Ethno linguistic survey- A noble initiative indeed

Masum Billah :
The International Mother Language Institute of Bangladesh has initiated a commendable job. It has begun a survey on languages of indigenous communities to revitalize and preserve them through documentation. It is expected to complete surveying at least four to five languages by the next International Mother Language Day . Of the world’s 6,000-plus languages, half are expected to be extinct by the end of the century. Their range and variety were amazing. Some were alphabets with symbols to represent all the vowels and consonants. With the completion of the ethno linguistic survey many native languages will get recognition.
A40-member committee comprising anthropologists and linguists has been conducting the survey. Researchers and field workers will also be engaged in collecting data from native speakers. The anthropologists will work on the nature of ethnic groups, which will help linguists’ udnerstand as to how they express their emotion, anger, happiness and other feelings in their own languages.
Researchers will go to the villages of indigenous people to learn their pronunciation of different words and the variation of those. Regarding the languages that do not have any written form, field workers would use voice recorders to learn pronunciation of a particular word. In case of variation in the pronunciation, they will collect several samples and linguists with the help of local experts will give it an alphabetical shape. About the ethnic languages that have written form, their usages would be examined to identify grammatical errors. It will be a great achievement even if we can complete work on at least four to five languages by the next February.
Indigenous languages in different parts of the world are often relegated to a second class status of dialect, or vernacular, synonymous with poverty, backwardness and a lack of development though they have long and rich histories. Misguided past policies have treated native languages as a part of the problem of underdevelopment, which was supposed to be solved through the introduction of the dominant language. Being offered no alternatives, many indigenous peoples have been forced to comply, thus exacerbating the loss of their languages, cultures and identities.
Indigenous peoples are increasingly migrating to urban areas which have further complicated the situation. The world’s almost two hundred countries are home to some five thousand ethnic groups, while over two thirds of all countries have more than one ethnic or religious group making up at least ten percent of the population
The survival of a language depends on the prosperity and political influence of the community which speaks it. Some five to seven thousand languages are spoken in the world today and the majority of these are the mother-tongues of indigenous groups. Linguists fear that in the next hundred years many of these languages will simply vanish. To the indigenous groups who speak them, these languages are more than a means of communication; they confer on their speakers a sense of identity and uniqueness.
Along with income inequality and income concentration, THE world also suffers from great language inequality and concentration. Some ninety-seven percent of the world’s population speaks a mere four percent of the world’s languages. The current trend is for this four percent of languages to crowd out completely the remaining ninety-six percent. There are numerous reasons for this tendency. According to an expert paper on indigenous children’s education and indigenous languages submitted to the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in 2005, educational models for indigenous and minority children that use mainly dominant languages as languages of instruction have extremely negative consequences on the right to education and perpetuate poverty.
Most indigenous people have to accept education through a dominant or majority language, at the cost of the mother tongue which is displaced, and often replaced, by the dominant language. Research on results of indigenous and minority education shows that the length of education in the mother tongue is more important than any other factor. Research shows that education in the dominant language curtails the development of capabilities in indigenous children and perpetuates poverty. Again, losing the mother tongue means losing the culture of these people. When this is the situation of ethnic language globally, the IMLI , Bangladesh has taken a timely step though it has some limitations.
The institute has not even managed to start the field level survey work in eight months. According to the project document s the survey is supposed to cover 25 different indigenous languages in around 30 districts. According to an IMLI official, only the paperwork had been finished in eight months.
They have documented some 5000 words from four dialects- Chakma, Marma, Tripura and Achik. Jinnat Imtiaz, Director General of the Institute said the field level survey which would take about five moths to complete but not be started because all the technical assistants from abroad could not be brought in. “We need foreign linguists , specialized software and some electronic gadgets for the survey. Those have not arrived yet. But we have appointed an anthropologist. After conducting the survey we will get a real picture of the current status of the languages of the various indigenous communities, we will also then be able to come up with full corpuses.
Sanjeed Drong, general secretary of the Bangladesh Indigenous Peoples’ Forum, appreciated the initiative. At the same time he has touched upon some points thus ” It is very unfortunate that nobody has contacted us regarding the survey although it has been eight months. We have only heard from others that survey of that sort was being implemented. Not only would we have appreciated any attempt to consult us, we would also have extended our full support to make the survey successful.” He also regretted that this organization had never been consulted in the nearly 15 years that the institute had been in operation.
The survival of indigenous languages depends on the prosperity and political influence of the communities which speak them. Language policies, therefore, will need to be complemented by policies that empower indigenous groups politically, economically and socially so that they can make their livelihoods in their own communities without having to give up their language and culture or to migrate out of economic need. Each writing system tells the tale of its culture’s history, its evolving technology, even its deeply embedded values. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, more than a dozen scripts have been formulated for indigenous languages since 1900.Aboriginal languages are in danger of being wiped out in the next decade, with only 18 of an estimated 250 original languages still spoken by significant numbers of people. Those who speak Aboriginal languages as a first language face stark disadvantage and social problem.
The DG of the IMLI , Bangladesh has righty said, “every mother tongue or dialect has its beauty and rhythm, people ignore their mother tongue giving importance to popular languages, which often leads to extinction of their own languages. Dialects are like mother and should not be disregarded. It will be a great loss if dialects and mother tongues die out. “I fully endorse his views regarding this important issue. We want to see due implementation of the project to save many endangered indigenous languages, especially practiced by the indigenous people in Bangladesh.