ABSTRACT
Apart from protection of a language by constitutional, institutional, and other means, the negative attitudes of the governments banning certain languages from public life are known in the history of mankind. It is clear that the use of a particular language may be forbidden for reasons of uniformity, forcible assimilation, attempted dehumanization, denationalization, etc. Sometimes it is intended to curtail the development of a dialect vis-a-vis a high prestige language, and it is forbidden in public use, in print, and in schools. As an example, the fact might be quoted that in the latter part of the sixteenth century, the shopkeepers of Fribourg in Switzerland were fined for using French in their commercial relations (Laponce, 1960).
