The Changing Contexts of Legal Bilingualism: Historical and Modern Practice

Abstract

Polyglots were commonplace in the Middle Ages; today individual bilingualism is the norm rather than the exception. Ancient legal systems had often developed to function in a multilingual society. Similarly, about a quarter of legal jurisdictions in the world today are bilingual or multilingual; even monolingual jurisdictions have ways of dealing with speakers of other languages. How do bilingual and multilingual legal practices in historical and modern times compare? What roles have changing sociopolitical contexts played? The medium in which a legal system operates is dependent not only on the linguistic demographics within a society but is also affected by wider historical contexts. For instance, between the 16th and 19th century, European conquerors introduced foreign tongues into their Asian, African, American and Australian colonies. From the 19th century, the rise of the nation state promoted societal monolingualism. After World War II, despite processes of decolonization, the ex-colonizer's languages remain influential in many of these former colonies. In the past few decades, forces of globalization confront both monolingual and bilingual jurisdictions. How did the tongue(s) of law evolve in the historical timeline? Legal bilingualism and multilingualism may come in a number of forms. Legal languages may have equal or unequal status. The status of a language may not be conferred officially. Language use may be divided geographically or functionally. Bilingual jurisdictions also practice diglossia to a varying degree. These forms did not come about randomly. How do such forms interact with the sociopolitical contexts jurisdictions find themselves in? A historical account may illuminate the above questions and refresh our perspective about language as an important determinant of how legal order is structured. This paper will attempt to compare how historical and modern legal systems respond to societal bilingualism and multilingualism, by studying - in context - both ideological changes and changes in actual practice.