community, move at different speeds and. to date, have had very different outcomes. The reasons for the differences between the communities in these respects are examined in some detail. Finally, on the basis of the evidence provided by the research, language policy proposals are presented supporting the provision of government services in minority immigrant languages and indicating the advantages of state support for language maintenance education.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 93-101
Author(s):  
Maria A.  Saevskaya

Local self-administration was introduced in Russia by the Tsar Alexander II “Liberator” in 1864 and became one of the most important political events in the Russian Empire of that time. The new reform immediately sparked vigorous discussions on how exactly the Russian Zemstvo should be organized. The question of the role and importance of classes in Zemstvo institutions became most important. The Russian conservatives were also looking for the answer. Some of them considered that it was necessary to defend the old imperial order and the dominant role of the nobility, others hoped that Zemstvo would become a nationwide force based on the principle of the participation of all classes. Yu. F. Samarin, Zemstvo leader, Slavophil and the author of the most prominent project on the history of Zemstvo in Russia, supported the second alternative. He consistently criticized the idyll of the nobility domination in Zemstvo, asserted the ability of the peasants for self-government, and supported introducing the principle of all-classes representation in Zemstvo institutions of the Russian empire.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (12-1) ◽  
pp. 276-287
Author(s):  
Arkady Eremin ◽  
Oleg Petrovich-Belkin

This paper provides a detailed in-depth analysis of the historic traits and principles of the «War on drugs» concept in US domestic and foreign policies. Authors contrast the vector of ideological development of the concept with the changes in relevant statistical data on illicit drug demand and supply in the Western Hemisphere. This work represents an attempt to determine the role of the concept under review in the structure of modern academic knowledge related to anti-drug policy formation and decision-making process.


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