Linguistic human rights in Turkey

While Turkey's President Abdullah Gul visited India, the Kurdistan National Congress sent an open letter to the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The letter declared that "The systematic political, cultural, social and economic genocide against the Kurdish people is still continuing".

Among the various forms of discrimination is language discrimination. Here's how Skutnabb-Kangas and Fernandes describe the situation in "Kurds in Turkey and in (Iraqi) Kurdistan – a comparison of Kurdish educational language policy in two situations of occupation":

"In Turkey even speaking Kurdish in public places has been forbidden until recently. Kurdish-medium schools are not allowed; Kurdish children do not even have the right to study their mother tongue as a subject in schools. In theory, courses in the Kurdish language can be taught to teenagers and adults but in practice the obstacles and conditions have been so many and so bureaucratically and legally demanding that there are next to no courses."

Only the abstract of this article, published in Genocide Studies and Prevention (2008, 3:1, 43-73), is available in the public domain. But, if possible, do please read the full article because it documents "a rare positive example where the earlier oppressed (Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan) do NOT turn into (linguistic) oppressors of others when they gain some power to control their own destinies."

Indeed, I'd welcome any account of a hitherto-oppressed group which, on gaining power, does NOT become another version of the erstwhile oppressor and reproduce the same pathologies of power.

Meanwhile, another activist Nurcan Kaya has authored the report Forgotten or Assimilated? Minorities in the Education System of Turkey (PDF) which calls upon Turkey to:

"play a historical role by bringing an end to the discrimination and the ignorance which has lasted almost a century. It is time to remember the forgotten ones, understand their needs, support their demands and fulfil Turkey’s obligations under international law."

Yet another report on the Kurds by the same organization, Minority Rights Group International, A Quest for Equality: Minorities in Turkey, (PDF) concludes wisely: "The state should not fear its own children. Not every one who asks for language and cultural rights demands territory."

20% Indian kids have different home and school languages

Peru: 18.5%
India: 19.1%
Paraguay: 63.5%
Phillipines: 79.7%

These are the percentages of primary pupils in schools where school heads reported that for 'most' or 'all' pupils "First language [was] different from language of instruction". The data is from a 2008 Unesco report, A View Inside Primary Schools: A World Education Indicators (WEI) cross-national study (p. 56, Table 3.1).

These percentages have important implications for the global initiative Education for All, especially, its sixth goal, "Improve the quality of education". When so many have to struggle with a non-mother-tongue, what learning can happen?

With language barriers adding to the difficulties of minority and indigenous children, the findings of India's ASER 2007 report are not surprising at all: only 58.3% children in class 5 can read a class 2 level text (p. 32). For some 20% of the 41% who can't read even a class 2 text, the language of instruction must be a formidable challenge. In the Phillipines 80% suffer a non-home-language in the school. Imagine the challenges there in providing "quality education"!

The Unesco report, however, draws a very mild conclusion from the data:

"Schools and teachers needed to take these different linguistic backgrounds into account, not only in the development of language instruction but in other parts of the curriculum to ensure that all pupils had the opportunity to succeed academically."

No! A much stronger recommendation is warranted: ensure mother-tongue medium education. Only then will Unesco and governments have a chance to achieve the relevant Millennium Development Goals.

Language, Education and (violations of) Human Rights

"Language, Education and (violations of) Human Rights" is the keynote that Tove Skutnabb-Kangas gave at a symposium on "Linguistic Rights in the World, the current situation", at the United Nations in Geneva, in April 2008. The symposium commemorated the 100th Anniversary of the Universal Esperanto Association (UEA) and the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

Skutnabb-Kangas argues forcefully that:

The most important Linguistic Human Right (LHR) in education for Indigenous peoples and minorities, if they want to reproduce themselves as peoples/minorities, is an unconditional right to mainly mother tongue medium education in non-fee state schools. This education (of course including teaching of a dominant language as a subject, by bilingual teachers) should continue minimally 8 years, preferably longer. Today, binding educational LHRs are more or less non-existent.

Meanwhile, as she points out, "According to pessimistic but realistic estimates, 90-95% of today’s spoken languages may be very seriously endangered or extinct by the year 2100."

She demonstrates that for children of indigenous and minority groups, dominant-language-medium education policies the world over are both widespread and destructive. She argues that these policies can be described legally (in international law) as "linguistic genocide" and "crimes against humanity".

Her "positive examples" of mother-tongue medium based multilingual education are from India, Nepal, Norway, Finland, and Ethiopia, and adds that there are encouraging reports also from Peru, Bolivia, and Bangladesh. But, as she says, "in today's situation there is a lot of nice talk and far too little action".

