[lg policy] Nepal: Found in translation

[Harold Schiffman]

Found in translation

   - Linguistic justice cannot be guaranteed unless the state equally
   promotes and preserves all languages

  * - Miranda Weinberg <http://www.ekantipur.com/tkp/reporter/9101.html> *

JUL 19 -

One of the great promises of federalism is the possibility of inclusive
language policies in federal states. Such language policies would benefit
all Nepalis, no matter what languages they speak. The over half of Nepal’s
population that does not speak Nepali as a first language would benefit
most. Inclusive language policies would permit the use of local languages
in government administration, allowing people who feel uncomfortable using
the Nepali language to equitably access government and other public
services. Inclusive language policies would also finally deliver on the
promise to allow students to attend school in the language they speak,
beginning to even a playing field made unequal by multiple factors
including language. More importantly, such language policies recognise the
principle of social justice and ensure access and equity of linguistically
minoritised children in education and other fields. The clauses related to
language policy in the draft constitution, however, make the promise of
inclusive language policies more distant rather than closer.

 *Language of government*

The draft constitution both maintains discriminatory language from previous
documents, and also limits the ability of federal states to set their own
working languages. Following the wording of the 1990 Constitution and the
2007 Interim Constitution, the current draft states that “the Nepali
Language in Devanagari script shall be the official language of Nepal”
(Article 7).

This is extremely discriminatory and reflective of a
one-nation-one-language ideology rather than accepting and celebrating the
multilingual reality of Nepal. This provision discriminates against
speakers of languages other than Nepali in three ways. First, the
legitimation of the Nepali language as the ‘official language’ of Nepal
contradicts with Article 6, which recognises all languages of Nepal as
national languages. Second, this provision implies that the use of
languages other than Nepali in courtrooms, administrative offices, schools,
and other public spaces is unconstitutional. Third, the provision of
‘Devanagari script’ implies that only the standard written Nepali will be
the official language. There are many non-standard varieties of Nepali,
which should be considered legitimate ways of speaking in legal or official
contexts.

The draft constitution severely restricts the ability of federal states to
set their own language policies. Article 7(2) states: “In addition to the
Nepali Language, states can determine one or more than one languages of the
nation spoken by the majority of people as its official language on the
basis of law.”

This provision is against the principle of an inclusive nation. In
particular, stating that a language must be spoken by the majority of
people in a state in order to be employed as an official language is
problematic, and makes the phrasing of this provision nonsensical as it
would be impossible to have multiple majority languages in a state. It is
very difficult to determine ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ languages in terms of
census data. Many Nepalis are multilingual in their own community
languages, Nepali, and several other languages, but the census does not
provide data on multilingualism. In addition, this provision makes it
impossible for smaller languages, such as Danuwar, Dhimal, Kisan, Kaike or
Koche, among many others, to be used for official purposes. Rather than
this restrictive approach, the constitution should adopt true multilingual
policies that allow local government offices to use the most appropriate
languages in administration.

* Language of schooling*

>From the vantage point of English-crazed urban areas, it can be easy to
forget that many Nepali students struggle to speak Nepali, let alone
English, at the start of school. Over the last two decades, several studies
have found that a Nepali-only school language policy has been one factor
keeping speakers of other languages from achieving in school at levels
equivalent to first-language Nepali speaking peers. Students who do not
speak Nepali fluently at the start of school must struggle not only to
learn Nepali with no teaching of Nepali as a second language, but must also
attempt to keep up to pace with academic work. This situation leads to high
drop-out rates and low academic achievement among students who speak Nepali
as a second language.

Since the 1990 Constitution, communities have been given the right to
education in their own ‘mother tongues’; the present draft takes a positive
step by extending that right from primary education up to the secondary
level. However, the implementation of that promise has been hindered by the
ambiguous wording of the relevant constitutional provision, wording that
remains the same in the present draft. Rather than merely allowing
communities to operate schools in their own languages, a provision that
makes it sound as if such schools are the responsibility of communities
themselves, the constitution should ensure that the state will make
necessary arrangements and provide support for such schools.

* Language policy for inclusion*

Nepal’s earlier language policies were based on an ideology of
one-language, one-nation. Evidence from around the world, including
neighbours like India and Sri Lanka, demonstrates that such policies not
only fail to foster unity among diverse populations but also marginalise
speakers of languages other than the official language and can even lead to
violence. Countering arguments that a ‘poor’country such as Nepal cannot
afford to work or teach in multiple languages, economists have found that
inclusive multilingual language policies are tied to economic benefits as
they allow previously marginalised people to benefit from government
programmes. In schooling, too, using multiple languages can prove to be
cost-effective by promoting learning. Studies have further shown that most
low-achieving students from all over the world speak languages other than
the languages used in school.

Rather than maintaining language policies that exclude large portions of
the population and maintain the dominance of first-language speakers of
Nepali, the constitution could lay a groundwork for true linguistic
inclusion by ensuring multilingual policies in government administration
and in schools. The rights of all Nepalis to use their languages in court,
government offices, and schools, should be protected, not restricted.
Linguistic justice cannot be guaranteed unless the state takes
responsibility to equally promote and preserve all languages. Thus we argue
that the new constitution should include “the state shall take full
responsibility to promote equitable multilingualism in Nepal”as the new
directive principle on language.


*Weinberg is a PhD Candidate in Educational Linguistics and Anthropology at
the University of Pennsylvania and Phyak is a PhD candidate in Second
Language Studies at the University of Hawaii *


*http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2015/07/19/oped/found-in-translation/278606.html
<http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2015/07/19/oped/found-in-translation/278606.html>*


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