Russia has proposed a bill to limit the use of foreign words without Russian equivalents.

This bill aims to regulate linguistic borrowing and promote Russian language purity and usage.

The Russian government has adopted a law to protect the language from excessive foreign borrowing, introducing normative dictionaries and grammars with exceptions for words without Russian analogues.

France and Italy have implemented or proposed laws to protect their languages from foreign influence, particularly from English.

Some countries have established language academies, like Libya's Arabic Language Academy, to promote and regulate their languages.

Technology, like language learning apps, can promote language purification by providing access to learning materials.

Language purification efforts can limit linguistic diversity and creativity, and potentially lead to language loss and cultural uniformity.

Governments must balance national language protection with linguistic diversity to avoid harming minority languages and dialects.

Language purification efforts can be measured by indicators like state language usage and languages taught in schools.

Governments must carefully consider language purification efforts to promote linguistic diversity and protect national languages.

Russia has proposed a bill to limit the use of foreign words without Russian equivalents.

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Content: The state Duma adopted in the first reading the bill on the protection of the Russian language from foreign borrowings
The bill on the protection of the Russian language from foreign borrowings passed the first reading in the State Duma of the Russian Federation.
The document proposes to prohibit the use of foreign words except those that do not have common analogues in the state language.
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This bill aims to regulate linguistic borrowing and promote Russian language purity and usage.

The Russian government has adopted a law to protect the language from excessive foreign borrowing, introducing normative dictionaries and grammars with exceptions for words without Russian analogues.

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The State Duma adopted a law on the protection of the Russian language from the excessive use of foreign words
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The state Duma in the final reading adopted a bill that should protect the Russian language from excessive foreign borrowing.
The document was submitted at the end of October last year.
It is noted that the project “emphasizes the unifying role of the Russian language as the state language of the Russian Federation in a single multinational state, expands and specifies the areas in which the use of the state language of the Russian Federation is mandatory. ”
The law introduces such concepts as normative dictionaries, grammars and reference books that fix the norms of the modern Russian literary language when it is used as a state language.
Exceptions will be only those foreign words that do not have common analogues in the Russian language and the list of which is contained in the normative dictionaries.
Also, now there will be a mandatory linguistic examination of draft regulations for their compliance with the norms and rules of the Russian language.
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France and Italy have implemented or proposed laws to protect their languages from foreign influence, particularly from English.

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Content: Italian govt drafts bill that seeks to ban English language

RomeEdited By: C KrishnasaiUpdated: Apr 01, 2023, 03:15 PM IST

Calling for the Italian language to be protected and nurtured, the draft bill claims that English “demeans and mortifies” Italians, and called on all public and private bodies to use the “language of Dante” to promote their goods and services, reports Reuters news agency. Photograph:(Reuters)

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The bill, which has been drafted by lawmakers of the nationalist Brothers of Italy party, aims to promote Italian language and imposes a fine of up to 100,000 euros ($108,750) if found violating the rule

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party has proposed legislation that seeks to prohibit public and private bodies in the country from using foreign terms, especially English, in official communications.

The bill, which has been drafted by lawmakers of the nationalist Brothers of Italy party, aims to promote Italian language and imposes a fine of up to 100,000 euros ($108,750) if found violating the rule.

In order to become a law, the bill has to be approved by both houses of parliament. But there was no indication of when this might happen.

“It is not just a matter of fashion, as fashions pass, but Anglomania (has) repercussions for society as a whole,” said the text of the draft bill.

Calling for the Italian language to be protected and nurtured, the draft bill claims that English “demeans and mortifies” Italians, and called on all public and private bodies to use the “language of Dante” to promote their goods and services, reports Reuters news agency.

The draft also specifies that all job related applications, including names and acronyms, should be spelt out in Italian, with foreign words allowed only if they are impossible to translate.

The bill said the widespread use of English in Europe was “even more negative and paradoxical” given that Britain had quit the European Union.

The draft bill comes at a time when the incumbent far-right government takes measures to what it calls preserving the local culture.

Recently, it banned the use of laboratory-produced food to safeguard the country’s agri-food heritage.

When the Brothers of Italy party took office last October, it added the English term “Made in Italy” to the name of the industry minister, while Meloni occasionally drops foreign words into her speeches.

