Ethiopian Federalism: The Politics of Linguistic Pluralism and Language Policy Discourses

Abstract

Academic research on the contemporary language policy of Ethiopia as a specific
aspect of Ethiopian federal studies is one of the least developed areas. This
article, therefore, is a brief exploration of the language policy of Ethiopia at both
federal and regional levels using theoretical, historical and comparative analytical
lenses. The study conceptualizes linguistic pluralism as an advocacy for
diversity taking into account the assumptions on language functions including
primordialism, instrumentalism and social constructivism. This piece has shown
that there exists functional correlation between federalism, language rights and
language policies which also highlights the tangible problems of monolingual
federal governments in multilingual societies. The finding further shows that
the current Ethiopian language policy is characterized by federal monolingualism
(as its predecessors) and regional language policy autonomy. In effect, the
federal monolingual policy has tended to limit the participation of non-Amharic
speaking national groups such as Oromo, Somali, Sidama and others in the
Federal Civil Service institutions. Regional states and the two autonomous cities
have shown variations in the implementation of their respective language
policies, some using two or more languages for different purposes while others
limited their languages. Finally, the ongoing language policy discourses in Ethiopia
show that the contending politics of language at both federal and regional
government levels remain unbridgeable in their approaches.