Author: guyanalanguagesunit

This is an extract of the document submitted by The Informal Working Group for Language Policy and Language Rights in Guyana to the National Toshao’s Council, concerning indigenous language rights and preservation:

PROPOSAL

To: The National Toshaos Council (NTC) Meeting 2017

From: The Informal Working Group for Language Policy and Language Rights in Guyana, University of Guyana

Subject: Message to the National Toshaos Council (NTC

Date: 21 August, 2017

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

BACKGROUND   

A. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples (Ref. Articles 13, 14, 16) states that …

Article 13

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons.
2. States shall take effective measures to ensure that this right is protected and also to ensure that indigenous peoples can understand and be understood in political, legal and administrative proceedings, where necessary through the provision of interpretation or by other appropriate means.

Article 14

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.
2. Indigenous individuals, particularly children, have the right to all levels and forms of education of the State without discrimination.
3. States shall, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, take effective measures, in order for indigenous individuals, particularly children, including those living outside their communities, to have access, when possible, to an education in their own culture and provided in their own language.

Article 16

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to establish their own media in their own languages and to have access to all forms of non-indigenous media without discrimination.
2. States shall take effective measures to ensure that State-owned media duly reflect indigenous cultural diversity. States, without prejudice to ensuring full freedom of expression, should encourage privately owned media to adequately reflect indigenous cultural diversity

B. Indigenous languages of Guyana (and elsewhere) are in danger of becoming dead languages. As an ever increasing number of languages disappear, so too do the cultures of the people who speak these languages. The world loses the wisdom, knowledge, problem-solving and other perspectives of these civilisations.

C. The Global Education Monitoring Report (UNESCO) Policy Paper 24 of February 16, 2016, “If you don’t understand how can you learn?’ announced six essential messages:

1. Children should be taught in a language they understand. Yet as much as 40% of the global population does not have access to education in a language they speak or understand.
2. Speaking a language that is not spoken in the classroom frequently holds back a child’s learning, especially for those living in poverty.
3. At least six years of mother tongue instruction is needed to reduce learning gaps for minority language speakers.
4. In multi-ethnic societies, imposing a dominant language a school system has frequently been a source of grievance linked to wider issues of social and cultural inequality.
5. Education policies should recognize the importance of mother tongue learning.
6. Linguistic diversity creates challenges within the education system, notably in areas of teaching, notably in areas of teacher recruitment, curriculum development and the provision of teaching materials

D. Colloquium 2016: Languages of Guyana—Theory, Policy and Practice in education and beyond was held at the University of Guyana during August 10 and 11, 2016. This colloquium was an initiative of the Informal Working Group for Language Policy and Language Rights in Guyana within the Department of Language and Cultural Studies of the Faculty of Education and Humanities. Out of this colloquium participants made several recommendations for the way forward. One of the main recommendations was the invitation that the working group present the Charter for Language Policy and Language Rights in the Creole Speaking Caribbean to the NTC with recommendations for implementation.

We therefore recommend that the National Toshaos Council take the following actions:

i) discuss and sign the Charter for Language Policy and Language Rights in the Creole Speaking Caribbean

ii) support the drive to set up a national council on languages in keeping with the recommendations of the charter

iii) adopt a position which demands the formal use of the indigenous languages in education in Guyana, starting with Early Childhood and Primary School

iv) adopt the principle of Mother Tongue Education in the indigenous communities over which it has responsibility

v) adopt the principle of the need to preserve and revive those indigenous languages which are no longer being learnt and used by children and young people

vi) support bilingual and trilingual education projects which involve, as appropriate

• a) indigenous language as native language/mother tongue  and English [and optionally Creolese], or
• b) Creolese as native language/mother tongue, indigenous language as second language, and English

vii) call for an amendment to the constitution that would provide for ‘freedom from discrimination on the ground of language’.

viii) in relation to mother tongue education in the indigenous languages and Creolese, authorize and support

1. the development, where necessary, of writing systems and
2. the training of teachers already competent in these spoken languages, to use these writing systems
3. the development of the terminology in these languages needed to teach specialized school concepts
4. the development of reading material at the infant and primary levels to support literacy in the indigenous languages and Creolese,
5. the development of an appropriate teacher education process, in anticipation of implementation in 2017,
6. coordination between the existing UNICEF/Government of Guyana early childhood education in indigenous mother tongues and the proposals coming from the Colloquium.