(With inputs from agencies)

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Content: Matvienko read a poem about anglicisms in the Federation Council - RIA Novosti, 22.06.2022
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Matvienko read a poem about Anglicisms in the Federation Council
Matvienko read a poem about Anglicisms at a meeting of the Federation Council
© Press Service of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation / Go to photobanPresident of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation Valentina Matvienko
Chairman of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation Valentina Matvienko.
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MOSCOW, June 22 - RIA Novosti.
Speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko, during the discussion on Anglicisms and foreign borrowings in Russian, read poems on this topic and did it so artistically that she earned friendly applause from senators.
On Wednesday, all senators received a dictionary compiled by Crimean officials that transmits Russian-language substitutes for foreign borrowing.
Matvienko praised its authors and read out the poems included in the handbook.
Konstantinov told how in the Crimea are struggling with the dominance of foreign words
"And we have a workshop here, and you?
And we got a babysitter hypanula the wrong word.
A year of PR parent together with the child on a talk show.
And we have a famous guru in the field of architecture made a selfie for PR, the bow he chose extreme.
Realizing all our trables, in nostalgic sadness we remember how boyfriends were called grooms, instead of casting, our mothers held and not men, and men gave flowers to girls.
The party was a party, the upgrade was an improvement.
Maybe after all we have enough Russians to offend people? "- read Matvienko.
The senators greeted her reading with loud applause.
The speaker also suggested discussing the possibility of fixing at the legislative level a ban on clogging the Russian language with spilled borrowings.
“Cashback ” as it was, and it is, and all this is pronounced at the government level.
Well, there are analogues in the Russian language, why do we clog our beautiful wonderful unique language with such different words?
We need to look at it at the legislative level.
Our responsibility is to preserve the language of Pushkin, the language of which we are proud and to stop these new trends that are absolutely inappropriate, ” Matvienko said.
According to her, both France and other countries do not allow to clog their languages, and in Russia should avoid the use of foreign words that have analogues in Russian.
The task to study the issue was given to the profile committee on science, education and culture.
From Proto-Slavic to Modern: Evolution and Features of the Russian Language
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Some countries have established language academies, like Libya's Arabic Language Academy, to promote and regulate their languages.

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Content: Confronting questions of modernity.
« Arabic Complex » discusses the formulation of language policy in Libya
Tripoli - Al Wasat Gate: Abdel Salam Al Fiqhi Saturday 12 March 2022, 01: 12 pm
The Arabic Language Academy organized, on Thursday, a seminar moderated by Dr. Mohamed Belhaj, on the concept of linguistic planning and outlined the laws and regulations related to the preservation of the Arabic language in Libya.
In his paper entitled "Planning for coexistence between languages in Libya", Dr. Mohamed Al-Aswad pointed out that there are two ancient languages in Libya, namely the Berber language now called Amazigh used by the Amazigh in Mount Nafusa, and the Tida language in southern Libya Kufra and Tibesti.
He explained that for peaceful coexistence between them, scientific research must be conducted away from fanaticism, and facilitate their writing so that learners are able to assimilate and distract them.
Linguistic Rooting
Dr. Siham Al-Hamri touched on the characteristics of Arabic as a basis for linguistic planning, starting from lexical and terminological definitions, indicating that the language planning is the way and means underline, and the dress of a scheme any make lines, and said land and country plans any make lines and borders, also because he put in his head the plan of any order he had intended.
The researcher defines it as a refined mental activity that seeks to chart the future course of language development, acquisition, structure and use through legislation, decisions, mechanisms and long-term programs that guide the behavior of its users individually and collectively in a flexible way that helps protect its construction, respect its sovereignty, enhance its functions and improve its contribution to the preservation of identity, unity and cumulative memory.
She pointed out in the context of her speech that linguistic planning is old for a long time, but the use of modern scientific and studies came recently, where the collection of the Koran in one Koran and the destruction of the rest of the Koran intervened in order to codify Arabic, and the goal of translating the books into Arabic to become the official language in Persia, Syria and Egypt.
Social organization
Linguistic planning is concerned with activities aimed at the structure and status of language, it is a science that examines the interaction between the two aspects of human behavior, namely the use of language and the social organization of behavior. Linguistic planning and policy both aim to frame the linguistic landscape in society politically and legally, arrange and organize linguistic diversity, address linguistic problems and propose and select solutions.
The researcher tends to define language policy as the actions taken by state institutions to monitor the linguistic situation and control its course, which is the enactment of constitutional and legislative articles related to the linguistic status of society, it is « activities practiced by politicians towards language and its formulation in the form of constitutional and legislative decisions, a branch of public policy ». The rights of minorities in particular, as well as the issue of identity, for example.
Features and mechanisms
Dr. Ali Aoun monitored the characteristics of Arabic self-expressive and self-informational, and described the features of its universality and mechanisms of empowerment and dissemination, while Dr. Khalifa Al-Aswad presented the results of the mixing of language policy with linguistic planning through language-related practices, which were reflected in the fields of linguistic use, "sovereign official use, education, media and Arabization."
Dr. Khalifa Al-Aswad believes that the term linguistic policy was not used in writings dealing with linguistic planning activities, and perhaps the term linguistic engineering or an expression used in the literature on the subject, citing the researcher Haugen Ban Yuri Fenraj, who was the first to use the term linguistic planning at a seminar at Columbia University in 1957.
The researcher added that Haugen defined linguistic planning in that article as all activities related to the preparation of a writing guide (grammar spelling) or the preparation of a book in grammar or a lexicon in order to guide writers and speakers of a language in a linguistically heterogeneous society.
Common Origin
Dr. Khalifa explained that the link between linguistic policy and its implementation « linguistic planning » is due to the source and the common origin, which emanated from it, their subject is related to applied linguistics and is generally interested in the study of linguistic problems.
He listed some points that can be drawn or added in the language planning section and its policy, including the reform of the language and this reflects what happened in the Turkish language when Mustafa Kemal decided to write Turkish in Latin instead of Arabic, as well as the Philippine and Chinese languages and others.
This happened to the languages of China, Indonesia, Tanzania and Zanzibar when standardizing their vocabulary, grammar and methods, after the unified language was chosen for official use, in addition to upgrading the language and developing its vocabulary as in the case of Arabic, Swedish and Italian languages.
Fatal error.
As for planning the treatment of Arabic in the media, Dr. Bashir Zagalam says in his paper that our ancestors preserved our Arabic language and strengthened it when it was weakened and the melody leaked to it, so they hastened to adjust and tighten its rules, but in the era of globalization, the danger has become many aspects and different goals, some of it comes from the lurkers from the West, Its people, who were saturated with the languages of the West, were unable to express them and boasted to speak others, and one of the most dangerous things is also the language of the media because of its orientation to the public; as the linguistic danger here is fast and deadly and spreads among all classes, including the educated class.
From the weekly issue of "The Middle East".
Dr. Ali Aoun (Center Gate)
Dr. Siham Al-Hamri (Center Gate)
Dr. Mohamed Belhaj during the opening speech of the seminar (Center Gate)
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Technology, like language learning apps, can promote language purification by providing access to learning materials.

