From “Civilising Missions” to Indigenous Language Reclamation: Language policy, language shift and maintenance in Australia and Norway

In this chapter, we compare processes of language shift in two contexts with a particular focus on language policy, educational policies and family language transmission. Many nation-states, particularly at the turn of the 19th century, set out on “civilising missions”, portraying indigenous populations as inferior and their languages as primitive (Lane and Makihara 2017). Educational systems were a major tool in these civilising projects, illustrated by the similarities between policies directed towards the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia, and towards the Sámi population in Norway (Simpson and Wigglesworth 2008; Lund 2003). Assimilatory policies were the explicit goal of the authorities, with schools and education the key to these processes, thus playing an important role in achieving these goals. These negative representations and assimilation policies affected indigenous populations’ view of their languages and cultures and profoundly impacted on language transmission across generations. Parents often chose to speak only the national language only to their children, leading to extensive language shift. These separations from family also caused a disjuncture between the children’s lives in educational settings and their home environment, resulting in the sense of alienation and loss. In the present day, changes have taken place in the educational system and the role of indigenous languages within it and we discuss broadly language reclamation work that is happening in both countries and how this is impacting on the people