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Polities and organizations use and require particular languages for official business. The choice of official languages is a vexing issue. Theorists, convinced that a fair language policy cannot be efficient, have despaired of an elegant solution. To investigate this apparent dilemma, I mathematically model the problem of choosing an efficient and fair language policy for a plurilingual polity. The policy designates official languages and taxes the language groups to pay for translation among the official languages. Contrary to prevailing wisdom, this model implies that a fair language policy can be efficient. But what if language groups rationally misrepresent the costs of using a nonnative official language? Even then, the policy maker can discover a fair language policy and, under some conditions, can use a cost-revelation procedure that discovers a fair and efficient language policy. The results challenge the claim that efficiency and practicality excuse the inferior treatment of language minorities.

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- Introduction -- Introduction -- Official Languages and Language Planning -- Introduction -- Una Lingua, Una Patria?: Is Monolingualism Beneficial or Harmful to a Nation's Unity? -- Canadian Perspectives on Official English -- Language Policy and Linguistic Tolerance in Ireland -- Language Policies in Western Europe and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics -- The Legislation of Bahasa Malaysia as the Official Language of Malaysia -- Introduction -- English - the Official Language of California, 1983-1988 -- Testimony before the State Legislature on California Proposition 63 -- Voting Rights, Liberal Voters and the Official English Movement: An Analysis of Campaign Rhetoric in San Francisco's Proposition "O" -- The Popularity of California's Proposition 63: An Analysis -- The Official English Movement in Florida -- Who Supports Official English, and Why?: The Influence of Social Variables and Questionnaire Methodology -- Introduction -- Ethnic and Linguistic Minorities in the Southwest: an Overview -- Official English and the Learning of English -- On the English Proficiency Act -- The Official English Movement and the Role of First Languages -- Official English and the Urge to Legislate -- The Navajo Language Today -- American Indian Language Policy -- Introduction -- Legal Background and History of the English Language Movement -- Is Language Choice a Constitutional Right?: Outline of a Constitutional Analysis -- Bilingualism and the Constitution -- Language and the Law in the Classroom: Bilingual Education and the Official English Initiative -- Language Rights as Collective Rights -- On Walling In and Walling Out -- Appendix I: Amendments, Initiatives, Resolutions -- Appendix II: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo -- Appendix III: Congressional Hearings on Statehood for New Mexico and Arizona -- Appendix IV: Constitution of the State of New Mexico -- Appendix V: Representative Data on Language Use and Ethnicity -- References -- List of Contributors -- Index -- Backmatter

In this study, I seek to answer the question of why some states choose to declare English the official state language while others do not. Using an event history model, I show that both the proportion of a state's population that is foreign-born & whether the state allows for direct initiatives interact to influence the adoption of language laws. Specifically, states with many immigrants & no initiatives have almost no chance of declaring English the official language while a similar state with direct initiatives is more likely to do so. Implications for ethnic politics, direct democracy, & the future of language policy are discussed. 1 Table, 1 Figure, 20 References. Adapted from the source document.

The policy of official multilingualism is one of the most important and fundamental principles of the Union. However, a large number of official languages imposes substantial financial, communication and legal costs. We address the merits of extensive multilingualism and formulate an analytical framework to determine the optimal number of official languages in the EU. First, we derive the sequence of optimal sets of languages which identifies the sets of languages that minimize aggregate linguistic disenfranchisement of the Union's citizens for any given number of languages. We then proceed by discussing the political-economy framework and feasibility of a potential linguistic reform in the EU under various voting rules, including the Nice Treaty, the proposed European Constitution and the Penrose law. We argue that a six-language regime would be a reasonable intermediate choice: a lower number of official languages results in excessive linguistic disenfranchisement whereas adding further languages increases the costs but brings only modest benefits. We also show that even though a linguistic reform reducing the number of official languages to six is unlikely to gain sufficient support at the present, this may change in the future since young people tend to be more proficient at speaking foreign languages.

The policy of official multilingualism is one of the most important and fundamental principles of the Union. However, a large number of official languages imposes substantial financial, communication and legal costs. We address the merits of extensive multilingualism and formulate an analytical framework to determine the optimal number of official languages in the EU. First, we derive the sequence of optimal sets of languages which identifies the sets of languages that minimize aggregate linguistic disenfranchisement of the Union's citizens for any given number of languages. We then proceed by discussing the political-economy framework and feasibility of a potential linguistic reform in the EU under various voting rules, including the Nice Treaty, the proposed European Constitution and the Penrose law. We argue that a six-language regime would be a reasonable intermediate choice: a lower number of official languages results in excessive linguistic disenfranchisement whereas adding further languages increases the costs but brings only modest benefits. We also show that even though a linguistic reform reducing the number of official languages to six is unlikely to gain sufficient support at the present, this may change in the future since young people tend to be more proficient at speaking foreign languages.

The introduction of the Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism lays the foundation for two official language minority communities in Canada, and the principle of equality, which "implies respect for the idea of minority status, both in the country as a whole and in each of its regions." However, the Official Languages Act that flowed from the 'Bi and Bi Commission, and the structures that oversee it, have not reflected an approach based on equality. The English-speaking community of Quebec—Canada's English linguistic minority community—has not received "generous treatment" in the implementation of the Act. This paper based on my presentation at the 87th annual Acfas congress, offers some ideas about why this situation has developed and the impact this has had on the vitality of Quebec's English-speaking community. I conclude that equality for both official language minority communities—the outcome envisioned by the Commissioners—must be achieved through the modernization of the Official Languages Act.