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Content: People 's Network > > Education
Developing new functions of language planning
Twenty Years of Chinese Language Life
Li Yuming
November 14, 2021 09: 07 | Source: Guangming Daily
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Editor's Note
Since the establishment of the first leading group of scientific research planning of the State Language Commission in 2001, China 's language research has gradually built up a multi-perspective, large-scale, systematic and continuous observation, research and dissemination system and mechanism for the reform and development of the national language and writing industry. It attaches importance to vulnerable groups in society, embodies humanistic care, and provides convenience for people with audio-visual disabilities to participate fully in social life and share the fruits of social development on an equal footing; it is broad, it covers all aspects of social and public services, helps shape the image of cities and countries, and promotes the continuous improvement of the international level of all walks of life.
In the past 20 years, under the guidance of the "Five-Year" scientific research plan of the State Language Commission, Chinese scholars have opened many new academic fields around language life, put forward a series of new academic concepts such as "building harmonious language life" and "enhancing national language ability". "Language learning and use".
First, build a harmonious language life.
At the beginning of this century, the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center was established to continuously monitor language living conditions with the concept and method of dynamic circulation corpus.
He continued to write the "Report on the Living Conditions of the Chinese Language" and other series of "books" in English, Korean, Japanese, Russian and other translations.
China is a multi-ethnic, multi-language, multi-dialect and multi-literate country, and language life is very complicated.
Second, improve language skills.
To improve personal language ability is to cultivate "multilingual" people.
While learning the common language and writing of the country and solidifying the consciousness of the Chinese nation, it is necessary to learn dialects and national languages, deepen cultural roots, and strive to master one or two foreign languages to contribute to the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.
National language ability is the language ability required by the country to handle domestic and foreign affairs.
China should have 20 / 200 language skills, that is, be able to master the world's most important 20 languages, acquire new human knowledge, and better participate in global governance; be able to master more than 200 languages in all regions of the world, that is, use the language of more than 4 million people, tell the world's story of China, pave the way for the "Belt and Road", and strengthen friendly exchanges with people around the world.
The national language ability is mainly manifested in the six fields of administration, foreign affairs, military security, public opinion, science and technology education, economy and trade.
At present, the language ability required in the fields of military security, economic and trade has long been extended to the weak areas and even the blank areas of foreign language education in China, and it is urgent to make up for it.
China's national language ability ranks second in the world, according to a recent report by the National Language Ability Development Research Center.
Third, the protection and development of language resources.
In the 1980s, China began to pay attention to the problem of language resources, demonstrating that language has the nature of resources, and exploring the connotation and extension of language resources. Now, it has begun to study language resources from a functional perspective, and evaluates the collection, collation, storage, protection and development of language resources. Protection of minority languages.
On this basis, in 2015, the largest Chinese language resource protection project in China and the world was launched. More than 1,700 Chinese dialect points, ethnic minority languages and linguistic and cultural points have been investigated. 20 volumes of Chinese Language and Culture Collection and 30 volumes of China Endangered Languages are published. For example, in 2019, the compilation project of the "World Language Journal" was launched, and the world language resource library was established with the concept and norms of Chinese language protection.
The language protection mentioned earlier is actually to protect the old world picture of human beings, and the language resources for language information technology, its function is to help computers to process information and acquire language intelligence, and to create a new world of human beings.
Language resources are also the foundation of language education, especially foreign language education, international Chinese education and online language education, and more need the support of language resources.
Language resources, like water resources, forest resources and tourism resources, are important resources of the country and need to be protected and developed.
Fourth, language services are provided.
At the 2005 "World Expo International Forum on Language Environment Construction", Chinese scholars put forward the concept of language service; after the "2010 China International Language Service Industry Conference and Large-scale International Event Language Service Seminar", the concept of language service was widely disseminated.
The broad language service is the use of language (including words), language knowledge, language skills, language art, language technology, language standards, language data, language products, etc., to meet the needs of language life.
Enhance the awareness of language services, improve language service capabilities, accurately understand the language needs of society, meet language needs in a timely manner, and guide the improvement of language needs, thereby enriching language life and promoting social progress.
Emergency language services are needed to respond to public emergencies.
