Ethiopian Language Symbolism

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Recommended: Use of signs in communication

1. Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
Language use on signs in public space has been the concern of bilingual and multilingual countries. Officially monolingual countries have also given attention to languages on signs (Backhaus). As a result, some countries have endorsed policies of of languages use on signs in urban environments under the umbrella of general language policy. International organizations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), have also ratified the issue of language use on sign, so that nation states formulate policies addressing such language issues as one of the basic areas of human right. To this end, UNESCO’s declaration on language use is so comprehensive, and it asserts the right to use one’s own language in many contexts. Among these contexts of uses, traffic signs, advertisements, and etc. are stated to be written in a language comprehensible by the users, possibly their own language (UNESCO Article 50). Particularly, the UNESCO declaration states that “all language communities have the right for their language to occupy a pre-eminent place in advertising, signs, external signposting, and in the image of the country as a whole” (Article 50.1). This shows that, it is an obligation to use signs in a language familiar to the community in varied contexts. Broadly speaking, these all are among the areas of inquiry in the linguistic landscape (LL).
In the Ethiopian context, though the country has been multilingual, it was officially recognized and approved very recently. Approving the multilingual nature of the country was motivated by historical facts, in an attempt to correct a former history of linguistic discrimination that built a nation on monolingual p...

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...elds such as “linguistics, geography, education, sociology, politics, environmental studies, semiotics, communication, architecture, urban planning, literacy, applied linguists, and economics” (Shohamy and Gorter 1). From the language planning and policy perspective, it helps to understand how government policies are realized by the language expression in written form in the public space, particularly on public sign displays, be it by official or private agencies. Likewise, by using private signs as an indicator of linguistic representation, LL study can give details of how government language policies are practiced at the bottom-up level. Using the LL, it is possible to investigate multilingualism, language status and language policy. This potential of LL research has been confirmed by many researchers as will be presented broadly under the conceptual review part of

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