Jay Hitherton's Blog

We have made a podcast on Endangered Languages across the world and my group have decided to do the Romansh Language of Switzerland. Please listen to our podcast!

What did medieval linguist Antonio de Nebrija mean when he told Queen Isabella that: “language is the perfect instrument of empire?” How has language contributed to colonial power? Focus on a specific example. Language has taken a huge role into spreading an empire's wings to the corners of the world. When the colonists first step foot on foreign soil, there was quite some problems communicating with the natives. Despite trying to learn the natives' language, the colonists have instead marginalised the natives by labeling themselves as the dominant group.  As language is used to communicate to one another, the natives find it hard to try to adapt to the situation where the newcomers have tried to overtake their status as the prominent power by utilising their language with the natives. The natives have limited to no access of using their own language thus seeing the extinction of languages due to colonialism and also the so-called "globalisation". This means that ...