At the time of the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, Chinese linguists set up the "War Pandemic Language Service Group" to develop products such as "Fighting the epidemic in Hubei dialect" and provide think tank services to relevant parties to effectively support the national epidemic prevention and control.
It is necessary to solve the problem of emergency language services from the legal, institutional, institutional and academic aspects, carry out language emergency education and scientific research, and prepare for the establishment of a national language service corps, so as to "prepare for emergencies in peacetime and not in emergencies."
Fifth, explore the economic properties of language.
Linguistic economics is an emerging discipline, which mainly studies the economic attributes and economic functions of language.
Language is human capital, is an indispensable factor in all links of economic activities, language creates economic value of about 10% of the gross national product, language industry, language products, language technology is the backbone of language economy.
Today, with the rapid development of the service industry and the digital industry, the economic function of language is more prominent.
Language poverty alleviation is the social application of the law of language economics.
Through the study and practice of language poverty alleviation, the State Language Commission has improved the working ability of the poor people and their ability to obtain scientific and trade information, effectively cutting off the intergenerational transmission of poverty, and forming the characteristics and experience of Chinese language poverty alleviation.
In October 2019, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee included data in the production factors. 80% of data is language data. Therefore, we should pay attention to the development of language data industry, establish a language data market, and promote the standardization, purification, digitization and intelligence of language data.
Sixth, establish the concept of big Chinese language.
Overseas Chinese language inheritance is an important part of Chinese mother tongue inheritance.
In order to understand the situation of overseas Chinese and support the inheritance and application of the Chinese language, the academic community has built a "overseas Chinese resource bank", compiled a "global Chinese dictionary", and carried out a "global Chinese grammar study".
In these practical activities, the concept of "big Chinese" has gradually formed.
Great Chinese is the common language of the Chinese people all over the world, which has been gradually formed under the influence of Chinese education since the end of the Qing Dynasty, the national language movement and the recent decades of Putonghua.
At present, Chinese varieties around the world are in contact with each other, absorbing the language components, and gradually approaching under the influence of Putonghua.
From the perspective of global Chinese life, Greater Chinese promotes the development of the Chinese economic circle, supports international Chinese education and international Chinese life, and promotes Chinese as an important international public cultural product.
Seventh, the rational planning of language life at all levels.
There are four levels of language life: macroscopic, macroscopic, mesoscopic and microscopic.
The governance of international language life is to understand the language living conditions of the international community (including international organizations and countries in the world), maintain the concept of language equality, solve problems such as endangered languages and language conflicts, and establish an order and ethics of international language life.
The macro-language life belongs to the national level, and it should be managed through scientific national language planning, taking into account the functions of the national common language and other languages, the national conditions of the two languages in the mainland and the SAR, the overall situation of the two languages at home and abroad, and the language life in the two spaces of reality and the Internet.
Language life in the Middle East can be divided into areas and regions; field language planning needs the participation of various industry departments, and needs the support of field linguistics; regional language planning has counties and provinces, and special consideration should be given to free trade zones, free trade ports and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Guangdong, Hong Kong-Macao, Yangtze River Basin, and other new economic regions.
Micro is the language life at the end of society, such as families, schools, hospitals, enterprises, factories and mines, and units, which is directly related to people's livelihood and grassroots construction.
The four levels of language planning should be considered in an integrated manner, with "top-down" and "bottom-up" planning directions, forming a scientific language governance loop.
On October 13, 2020, the National Language Conference was held. On November 9, 2021, the 14th Five-Year Scientific Research Conference of the State Language Commission was held.
Standing in a new historical position, summing up the history of language life research, reviewing the 20 years of ups and downs, and seeking a new chapter for the cause of language and writing.
In the future, China's language life research should focus on the three themes of solidifying the sense of the Chinese nation community, building a community with a shared future for mankind and the digital era, and on the basis of the previous "tool function" language planning, develop the direction of "cultural function," "economic function," "" security function, "and" digital function, "to meet the language needs of all levels, and make linguistic contributions to China's development as a modern power.
(The author is a professor at Beijing Language and Culture University)
(See also: Prince of Wales)
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Language purification efforts can limit linguistic diversity and creativity, and potentially lead to language loss and cultural uniformity.

