Forbidden language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A forbidden language is a language that is given a special illegal status in a particular country, state, or other territory, entirely or in particular situations. Typically a nation's forbidden language is used by some ethnic minority or oppressed (even a larger) group.

Sometimes forbidden language means parts of language, like certain vocabulary that is rude, improper or vulgar etc. according to standards, as defined being civilized by authorities or opinion leaders.

A forbidden language may e.g. be used at homes but not in official situations or sometimes even not in offices or other situations, where non-users could observe it.

An official language or a national language can thus be also a forbidden language.

E.g. in 2007 Finnish language is a forbidden language in the city of Uppsala, Sweden, where city management recently have given an official requirement that city employees shall not speak it even during their breaks among Finns only.^{[citation needed]} Yet, Finnish is supposed to be a legal minority language in Sweden.

In Francoist Spain (1939-1975), the usage of Castilian over Catalan was promoted, and public use of Catalan was discouraged and repressed. In spite of this, several thousand books were published in Catalan. Franco's effort to portray Catalan as an archaic dialect still allowed the publication of, for example, older poetry "

Galician language and Basque language have somehwat similar stages in history.

Kurdish language is an example of a language that is forbidden regionally and acceptable in other places.

Even British Sign Language (BSL) has come from being a despised, hidden and sometimes even forbidden language to one recognised by the Government as the language of the Deaf community in Britain.