ABSTRACT
Language learning is a process of discovery. The language will grow as the nation develops new practices, but growth takes time, and in the interim, the population is caught in a past imposed and enforced by its government's language planning and the resulting policy. A new language law was written and passed at the 18th session of the standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress on 31 October 2000. The languages most studied and supported by the state include Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur, and Zhuang. The most common process leading to language death is one in which a community of speakers of one language becomes bilingual in another language and gradually shifts allegiance to the new language until they cease to use the heritage language. The European Union (EU) supports multilingualism, and one of the goals of multilingualism in the EU is for every European to speak two languages in addition to their mother tongue.