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Content: June 6 is not only the birthday of Alexander Pushkin, but also the Day of the Russian Language.
For me, this holiday has its own special facets, because I am a linguist by first education, and although I was deeply involved in English and Portuguese, in the end, all this was closed to Russian through translation.
The further I went through life, the more the Russian language became for me the main tool and companion in my work.
Orest Adamovich Kiprensky.
Portrait of Alexander Pushkin
Based on this experience, I will say that the Russian language is great, but not omnipotent.
He can't make you a Russian by himself.
Or rather, to start doing – maybe, but to keep someone as a Russian person 100% – no.
He works as a child, subconsciously, until about seven years old.
In Germany at the beginning of the XX century there was a group of ethnolinguists, she gave birth to the concept of “nanny language ”.
The language of the child and his initial semantic grid, they said, is something that is transmitted to him not necessarily by the mother, but to those who spend most of their time with him, who read him tales, sing songs.
I still remember the lullabies that my mother sang to me, Pushkin ’ s poems, other books that he and my father read to me.
They laid the foundation for my picture of the world.
That is why, I think, the oddballs from the Russian so-called elite were imposed in the 1990s conditional “Filipino ” nannies, and the children from kindergarten were pushed into English, and even French, so that the picture of the world was completely confused.
And another example regarding the Russian language: a very literate, one can say, good (although in this case I do not want to use this word) Russian was spoken and spoken by many pro-Western liberals.
In particular, anti-Russian broadcasters from Echo of Moscow.
He did not cure or cure them.
In a word, the relationship here is dialectical: the key today problem of the full restoration of Russian identity is directly related to the problem of preserving the living Russian language, but without consistent work with self-awareness, without proper nationally oriented education, we can lose the Russian language.
At least in its classical form.
It is not for nothing that Pushkin ’ s word “language ” is used as a synonym for the word“ people ”.
There is a people, there is a language.
The people are broken, and the tongue is dead.
It goes without saying, therefore, that parallel, interrelated sequential work in both directions — with self-awareness and with language — will produce a synergistic result for both, for them together.
Textbook of Russian language
mricon
What do we have today?
Today we are faced with at least three factors that predetermine the distortion of the traditional language picture of the world, or the conceptual grid, and thereby prevent the restoration of the Russian person and the Russian people as subjects of historical action.
First, it is a growing and striving for complete abstraction shaft of information.
This is a declining level of culture.
And this, finally, is the introduction of deliberately false meanings in socio-political and cultural discourse.
As a result, the concepts “sag ”, cease to play the role of a living and organic framework of communication.
The shaft of words with distorted or intricate meanings paralyzes the language itself as a living system, and the independence of thinking of its carriers.
It is necessary to clear the concepts, but this is not enough.
Russia has entered a period of change, which requires a new look at the known concepts, highlighting the most relevant facets in them, search and approval of new concepts and meanings.
The updated conceptual grid is designed to release a person from the captivity of semantic voids, to return the organic Russian meaning and creative energy to the national social life, economy, politics, culture.
Very characteristic in this regard, I think, is the example of the word “society ”.
We often hear in the media: Russian society, Russian society, Russian society...
The word with the root “common ” denotes those who in fact do not always have much in common with each other.
And yet in ancient times, the great philosopher, statesman and linguist Cicero said: "... the World should be considered as a single civil community of gods and people."
Later, reflecting on the theme of society, St. Augustine insisted that the fault of the collapse of Rome was not Christian ethics, but spoiled morals, violation of divine laws and the principle of justice, and refusal to follow the rules of the ancestors, in a word - the decay of the ancient way - the support of the Roman state.
The modern Russian philosopher Fyodor Giryonok says: “For the formation of a true society, the necessary condition is the existence of a person whose“ I ” is shifted from the center of his worldview by a sense of the presence of God and tradition.
If many people in the center of their worldview have only their own “I ”, then only interest and power can unite them.
