FEBRUARY 21, 2025 marks the first observance of the historic language movement since the July 2024 mass uprising in Bangladesh. The groundbreaking political change brought about by last year鈥檚 student-led movement is likely to provide new or more nuanced ways of reflecting on the language struggle of the Pakistan period that, among other things, fundamentally contributed to the making of Bangladesh. Students were at the centre of both movements, although the scale of human loss suffered by the earlier event was paltry compared to its nature and volume in the latest one.
In 1952, students were killed by the police as they were protesting what they considered an unjust linguistic imposition. They wanted to protect their rights to their mother tongue 鈥� literally for Bangla-speaking people and, by extension, for all speakers of their mother tongues in the world. We are not sure if the 1953 landmark declaration by UNESCO on the use of mother tongue for education was influenced by the 1952 language movement in the then East Pakistan. However, the 1999 transformation of 21st February into International Mother Language Day by UNESCO is a clear case of the local movement producing a global outcome.
The role of mother tongue in education and other areas of collective life cannot be denied in language and public policy thinking. However, mother tongue or any other language also needs critical and considerate attention. This essay presents a self-critical and consolidative view of mother tongue as we celebrate 21 February in Bangladesh and International Mother Language Day globally. UNESCO is observing the Silver Jubilee of International Mother Language Day this year, 鈥榬eaffirming the importance of linguistic diversity and multilingualism in fostering dignity, peace, and understanding鈥�. The essence of my critique is aligned with this global reassertion of linguistic diversity and multilingualism together with mother tongue.
As a start, we need an awareness of conceptual issues in talking about mother tongue. We have an intuitive sense of what the mother tongue is 鈥� literally, a language that is learned on one鈥檚 mother鈥檚 lap, or the first language of a child. Both definitions are hard to operationalise in certain situations. The connection to the mother may not be available everywhere; similarly, determining the order of languages (first, second, etc.) in some people鈥檚 lives may be difficult. In multilingual societies, some children may grow up being socialised into multiple languages at the same time. There may be challenges in determining a single mother tongue from the plurality of languages that they are exposed to in their early lives.
Related to the first point, the established view of mother tongue is derived from seeing languages as separate, countable, unmixed, and unmixable entities. This hegemonic view has been questioned by some critical linguists who would prefer to see all languages spoken by bilinguals as forming what is called 鈥榣inguistic repertoires.鈥� Such repertoires are a collection of languages of all kinds and levels of proficiency that bilinguals have access to and use in meeting their communication needs in different situations. Borders between languages may not exist in their repertories; they are also unlikely to maintain such borders strictly in everyday communication.
While we must recognise the value of mother tongues (despite conceptual issues), we do not want to promote 鈥榤other tongue-ism鈥� or 鈥榤other tongue fascism鈥�, as noted by professor Christopher Hutton from the University of Hong Kong. This is an ideology that recognises the mother tongue of the majority while denying it for languages of the minority groups. The ideology attempts to establish it as a fact that the officially recognised and standardised mother tongue is a unique and singular entity. This is, in fact, a myth. For example, Bangla is not a singular language; it is a collection of many dialects. And the lines between dialects and languages are drawn politically, not linguistically or communicatively. There have been claims about Sylheti and Chittagonian being separate languages, rather than dialects of Bangla. Mother tongue fascism is exclusive and authoritarian, as it does not accommodate other languages and dialects in education, media, and other sectors.
From a human rights perspective, the mother tongue ideology may maintain double standards. In theory, any official recognition of mother tongues should recognise all mother tongues, without exceptions. For example, if Bangla mother-tongue speakers in Bangladesh have rights to education through Bangla, Garo- or Santal-speakers deserve the same rights. However, what is taken as a given for the first group is often denied to the second group. This has created challenges for the Education for All initiative. As statistics tell us, over 40 per cent people in the world do not have access to education in their first language or the language in which they are proficient. This is a case of mother-tongue divides at a global level.
However, in talking about education through mother tongue, we should walk away from essentialist thinking that mother tongue is invariably the best choice for educating children everywhere. In some situations, it鈥檚 impractical; in others, it鈥檚 unhelpful. In multilingual societies, linguistic communities should be given the opportunity to choose the medium for their children鈥檚 education, who will take into account linguistic and other factors in pursuing their preferred futures.
We need a critically informed understanding of the role of mother tongue in preserving linguistic diversity in the world. Mother tongues should not be automatically associated with linguistic diversity or sustainability, as we find some mother tongues being victims of the linguistic hegemony of other mother tongues. UNESCO estimates show that there are about 7,000 languages in the world used by people. This UN agency also noted that 鈥榣inguistic diversity is under threat, with many languages disappearing at an accelerated pace in our rapidly changing world鈥�. Traditionally, global languages such as English have been identified as killers of linguistic diversity. While the big-fish-eat-small-fish character of English and other international languages cannot be ignored, we haven鈥檛 duly acknowledged the role of local mother tongues as potential linguistic carnivores. For example, there is no doubt that Bangla (not English) has a more devastating role in harming linguistic diversity in Bangladesh as it threatens the existence of minority languages. In fact, scholars have noted that many countries in Asia are emerging as bilingual polities, prioritising the so-called national mother tongue and English. This is a significant shift from the past multilingual identity of these societies, which are now shedding their ethnic minority languages under persistent nationalist ideologies and forces of globalisation.
A dogmatic pursuit of mother tongue may result in monolingual outcomes for individuals and societies, which are undesirable in an increasingly multilingual world. Individual bilingualism and societal multilingualism should be taken as norms, not as exceptions. Policies should seek to promote multiple languages, considering curricular capacity and investable resources. Such goals will stand against attempts to restrict ethnic minority languages and linguistic diversity.
A byproduct of mother tongue-ism is the pursuit of linguistic purism 鈥� the ideology that prohibits any form of linguistic (code) mixing. While language standardisation is a necessity, we also need to accept that mixing languages is a reality in bilingual practices. Such mixing or translanguaging is context-dependent and is usually practised only with certain interlocutors. Digital technology may also encourage innovative uses of languages crossing their boundaries. While reckless corruption of languages cannot be accepted, we may not want to sacrifice creativity, innovation, and intelligibility in the name of language policing.
We also have to embrace the emerging uncertainty about languages in a world that is likely to be dominated by Artificial Intelligence and other new technologies. While some technologies may aim for linguistic homogeneity and standardisation, their wider use may challenge such convergence in the interest of divergence. We need to prepare for both the desired and undesired futures of languages as they evolve in a changing world.
The celebration of the language martyrs鈥� day, or the International Mother Language Day, should encourage us to locate mother tongue in the broader context of linguistic diversity and its rapid loss, as well as multilingualism and linguistic human rights. Mother tongues should be recognised for all linguistic groups, including the majority and the minority. At the same time, all communities should be aware of the linguistic and sociocultural dangers of mother tongue-ism for linguistically vulnerable communities.
We are celebrating the language movement that happened 73 years ago in the shadow of the July 2024 mass uprising. We wonder how the latter movement will be remembered many decades from now when the current generation of Bangladeshis will have disappeared.
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Obaidul Hamid is an associate professor at the University of Queensland in Australia. He researches language, education, and society in the developing world.