英语在缅甸的传播

The Diffusion of English in Myanmar

英语为外语的国家通常都不是前英国殖民地,但是缅甸很特殊。殖民时期,英语渗透极其缓慢且不深入。独立后,缅甸民族纷争不断,英语的传播更是一波三折,不仅没有充当族际交际语,反而在历届缅族人主导的民族同化政策中,从官方语言降到第二语言再到外语,最终失去了顶层语言的地位与功能。这样的语言现实表明,一种语言的传播不仅与所在国家的殖民史密不可分,也深受民族主义和实用主义的意识形态影响。

Countries where English is a foreign language are usually not former British colonies, but Myanmar is an exception. In the colonial period, the penetration of English in Burma was extremely slow and not deep. After independence, with the continuous ethnic disputes in Burma, the diffusion of English is even more full of twists and turns. Not only did English not act as a language for interethnic communication, but it lost the position and function of a privileged language, declining from the official language down to the second language, and ultimately to a foreign language, in the policy of ethnic assimilation led by the Burmese people. This reality shows that the spread of a language is not only inseparable from the colonial history of the country, but also influenced by the ideology of nationalism and pragmatism.