In this case, we are dealing with a social group, a collective. ”
Hence the conclusion: let ’ s at least understand that, speaking of some modern “Russian society ”, we are talking about what is not yet there.
Will it be?
Today I have much more reason to answer this question in a positive way than a decade ago: the new upsurge of Russia ’ s eternal struggle with the West, having caused a strong cleansing and creative impulse, strengthens the grounds for this.
The assertion of the foundations of society in the veneration of ancestors, respect for history, in its cultural and historical tradition is something incomparably deeper and stronger than reliance on the search for any relevant common interest or “common cause ”.
Great educational meaning in the Russian language is endowed with the word "people".
Why do we say that the Russian people are responsible for the future of Russia or that the Russian people are scattered throughout the former USSR, but it is unlikely that the Russian people live in Latin America (although the phrase “Russians live in Latin America ” sounds normal)?
The thing is that the concept of people, which, of course, is based on tribal, ethnic roots (na-rod), is firmly connected with the concept of rod-in, no less deeply rooted in it.
Native nature plays an important role in the formation of the people's soul.
The Motherland preserves the material manifestations of everything that constitutes the ideal essence of the people: common memory, faith, history, culture.
In terms of time, the concept of “people ” is also not limited to the framework of today: it includes all our ancestors, and those who will live after us.
This understanding makes the people whole and allows them to formulate right and righteous goals.
The integrity of the concept of people and its proximity to the ancestral origins is also evidenced by the fact that in the Russian language in the annex to this concept there is no word parallel to the word “fellow citizens ” in the annex to our common citizenship and“ compatriots ” to the fatherland.
We have no choice but to talk about our relatives.
Thus our great language teaches us the right attitude towards those with whom we form one people.
Regional action “Memory Watch – 2022 ” opened in Spas-Demensk, Kaluga
Press Service of the Government of Kaluga Region
Many words could be spoken not only with gratitude, but also with anxiety on the Day of the Russian language.
About the word "good", for example, the root of which was despoiled in the widely used as a synonym for the word "prosperity" the word "prosperity"...
I will not, however, tire the reader too much and conclude my words of gratitude to the Russian language today with a few thoughts about the key word for us “truth ”.
In Dahl ’ s dictionary in the first place in its meanings are indicated “truth in deed ” and“ truth in image ”, then “justice and justice ”, then“ honesty ”, “conscientiousness ”,“ righteousness ”, “sinlessness ”.
The word "truth" (tamb.) is associated with the word of the ancestors: "Fatherland (fatherland) the word and the fairy tale is true, and the fairy tale leads to it."
In Ushakov's dictionary this word is interpreted more materialistic, but nevertheless the concepts of morality, duty, based on the justice of the order of things, are present.
By the end of the Soviet era, the interpretation of the word “truth ” in explanatory dictionaries becomes quite scarce.
In Ozhegov it is “what exists in reality corresponds to the real state of things ”,“ justice, honesty, just cause ”, “right ”.
Not only has the understanding of truth as “truth in image ”,“ conscientiousness ”, “righteousness ”,“ sinlessness ” disappeared, but also its understanding as a “life ideal ”,“ based on the principles of justice of the order of things. ”
Thus, the concept of truth is associated with the concept of a correct social structure (it is not for nothing that the code of laws as an unshakable basis for a prosperous life in ancient times was called "Truth"); the concept of truth is associated with ancestors, with the word of ancestors, and the ancestors themselves are called righteous; the concept of truth is associated with faith; the concept of truth is associated with the concept of conscience.
And here is another thing that is very important: the obvious semantic facet of the word “truth ” is its connection with the adjective“ straight ”.
Truth and curvature are the same antipodes as the concepts of “straight ” and“ curve. ”
Today, our people, our country need direct people, that is, those who are able to speak and act honestly, truthfully, without blunders.
The path of truth, a direct thought, a direct word, a direct action – this is today for our country exactly what “prescribes ” to us not only the Russian language, but also reality, a new liberation campaign of the Russian army, a new struggle against European Rus-hatred.
The Russian people today must stop bending, both in the world and in their own country; they must finally straighten up.
And they straighten up.
And without the truth how to straighten up?
In any case, our native language teaches us just that!

