Govt must protect linguistic diversity of the nation | Metaglossia: The Translation World | Scoop.it

Published: 00:00, Mar 15,2022

      
 
 

SUCCESSIVE governments in Bangladesh have done very little to protect the linguistic diversity of the country. In addition to Bangla, there are at least 42 language communities in Bangladesh, but the languages spoken in ethnic minority communities are institutionally and socially neglected. Speakers at a seminar, organised by the Association of Land Reform and Development on Sunday, emphasised the role of government in the conservation of these languages while discussing the current status of the ethnic minority languages. In the past decades, at least 14 minority languages were lost. Only six people in Bandarban speak in Remingtacha language and researchers fear that the language will die with its elderly bearers. The slow progress in introducing minority languages in primary education and the cultural dominance of Bangla prompted many minority communities to de-emphasise learning their respective mother tongues at home. In 2017, the government programme to offer primary education in Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Sadri and Garo languages was launched, but the programme has not been successful due to a lack of trained teachers and other structural constraints. It is not just the minority languages, but unique cultural practices and tradition of these communities are dying.

In 2010, the International Mother Language Institute was established with the aim to conducting research and training programmes on all languages of the world, including ethnic minority languages in Bangladesh. However, their works on documentation of the 14 endangered languages, their scripts as well as primers remain incomplete. In 2017, the government introduced primary school books in minority languages in order to prevent dropout of children from ethnic minority communities. Although the curriculum has been upgraded from pre-primary to first, second and third grades over the years, the initiative is yet to take off properly due to a lack of trained teachers. Recognising the importance of a shift in our national education and culture policy, researchers and minority activists insist that the government needs to immediately reconsider its Bengali chauvinistic position which has also resulted into many violent conflicts and influenced the socio-political relation between the dominant ethnic Bengalis and minority communities. An enabling cultural and political environment is a must for a language to thrive and evolve. Drawing examples of communal attacks on ethnic minority communities and instances of eviction from their ancestral lands, rights experts said that people’s right to speak in their mother tongue is not separated from their other cultural and political rights. 

In the spirit of Amar Ekushey, the government should work towards protecting and preserving the minority languages and uphold the linguistic diversity. In so doing, it must routinely conduct ethnolingustic survey to protect and monitor the state of endangered and minority languages. The ministry of education must consider providing economic incentive to encourage primary school teachers to learn minority languages, which may expedite introduction of ethnic minority languages in primary education. The demand for an ‘indigenous language academy’ made by the rights activists is more than relevant in this regard.