Mother-tongue-based education

The United Nations has finally accepted that every child has the right to be educated in his or her home language. Now, after centuries of trying to erase the languages of some speech communities within their borders, some countries are now reversing their policies. After witnessing the failure of past policies, many former colonies have already been exploring ways of implementing “mother tongue-based education” and sharing their insights on how to make it work.

• What do we mean by “education in the home language” (or “mother tongue-based education”)? Does it mean we no longer get to learn English?

• No, it doesn’t. It means that we will still study English during English class. But we will learn our Math, Science, Social Studies, Health Studies, and all other “content areas” in our native language.

• How long will this learning in our native language last? We have several options.

• We could go for the option with the shortest period of native language learning, that is, at least 2 years before we switch to education in English only.
• We could continue education in the home language all the way up to university level, with English as a second language. This is the ideal and will give the most benefit.
• Or we could go for an in-between option with the programme lasting longer than 2 years but stopping somewhere before university.

• What are some of the benefits of education in our native or home language? Reports from those who have tried education in the home language list the following benefits.
  • Children do better at exams
  • Children even do better at learning another language.
  • Fewer children drop out of school.
  • Fewer children have to repeat classes.
  • Children are happier, more enthusiastic about school and about learning.
  • Children are more confident.
  • Children are more motivated to learn
  • Children are more creative
  • Children become more patriotic, more civic-minded
  • Children are more innovative, more willing to look for local solutions to problems
  • Children become more interested in their own history and culture
  • Parents are more involved in their children’s education
  • Parents are more comfortable talking to their children’s teachers
  • Parents participate more in school activities
  • Some parents themselves begin to take classes to improve their own education
  • Children learn about their own language and about those of their classmates

 

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0017/001787/178702e.pdf (Home language and education in the developing world)

http://www0.sun.ac.za/taalsentrum/assets/files/ML%20Afr%20Lang%20&%20Cost.pdf  (Why & how Africa should invest in multilingual education)

 

 

What are Language rights?

As human beings, we use language to do a variety of things on a daily basis. Try to come up with a list of all the purposes for which you use language in one day. The list below could be a start.

• We greet each other and exchange pleasantries: How are you? How are the children? When last did you see so and so? Is your father better? etc.
• We conduct business with officers of government and others: We may need to register the birth of a child; get our child admitted to a school; find out what the new law says; write a will; get information about how to protect ourselves from diseases and natural disasters, and information on how to lead a healthy life; etc.
• We need to educate ourselves and our children
• We need to participate in the running of our communities
• We need to give creative expression to our feelings and ideas
• We need to take part in the rituals of our ancestors and to celebrate and develop our traditions
• We need to preserve the knowledge and the creative works of our culture and we need to be able to access any documents or other recordings of our history, our folklore, our culture.
• Etc, etc, etc.

Now imagine a situation in which we’re all allowed to use our home language to do all those everyday things. That demonstrate the ideal example of what we mean by language rights.

Nations that try to respect the language rights of their people, do so by first identifying the language communities within their nation. A rough definition of a language community is a group of people who speak a common language and want to be identified as such. In the case of Guyana, this would mean that speakers of Creolese (Guyanese) would make up one speech community. Speakers of each of the different Amerindian languages would represent different speech communities. And speakers of English will form another speech community.

Each speech community will have the same language rights; the language of each such community will be given equal treatment. This means that Creolese and each of the Amerindian languages will be treated just like English is now treated. Each group will be able to use its language to conduct its everyday affairs.

In Guyana at this moment, only the language community that speaks English enjoys all the language rights. To extend these rights to all, it would require that we provide what is necessary to allow this to happen. For example, documents will have to be written in each of the languages, education will be offered in each of the languages, and materials and facilities will be provided so that each community can broadcast in its own language.

 The European Charter for regional and minority languages is one document that details the rights which it recommends that member governments give to the minority groups within their countries. 

http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/148.htm  (Council of Europe: European charter for regional & minority languages)

===000=====