Editorial
Promoting adivasi languages
Such a move will strengthen cultural heritage
THE richness of a nation's heritage come from its cultural depth and diversity. As recent history has shown, countries around the globe are preoccupied in reviving the heritage that has made them what they are today. Indeed, with such international organizations as Unesco taking the lead in preserving cultural sites and promoting as well as retrieving nearly lost specimens of heritage, it is important that we in Bangladesh join the enterprise in the interest of our own cultural past. For Bangladesh is a land of rich cultural diversity and is home not only to Bengali-speaking people but also to people belonging to other cultures. We are speaking here, of course, of the indigenous peoples, the adivasis, inhabiting different areas of the country. The adivasis altogether speak as many as thirty languages. In line with the efforts to revive culture that has been going on worldwide, it is today important that we do all we can to keep our indigenous heritage alive. Some of the adivasi languages, as we understand, are facing extinction.
A cornerstone of our political and cultural history is the declaration of 21 February as International Mother Language Day. That clearly means, for us, not only the promotion of Bangla but also of all other languages in the country. It is from such a perspective that we can approach the issue of a preservation of indigenous culture, in that broad sense of the meaning. In other words, we believe ours is or should be an inclusive society. One important way, therefore, in which we could go about ensuring the welfare of the adivasi communities is through helping them in the task of preserving as well as reviving their languages. That can be done through ensuring that at least at the primary level of education, adivasi children are imparted lessons in their own language as a way of ensuring the survival of adivasi tongues. Indeed, suggestions to this effect have already been made. Why not build on them? Once we move in that direction, we can tell ourselves that we are indeed strengthening the roots that bind us, one to the other.
Languages such as the Khumi, Khiyang and Pangkho have reached a nadir in the sense that each of them now has fewer than 2,000 speakers. It is clear the adivasis have been compelled by circumstances to move away from their languages owing to an absence of practice. That means if the goal of ensuring education for all by 2015 is to be reached, the focus, a good part of it, must be on those adivasi children who drop out of school because of language problems. Bring them back through instructing them in their own language.
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