First-Language and Second-Language Learning

The Historical Development of “Monolingualism as Normality”

Most of the world's population is multilingual. Despite this fact, there is a general assumption in many societies—especially in those where dominant languages such as English, Spanish, and German are primarily spoken—that monolingualism is the natural state of affairs. In this view, the use of two or more languages in everyday life is the exception.

This position cannot be ascribed to individual speakers; it is a general linguistic concept that was developed in the course of nation building beginning in the late 1800s. According to this concept, monolingualism is one of the key characteristics of a well-functioning nation-state. The adoption of an official national language later mutated into the assumption that the official language was the “mother tongue” of all citizens of a given country. In the late 1800s, philosophers further promoted the notion that the bonds between nation and language were inseparable.

In the 19th century, these ideas spread as part of the discourse about how to develop the most functional civic systems, such as education and public administration, for national societies. In retrospect, the development and perpetuation of the notion of a monolingual nation-state can be explained by the societal and technical developments of the time. The Enlightenment and the French Revolution initiated the emergence of a civic public sphere. Thus, a common language provided the opportunity for [Page 916]inclusion and participation in public life. The invention of print made it possible to standardize languages, and the development of public education systems allowed virtually everybody to gain access to the common language in its standardized form. Therefore, initially monolingualism served as a unifying force and prerequisite for the creation of the democracies and modern civic societies.

Monolingualism had exclusionary side effects, however. A consequence of creating a “common” language is the exclusion of other languages from “commonness,” which thereby leads to the creation of language minorities. This result of monolingualization points to the fact that access to language and participation in a language community are not merely linguistic issues; they are also very much related to political circumstances and power relations in a society.

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