- Language tax
The language tax is an economic concept proposed by the Belgian economist
Philippe Van Parijs [Philippe Van Parijs, [http://www.law.nyu.edu/clppt/program2003/readings/vanparijs.pdf Europe's three language problems] , in: Multilingualism in Law and Politics] . It is intended to compensate countries with a less wide-spread language for their expenses for teaching and translation.Van Parijs points out that
Jonathan Pool had proposed this kind of taxation in 1991 but criticizes Pool's proposal to distribute the cost of language learning on aper capita basis.An analogous concept is found in the work of the Swiss economist
François Grin [François Grin, [http://cisad.adc.education.fr/hcee/documents/rapport_Grin.pdf L'enseignement des langues étrangères comme politique publique] ] , who argues that such countries are implicitly paying an "impôt linguistique" (literally also meaning "language tax") to countries with a "strong" language. In a similar sense, the Italian Radical Party speaks of a "tassa inglese" [ [http://coranet.radicalparty.org/pressreleases/press_release.php?func=detail&par=7817 I costi della tassa "inglese"] , press release 2005/21/10] ("English tax").ee also
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Economics of language References
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