Language policy: Quest for language justice

Over the last five centuries, more than 50 per cent of the languages spoken all over the world were abolished. According to a recent study of Ethnologue, number of living language in the world is 7,105. There are only 1,300 languages with 100,000 speakers or more, 200 with at least 3 million, 80 with 10 million, and 40 with 30 million speakers. Today, 6.0 per cent of the world's languages are spoken by 94 per cent of the world's population and the remaining 94 per cent of languages are spoken by only 6.0 per cent of the population. The largest single language by population is Mandarin (848 million speakers) followed by Spanish (406 million speakers) and English (335 million speakers).  Bangla being seventh largest language in the world is spoken by 250 million people.
Language carries social, historical, cultural, religious as well as ethnic markers of a society. The census of 1991 shows 60 language varieties were spoken in Bangladesh. Today it is reduced to around 38, according to recent studies. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), out of 7,000 spoken languages in the world 4000 to 5000 of these are classified as indigenous, used by native tribes. With growing hegemony of English in academy and interpolation of neighbouring language Hindi through media, time has come for Bangladesh to think about a policy for preservation of mother language. It is high time to ensure language justice with highest equity measures.
Language policy is a manner by which governments attempt to manage any critical situation that comes from languages and its status. There are very few countries that have separate written policy papers on language. Rather, they embrace a language policy in their constitutions. For instance Bangladesh, France and many Arab countries have constitutional provision for official language. Other countries have recognised language laws outside their constitutions. For example, New Zealand has made Maori and New Zealand Sign Language official languages alongwith English. Israel maintains Hebrew and Arabic as the only official languages. Besides, there is country like the USA where there is no formal declaration of official language.
More than half of national constitutions in the world include one or more language clauses establishing national or official languages. In Russia and India, there is nationally recognised official language, but also over 30 languages regionally used as official in different provinces. Likewise, there are 23 languages in the Philippines and 11 in South Africa.
Sixty three countries name one official language. In some of these countries, single language is prioritised at enormous cost to civil liberties. Turkey, for example, has criminalised minority language usage in many contexts. Others elevate a single national language for purely symbolic, ceremonial purposes. Bangladesh, for instance, elevated Bangla language where emotion of 1952 language movement is attached.
For the last four decades since independence, Bangladesh has failed to produce a stable policy on language. Instead, language policies at the macro-level in Bangladesh are generally explicit and translated through constitutional acts or presented as recommendations in education commission reports or national education policies.  The Constitution established Bangla as a medium of instruction. Education commission reports issued in 1987, 1997 and 2000 reiterated the 1974 report emphasising Bangla, and recommended that it should be the 'sole' medium of instruction while ignoring language issues facing a range of ethno- linguistic minorities in the country.
The indigenous languages are part of the national heritage and culture. Besides the Bengalis, there are around 45 groups of indigenous minorities comprising approximately two million people and speaking over 30 languages other than Bangla. It was the National Education Policy 2009 that for the first time proposed language-based education policy for the indigenous minorities in the country. But the studies found a number of inconveniences.
Firstly, inconsistency and lack of sufficient data on the indigenous groups is a major problem for language planning. The 1991 census identified only 29 groups, mentioning some groups twice and not mentioning some at all. The 2001 national census also lacked specific data on the indigenous groups. World Bank (2008) estimates around 2 million indigenous people in Bangladesh while the Bangladesh Indigenous Peoples' Forum claims a higher population at approximately 3 million.
Secondly, indigenous languages in Bangladesh are mostly oral, without their own orthographies. Very few indigenous languages such as Chakma, Santali, Meitei have their own scripts. Given the paucity in records, an accurate number of speakers of these languages is hard to identify.
Thirdly, the country also has one of the largest centralised systems of primary education in the world. It is difficult to introduce new curriculum with indigenous language without compromising centralised standard or quality.
Lastly, the cost of multilingual education system in a poor country like Bangladesh is very high.  UNESCO declaration calls for allocation at least 20 per cent of the national budget and 6.0 per cent of the GDP. On the contrary, education sector of Bangladesh obtains very marginal share of GDP (only 2.4 per cent), the lowest percentage in the region where India and Nepal spend 3.2 per cent.
Given this experience of challenges of language planning, pragmatic solution is necessary. Initially, at the micro level, non-profit organisations can play a prospective role in literacy and awareness programmes among indigenous children. BRAC has been running the Education for Indigenous Children (EIC) programme countrywide since October 2001. Save the Children has opened 60 pre-primary centres in partnership with local communities in remote areas of Khagrachari district in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region, using the children's mother tongues as the languages of instruction.
Besides, policy transfer is possible emulating from other country.  A partial solution can be found in the Brussels (Belgium) periphery with extra teaching time in order to facilitate the integration of non-native speakers of Dutch. Additionally, language policy must consider some principles. It needs ruling for both "protective rights" from discrimination as well as "rights of access" to instruction.
Drawing from prestigious heritage of language movement, Bangladeshi nationalism is largely symbolised by the country's national language 'Bangla'. Nonetheless, both professional life and curriculum of modern education system are dominated by English. For large section of policy makers, English is emblem of development and progress. The motivation is understandable from an example. In Switzerland, a person with skills in English earns up to 30 per cent more than someone with similar qualifications apart from English. Therefore, Bangladesh needs a reasonable language policy considering its present socio-economic and ethno-cultural conditions.
The current three distinct type education medium emphasise different languages. Bangla being historical pride, English being economic motif and Arabic being religious sentiment, the indigenous languages are highly undervalued. Micro level attempts through NGOs have been marginal given lack of emphasis at macro level. Given the growing urbanisation and access to global culture, threat on national and local language is evident over the last couple of decades. Learning foreign language is a talent, but when it is at the cost of unlearning mother language, it is futility. What we all expect is a just language policy where equal respect is shown to all the mother languages of this land.
The writer is a student of the Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka, email: [email protected]