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Content: Lead

It is time to let sleeping dogmas lie: on ‘Hindi imposition’

‘Another salvo’ | Photo Credit: K. Manikandan

The Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement recently, saying that Hindi should replace English as the “link language” and that the Government’s work will increasingly be in Hindi, has set the proverbial cat among the Southern pigeons. The “Hindi-Hindutva-Hindustan” ideology that he represents has historically been impatient with the notion of Indian multilingualism, which it sees as a babel undermining national unity rather than the proud showcase of diversity that our constitutional nationalism celebrates. It has been a long-standing policy plank of the Hindutva movement that Hindi, the language of the northern and central Indian States, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has sunk its deepest roots, should be the ‘national language’ of India. BJP MPs have frequently risen in the national parliament to demand that their preference be made law.

Part of ‘Hindi promotion’

Mr. Shah’s is only the latest salvo of several efforts by the Modi government to promote Hindi. These include: the imposition of Hindi names on Central government programmes and schemes (Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, and the like) instead of translations or ‘neutral’ English labels; a ‘parliamentary committee’s proposal to make the use of Hindi mandatory for MPs and Union Ministers; making Hindi a compulsory subject for Central Board of Secondary Education schools across the country; re-lettering milestones on national highways in Hindi instead of English’; the use of Hindi in airport announcements; the Central government issuing media advertisements in Hindi, and launching ‘promotional campaigns exclusively in the Hindi script’, even when the words used may be from different Indian languages; and the practice of renaming well-known occasions or festivities only in Hindi or Sanskrit, such as Teacher’s Day as Guru Purnima.

The latest controversy has revealed two essential truths about our country. The first is that, whatever the Hindi chauvinists might say, we do not have one “national language” in India, but several. The second is that zealots have an unfortunate tendency to provoke a battle they will lose — at a time when they were quietly winning the war.

Missing the point

Hindi is the mother tongue of some 50% of our population; the percentage has been growing thanks to the spectacular failure of population control in much of North India. It is not, however, the mother tongue of the rest of us. When Hindi speakers emotionally decry the use of an alien language imposed on the country by British colonialists and demand that Hindi be used because it speaks for “the soul of India”, or when they declare that “Hindi is our mother, English is a stranger”, they are missing the point twice over. First, because no Tamil or Bengali will accept that Hindi is the language of her soul, and second because injecting anti-English xenophobia into the argument is utterly irrelevant to the issue at stake.

As Rajaji sagely cautioned the Hindi chauvinists of his era, the opposition to English is counterproductive: ‘Xenophobia is an outmoded form of patriotism. It is a sign of immaturity to feel shame in using a world language in our high affairs. Over and over again the inescapable injustice of imposing Hindi is sought to be covered by a cry against the foreign character of English. …Is not just and fair dealing by all the geographically distributed people of this great country as important at least as national pride?’ Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, too, had expressed the view that the utility of a single language nationwide in the administration and the justice system required the continuation of English as a matter of practical convenience.

Rajaji also gave short shrift to the argument that Hindi was a language of the Indian masses while English was used only by the deracinated elites: ‘When the Hindi protagonists are speaking of the masses they are obviously thinking of the masses of the Hindi area only; they ignore the masses in non-Hindi India who are no less in number.’ Nationalism, he feared, was being used to conceal the naked self-interest of the Hindi-speakers of the north: ‘Love of oneself may easily masquerade as love of language, and love of language as love of country. Let us not deceive ourselves or others with chauvinistic slogans.’

But deluding ourselves is a favoured pastime in New Delhi. The issue is quite simple: all Indians need to deal with the government. We need government services, information and support; we need to understand easily what our government is saying to us or demanding of us. When the government does so in our mother tongue, it is easier for us. But when it does so in someone else’s mother tongue with which we are less familiar than our neighbour, our incomprehension is intensified by resentment. Why should Shukla be spoken to by the Government of India in the language that comes easiest to him, but not Subramaniam?

