The language tax is an

economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...

concept proposed by the Belgian economist

Philippe Van Parijs Philippe Van Parijs (; born 1951) is a Belgian political philosopher and political economist, best known as a proponent and main defender of the concept of an unconditional basic income and for the first systematic treatment of linguistic jus ...

. It is intended to compensate countries with a less widespread 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 a

per capita ''Per capita'' is a Latin phrase literally meaning "by heads" or "for each head", and idiomatically used to mean "per person". The term is used in a wide variety of social sciences and statistical research contexts, including government statistic ...

basis. An analogous concept is found in the work of the Swiss economist

François Grin François Grin (born 14 September 1959) is a Swiss economist. One of his research fields is the economics of language. Grin studied economics at the University of Geneva, where he obtained a doctorate summa cum laude in 1989. He then was a tea ...

, 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 Radicals party speaks of a ''tassa inglese''"I costi della tassa "inglese"
(in Italian). 21 October 2005. . ("English tax").

References

Linguistic rights Political terminology Taxation and redistribution {{tax-stub

See also

References