Arabic in Israel and Denmark

A September 2011 report in Aljazeera details Israel's plans to downgrade Arabic from an "Official language" to a "Language with special status". But as the report goes on to say:

"Because Israel has long neglected Arabic and its speakers, Zaher doesn't feel that downgrading the language's status will result in practical changes."

The news report gives several instances of discrimination against Arabic speakers. Do have a look.

Meanwhile, the last chapter of Multilingual education works: from the Periphery to the Centre (more November-2011-reading) asks, "But does this research knowledge translate into educational action? There seem to be three main trends..." (320), say the authors Kathleen Heugh and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas. The most negative of these is:

"Research results are completely ignored. Denmark is an example of this: despite authorities having had massive information, there are not even early-exit transitional programmes for immigrant minority children; most mother tongue as a subject teaching has been cut out, and the Minister of Education allows schools to forbid even the speaking of a minority language during breaks (in the latest case, in November 2009, Arabic, see http://politiken.dk/indland/article846430.ece). (320)"

Israel's discrimination against Arabic seems very much a part of this pattern.

Linguistic human rights in Iran

We move from Linguistic human rights in Turkey to those in Iran.... Here's a free rendering of what my friend Reza Torabi in Tehran says in his Esperanto blog posted, appropriately enough, on the International Mother Language Day, 21 February:

"Mother! Where is my language?

"To complain about linguistic human rights in Iran is nothing new. Five languages in Iran have more than a million speakers: Persian, Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Arabic and Baluchi. There are also a few other languages whose speakers don't reach a million but a few thousands, for example, the Armenians. In this note, I'd like to touch upon Azerbaijani, which is my mother tongue, and that of some 16-26% of the population of Iran.

"Azerbaijani is a "big problem" in Iran. Many have tried to strongly argue that "Azerbaijani is but an ancient form of Persian, and has no relation whatsoever to Turkish!" (Here's a slew of articles in Persian.) And that the Azerbaijanis are "pure Aryans", and that after the invasion of Azerbaijani territory by the Mongols, the population changed to a Turkic language (?!), and that....

"For 80 years now (since Reza Shah Pahlavi), many linguists, scientists and politicians have tried to prove this theory. The main aim was and remains to wipe out the Azerbaijani language and make the Azerbaijanis believe that "you are lost Aryans, and your language has been poisoned...." Nevertheless, they haven't entirely succeeded in "Persianizing" the Azerbaijanis.

"It's strange that the Iranian revolution changed nothing in this policy of wiping out Azerbaijani, and the new government followed the previous regime in its treatment of minorities, especially the Azerbaijanis.

"The systematic negation of the Azerbaijani language has caused the rise of radical movements in the Azerbaijani region of Iran. The Constitution recognizes the right to learn in the local (mother) language in parallel with the official language (Persian), but it's strange that Armenians (400,000) have a right to do so in their own language, but Azerbaijanis (more than 20 million) don't have a right to even study about their language in Iran (this is true also of the Kurds, the Baluchis, etc.).

"I now want to raise a simple question:

"Millions of people in Iran speak a language called Azerbaijani, which bears no relation to Persian.

"Why can the Azerbaijanis not study in their own language in spite of the fact that their right to do so is enshrined in the Constitution?

"Has the 80-year-old systematic disrespect of the Azerbaijanis in Iran had any success whatsoever?"

Language discrimination in Mizoram

"The teachers in Chakma areas [in Mizoram] are Mizos who do not stay in the village of their appointment, and are unable to teach the Chakma children who do not understand either the Mizo tongue or English. Clearly, the appointment of Mizo teachers is not benefiting the targeted populations (at least in the case of the Chakmas), and hence is a futile exercise." Paritosh Chakma, "Mizoram: Minority Report" (PDF file), EPW, 6 Jun 2009.

Nor is this all. As Paritosh Chakma reports in his blog: "The state government of Mizoram has passed several Recruitment Rules where "working knowledge of Mizo language at least up to Middle School standard" has been either made a compulsory requirement of educational qualification or as a "desirable qualification".

As I commented on this post: [This] rule ... goes against the National Commissioner of Linguistic Minorities (NCLM) "Safeguards for Linguistic Minorities". The safeguard in question is the following:

i. No insistence upon knowledge of State’s Official Language at the time of recruitment. Test of proficiency in the State’s Official Language to be held before completion of probation

Using the NCLM's various Reports, Mr Chakma came back with another post on his blog, this time with a thorough indictment of the state government's practices of language discrimination.

In Mizoram, Chakma is not the only minority language discriminated against, of course. NCLM's 43rd Report (2004-5) (DOC file) recounts a visit to a Nepali-medium school in Aizwal which revealed that, "[since] Mizo was not taught there up to upper primary standard.... those desirous of joining the [government] services are at a disadvantage."

As Paritosh Chakma concludes, "the discriminatory Recruitment Rules must be scrapped to remove the language hurdle for linguistic minorities in state employments."