"Most countries are hypocritical", she concludes.

Her information-rich talk is best heard (or downloaded as an MP3 file) with the PDF of her presentation - both archived on Linguistic-rights.org (so far in English, Esperanto and French - more language-versions to be available soon).

European Day of Languages in Hyderabad

Here's the final version (15 Oct) of a press release that I recently put together (there's also an Esperanto version).

On the occasion of

European Day of Languages

European Language Mela

20 October 2008
The English and Foreign Languages University
Hyderabad

Institutes in Hyderabad which teach European languages will come together on 20 October to celebrate the European Day of Languages. The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) will host a "European Language Mela".

"The event is the first of its kind in India, and will showcase the rich diversity of languages in Europe," said Professor Abhai Maurya, Vice-Chancellor, EFLU. He added, "The event takes on added significance in 2008, which the United Nations has declared International Year of Languages."

Participating institutes include Alliance Française, Goethe Zentrum, Osmania University, Universal Esperanto Association, and University of Hyderabad. As many as eight European languages will be presented – Croatian, English, Esperanto, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish – followed by a discussion.

Over the next few months, several Language Days are being planned by these institutes to present these languages and their cultures in greater depth.

Backgrounder

Launched in 2001, the European Day of Languages, which is traditionally celebrated on or around 26 September, promotes linguistic diversity as a tool for greater intercultural understanding. There are over 200 languages indigenous to Europe and many more are spoken by citizens whose family origin is from other continents.

Some factoids:

• The mother tongues spoken by most people in Europe are Russian, German, English, French and Italian, in that order.



• The non-European languages most widely used on European territory are Arabic, Chinese and Hindi, each with its own writing system.



• Russia (148 million inhabitants) has by far the highest number of languages spoken on its territory: from 130 to 200 depending on the criteria.



• Most countries in Europe have a number of regional or minority languages – some of these have obtained official status.



• Due to the influx of migrants and refugees, Europe has become largely multilingual. In London alone some 300 languages are spoken (Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, Berber, Hindi, Punjabi, etc.).

Bilingualism. Let us recognize, use and cherish this resource. Bilingualism brings all kinds of benefits. Being bilingual can enhance your chances of successfully learning other languages. Learning a second language makes it easier to learn a third. Bilinguals may also have some advantages in thinking: there is evidence that they make faster progress than monolinguals in certain areas of early cognitive development and are in many ways more creative in their linguistic skills.

Bilinguals can communicate with a wider variety of people. Since bilinguals can experience two or more cultures in an intimate way, their ability can make them more sensitive in communication and more ready to overcome cultural barriers and to build cultural bridges. There are also important practical issues: bilinguals enjoy a potential economic advantage because a larger number of jobs becomes available to them. It is also increasingly accepted that multilingual companies have a competitive edge over monolingual ones.

Minority languages. Thus, in a globalizing world high-level multilingualism is very desirable. The conditions to achieve high-level multilingualism are quite favourable for the big languages. A 10-year schooling in the mother-tongue lays a solid cognitive foundation on which other languages can be effectively acquired. However, as in the rest of the world, in Europe too the situation of the smaller languages is far more uncertain – indeed, for the world as a whole, experts estimate that over this century, at least half of the world’s languages, and perhaps more, will die out. Within two generations all traces of a language can disappear when it is not spoken at home, and when children are not taught in it at school. It is this urgency that has prompted the United Nations to declare 2008 “International Year of Languages”.

As a community of nations committed to defending human rights – including linguistic human rights – Europe is seriously discussing strategies to ensure these rights for all its citizens. A range of proposals exist: initiatives to encourage citizens to learn the languages of the neighbours; a 'simplified' English; adopting a national language as one's own; declaring a national language as the official European language; and learning a planned language like Esperanto as a universal second language.

Europe's success in defending linguistic human rights, promoting linguistic diversity and democracy, and achieving a high-level multilingualism will be watched with great interest in other multilingual mosaics such as India.

As we – with our own complex mix of languages! – gather to celebrate Europe's linguistic diversity, these are some of the larger issues that we invite you to ponder over during the seminar. Indeed, we hope that our celebrations and deliberations will continue through the various European Language Days that we plan to organize during the next few months in Hyderabad!

Some useful websites

• Council of Europe's official website for the European Day of Languages www.ecml.at/edl


• European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages www.eblul.org


• Unesco portal on Languages and Multilingualism www.unesco.org/en/languages