International Mother Language Day

(Dhanaiswary Jaganauth is a member of the Informal working group for language policy and language rights)

In 1999, UNESCO proclaimed February 21 as International Mother Language Day. Every year since then, countries around the world use this day to focus on aspects of linguistic diversity and multiculturalism. This year the theme is Towards Sustainable Futures through Multilingual Education.

In their explanation of this theme, UNESCO states, “To foster sustainable development, learners must have access to education in their mother tongue and in other languages. It is through the mastery of the first language or mother tongue that the basic skills of reading, writing and numeracy are acquired. Local languages, especially minority and indigenous, transmit cultures, values and traditional knowledge, thus playing an important role in promoting sustainable futures.”

In Guyana, the languages of our indigenous people are in danger of disappearing. Members of these communities have been calling for mother tongue education for some time now. Guyanese Creole hangs on because of the number of its speakers, but it could be losing ground. There are still those who refuse to acknowledge the need for our children to learn to read and write in Guyanese Creole. The wisdom of our ancestors will disappear with these languages if we continue to ignore them.

Somewhere I read that if you are enslaved, hold on to your language and you hold the key to your prison. But how long do you hold on for? Many of us give up and begin to identify with the kidnapper or enslaver. We give up the key.

In Guyana (as in many parts of Africa and elsewhere), we continue the colonial language education policies we inherited. We insist that everyone must be educated in the European language we inherited. We ignore the native languages of our people. When the majority of the better paying jobs require a language other than your own and when the school is telling you directly and indirectly, that your language is backward and won’t get you anywhere, you are likely to begin to distance yourself from your language and those who speak it.

One consequence of policies such as those in Guyana is that many of the local languages are disappearing. And when a language dies, the culture of its speakers dies with it. When you learn a new language, you learn a new culture. When you give up your language in favour of another, you give up your culture in favour of another. So when we lament the way our communities are changing, think about how we, through our language policies, are responsible.

In Guyana, the words aunt and uncle meant more than just the brothers and sisters of our parents. And the meaning of the word family also extended to anyone related to us by blood or marriage and anyone else we chose to call family. Similarly, the words maamii and chaachii; maamuu and chacha served to distinguish the uncles and aunts in the Indian extended family.

Then we go to school, learn English, and discover that our parents were wrong. Those words mean something else. So we learn the ‘correct’ meaning of aunt, uncle, and family and wake up one day to find that we no longer have that sense of community. That we have become too individualistic.

Many countries around the world, including the UK, are beginning to change their old language policies. In the UK, Welsh is now an official language and several other of their local languages now have official recognition. The British Council now announces on its website that it supports multilingualism.

Our language policies do serious damage in the name of education. By insisting on a policy of ‘English only’, we have over the years shut the door on many of our students and their potential. In the words of one researcher, when you reject a child’s language, you reject the child.

In recent years, some aspects of this policy have changed. But we still hear of schools in Guyana which have well-laminated signage that read ‘In this school we speak English only’. In other cases, teachers are instructed to use the child’s home language but only if the child does not understand the instruction in English.

While that may seem like ‘better than nothing’, it is still destructive of the child’s self esteem and confidence. Our hidden curriculum is saying, ‘You don’t measure up, so I have to ‘break it down for you’.

Mother tongue education

In the ‘more developed’ countries, mother tongue education has long been the right of children of the dominant group. English-speaking children go to school in the UK or the USA and enjoy mother tongue education. At school, they learn to read and write in English and they learn their school subjects in that same language. The French-speaking child goes to school in France and has the benefit of education in his native French language, as well. Most of these children never learn another language.

In some places, children who would have been shut out from mother tongue education in the past are now benefitting from Mother- tongue- based Multilingual Education. Reports are that these children are happier, more confident, and eager to participate in learning