Language and Sovereignty Referendums: The Convergence Effect

Abstract

The hypothesis that sovereignty referendums tend to bring closer together the boundaries of states and languages is tested on 80 referendums ranging from 1791 to 2011. The hypothesis is supported for union, transfer, as well as separation referendums though less clearly so in the latter case. The data show also that the boundary convergence is more significant if the zone-by-zone option, rather than the traditional majoritarian rules, is properly used.

Notes

1. J. A. Laponce, “Do Languages Behave Like Animals?,” International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 103: 19–30 (1993).

2. Jean Laponce, Le Référendum de souveraineté: comparaisons, critiques et commentaires [The sovereignty referendum: Comparisons, critiques and comments] (Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2006).

3. Sarah Wambaugh, A Monograph on Plebiscites With a Collection of Official Documents (New York: Oxford University Press, 1920); Sarah Wambaugh, Plebiscites Since the World War With a Collection of Official Documents, vol.1 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1933); Sarah Wambaugh, Plebiscites Since the World War: Documents, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1933).

4. Laponce, Le référendum, Table 3.

5. For an overview of the referendums covering the whole period, see Laponce, Le referendum, 30–42. For the period 1791 to 1930, the main sources of information and documents are in the three volumes of Wambaugh: Monograph: Plebiscites, 2 vol. For the American Civil War referendums, not covered by Wambaugh, see Encyclopedia Britannica, s.v. “Tennessee”; Encyclopedia Britannica, s.v. “Texas”; Encyclopedia Britannica, s.v. “Virginia,” (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1960). For background to the conflict see Bruce Catton, The Coming Fury (New York: Doubleday, 1961). For the Australian referendums of 1898–1900, see Helen Irving (ed.), The Centenary Companion to Australian Federation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). For the period 1930 to 2010, see the entries, by relevant country, in Keesing's Contemporary Archives (London: Keesing's Ltd., 1931–1986) for the year of the vote, the year preceding the vote, and the year following each of the referendums of union, transfer, and separation listed in Table 1A, 1B, and 1C. For the period 1980–2010, see also The Europa World Year Book (London: Routledge, 2010), The CIA World Fact Book at https:www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworld-factbook/ (accessed 2 July 2011); and The Statesman's Yearbook (London: Macmillan, 1864–2011). For the period of the breakup of the USSR and of the former Yugoslavia, see Henry Brady and Cynthia Kaplan, “Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union,” in David Butler and Austin Ranney, eds., Referendums Around the World (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 1994), 174–217. For information concerning language by state and language, see Ethnologue, Languages of the World (Dallas: SIL International, 2005).

6. At the end of the eighteenth century, a majority of the French population did not speak French properly. In his report to the Convention, Abbé Grégoire estimates that 35% of the French did not know French, that another 35% could not use it in a sustained conversation, and that 16% could speak it fluently but that fewer could write it. See Renée Balibar and Dominique Laporte, Le Français national: politique et pratique de la langue nationale sous la Révolution [The national French: Policy and practice concerning the national language during the Revolution] (Paris: Hachette, 1974), 200. In the case of Italy in 1860, Ethnologue estimates that only 2.5% of the population over 6 years old could speak standard Italian: Raymond G. Gordon, Jr., ed. and Barbara F. Grimes, contributing ed., Ethnologue: Languages of the World (Dallas, TX: SIL International, 2005), 544; and Guichonnet gives the following percentages of illiterates: 54% in the North, 78% in the Center, and 89% in Sardinia and Sicily; see Paul Guichonnet, l’Unité italienne [Italian unity] (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1961), 28. The regional dialects are still today frequently spoken at home outside Tuscany. See Mair Parry, “The Challenges of Multilingualism Today,” in Anna Laura Lepschy and Arturo Tosi, eds., Multilingualism in Italy Past and Present (European Humanities Research Center, University of Oxford: Legenda, 2002), 47–59.

7. The British Trusteeship of Cameroon was already mostly administered from Nigeria. The South Cameroun, which had formerly been French, preferred joining French Cameroun while retaining its use of English. See Neville Rawling, Cameroun: An African Federation (London: Pall Mall Press, 1971).

8. Trentino was briefly occupied by Garibaldi but had to be returned to the German Confederation. Trentino, Tyrol, and Trieste were among the territories secretly promised to Italy by Britain during the First World War for joining the Allies in the war against Germany. Wambaugh, Monograph, 6, Note 3.

9. Deryck Scarr, Fiji: A Short History (Sydney: Hale and Ironmonger, 1984).

10. Ibid., 544.

11. Using a small set of unions—obtained not only through referendums—Griffith finds that 80% (67% if one excludes marginal cases) meet the criteria of language similarity. See Ryan D. Griffith, “Security Threats, Linguistic Homogeneity, and the Necessary Conditions for Political Unification,” Nations and Nationalism 1: 169–198 (2010).

12. Comorian blends Swahili and Arabic. Together with French, Arabic has the status of official language. French is the language of administration; see https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworld-factbook/geos/tt.html (accessed 7 May 2011).

13. The latest CIA World Factbook lists Tetum and Portuguese as sole official languages with Indonesian being still used in education. See https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworld-factbook/geos/tt.html (accessed 7 May 2011).

14. For the text of the 14 points, see http://www.hbci.com/~tgort/14points.htm (accessed 5 Jan. 2012).

15. Wambaugh, Plebiscites, vol. 1, 99–141.

16. Ibid., 206–270.

17. Ibid., 267.

18. Ibid., 46–98.

19. My calculations from figures given by Wambaugh, Plebiscites, vol. 1, 82 and 86.

20. Wambaugh, Plebiscites, vol. 1, 163–205.

21. Kenneth McRae, Conflict and Compromise in Multilingual Societies: Switzerland (Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1983); John Jenkins “French Speaking Switzerland and the Jura Problem,” in John Jenkins, ed., Indigenous Minority Groups in Multinational Democracies in the Year 2000: Problems and Prospects (Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1987), 99–158; Jean Laponce, Langue et territoire (Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 1984), 176–79.