[lg policy] Pakistan: http://nation.com.pk/columns/25-Oct-2016/the-death-of-regional-languages

[Harold Schiffman]

The death of regional languages
October 25, 2016
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About 6,000 different languages are spoken around the world. The Foundation
for Endangered Languages estimates that between 500 and 1,000 of those
languages which are spoken by only a handful of people. Thus every year,
the world loses around 25 mother tongues. That equates to losing 250
languages over a decade.

Pakistan has been and is still rich in lingual diversity. Even today, it
has more than six major and 70 small languages. This language heritage
provides the country a reliable source of cultural strength and diversity.
However, Pakistan as a federation did not treat the diversity to increase
the social capital but tried to enact national integration through
religio-ideological hegemonic designs.

Some 28 regional languages including Hindko, Kashmiri, Torwali, Khowar,
Shina, Burushaski, Balti, Wakhi, Pahari, Hazaragi, etc., are in extreme
danger of extinction. Some may refer to these as minor or small languages.
Whatever you name it, whatever status or respect you give it. It does not
matter. What matters is the vital role of the mother tongues in shaping
identity and worldviews of the native speakers. First the forces of
colonisation, now it is the power of globalisation and modernity which has
endangered the mother tongues of the local populace.

Interestingly, the language and identity politics recently gained firm
grounds in Sindh, Karachi, Southern Punjab and Hazara region of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa linking language with the creation of new provinces. The issue
of language and new provinces, no doubt, has been politicised over the
years. The movements for the creation of new provinces fuelled due the
persistence reservations of these language communities over distribution of
resources and unfair dealing with the regional languages. Since the state
favors English and Urdu, regardless of whatever happened in the past, the
languages of the domains of power – government, corporate sector, media,
education etc., are English and Urdu.

The language issue has also divided the society in classes such as “English
being the language of the powerful” and the rest taken as marker of lower
status and in some forms “cultural minors”. In the current situation, it
appears that the Sindhis, the Pashtuns and the Baloch have resisted
elimination of their languages while the Punjabi middle class has
completely succumbed to the dominant English and Urdu oriented culture.
However, the question raised by many researchers including Dr. Tariq
Rahman, one of the prominent linguists of the country, is whether we are
all collaborating willfully or unknowingly in “killing” our indigenous
languages?

The dominant elites in media are deliberately code switching and code
mixing is also affecting the languages of the region. Similarly, the
private educational institutions are contributing to the extinction of
these languages as it has almost become impossible for the so-called
educated youth to purely speak their mother tongue.

The recent episode of the Beaconhouse School System, which is one of
Pakistan’s top schools, has come under fire after calling the Punjabi
language ‘foul’ and banning it from usage within and outside the school
premises. The controversial text of the circular has invited strong
criticism from linguists, language students and researchers for imposing
ban on the language which has already been reduced to spoken form amongst
its speakers. The English medium private school’s categorisation of the
language as ‘foul’ not only perpetuates colonial stereotypes, but also
reeks of racism.

It’s nothing new all the so elite English medium schools forbid children
from speaking any native language and this is how our so called education
system is teaching the children how to disown their identity. Above all,
the notification has numerous grammatical mistakes, which makes the
Headmaster’s authority over the English questionable. Those who are
intentionally becoming part of the same agenda of disassociating us from
our mother tongues are actually breeding a generation who would soon turn
their backs on their roots.

We would never be able to acquire the native-like efficiency in English or
any other second or third language but surly the unfair dealing with the
mother tongue will make us foreigner to our first language which is the
sole transmitter of our culture, tradition and distinctive human
characteristics.

Let us treat the rich language heritage as cultural assets and not
liabilities. It is need of the hour to change our language policy so as to
add English and Urdu to our repertoire of linguistic skills without
destroying our mother-tongues, our authentic selves, our culture and our
identity. The federation is strengthened when minorities feel that their
rights, culture, language, and heritage is being preserved, safeguarded,
protected and promoted.

http://nation.com.pk/columns/25-Oct-2016/the-death-of-regional-languages


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