The de facto solution to this question has been a practical one: use Hindi where it is understood, but use English everywhere, since it places all Indians from all parts of our country at an equal disadvantage. English does not express Subramaniam’s soul any more than it does Shukla’s, but it serves a functional purpose for both, and what is more, it helps Subramaniam to understand the same thing as Shukla.

Ideally, of course, every Central government document, tax form or tweet should be in every one of India’s languages. Since that is not possible in practice — because we would have to do everything in 23 versions (22 and English) — we have chosen to have two official languages, English and Hindi. State governments complement these by producing official material in the language of their States. That leaves everyone more or less happy.

It is about efficiency

The Government’s requirement that Hindi be privileged in official work actually militates against the interests of efficiency. Obliging a Keralite bureaucrat in Delhi to read and write file notations in Hindi to be submitted to a superior officer from Odisha makes no sense, since neither man would be using a language with which he is at ease. Obliging both to digest a complex argument by a U.P.-ite subordinate writing in his mother tongue is unfair to both. Both may write atrocious English, for that matter, but it is the language in which they are equal, and it serves to get the work done. Language is a vehicle, not a destination. In government, it is a means, not an end. The Hindi-wallahs fail to appreciate that, since promoting Hindi, for them, is an end in itself.

In the five decades since the promulgation of the ‘three-language formula’, implementation has largely failed across the country, for two divergent reasons. At an ideological level, in States such as Tamil Nadu, the question of being required to learn a northern language such as Hindi has always been contentious, with anti-Hindi agitations a recurring episode in the State since 1937. In the northern States, there is simply no demand for learning a southern language, and so no northern State has seriously implemented the three-language formula.

Vehicle of entertainment

The irony is that the Hindi chauvinists should realise they were winning the war. The prevalence of Hindi is far greater across India today than it was half a century ago. This is not because of Mr. Shah’s (or even the Vice-President, M. Venkaiah Naidu’s) imprecations or the assiduous efforts of the Parliamentary Committee on the Promotion of Hindi. It is, quite simply, because of Bollywood, which has brought a demotic conversational Hindi into every Indian home. South Indians and north-easterners alike are developing something of an ease and familiarity with Hindi because it is a language in which they are entertained. In time, this alone could have made Hindi truly the national language.

But it would become so only because Indians freely and voluntarily adopt it, not because some Hindi chauvinist in Delhi thrusts his language down the throats of the unwilling. The fact is, its vocabulary, gender rules and locutions do not come instinctively to everyone: native speakers of languages such as Malayalam that do not use gender can understand why a woman must be feminine but are genuinely mystified as to why a table should be feminine too. If you have grown up with Hindi at home, it is a matter of instinct for you that it should be “ desh ki haalat acchi hain” rather than “ desh ka haalat bura hain”, but for the rest of us, there is no logical reason to see anything feminine about the national condition.

Fear of an agenda

Imposition is rarely a good policy in a democracy. But the real fear is far more fundamental: that the advocacy of Hindi is merely the thin end of a more dangerous wedge — the ideological agenda of those in power who believe in a nationalism of ‘one language, one religion, one nation’. This is anathema to those Indians who grew up and believe in a diverse, inclusive India whose languages are all equally authentic. The Hindutva brigade’s attempts to impose cultural uniformity in India will be resisted staunchly by the rest of us; the opposition to Hindi is based on our fear that such cultural uniformity is really what the advocacy of this language is all about.

Still, if we watch enough Bollywood movies, we will pick some Hindi up one day. Just do not tell us that we must, or else. Language should be an instrument of opportunity, not of oppression.

The quest for uniformity is always a sign of insecurity, and the BJP’s majoritarianism has gone to the point where it threatens to undermine the very social fabric that has held the country together since Independence.

It is time to let sleeping dogmas lie.

Shashi Tharoor, MP (Congress party) for Thiruvananthapuram, is the Sahitya Akademi-winning author of 23 books, both fiction and non-fiction, including, most recently, ‘Pride, Prejudice & Punditry: The Essential Shashi Tharoor’

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Printable version | Apr 12, 2022 10:12:32 am | https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/it-is-time-to-let-sleeping-dogmas-lie/article65312129.ece

Governments must balance national language protection with linguistic diversity to avoid harming minority languages and dialects.

Title:

Content: Bauhinia Party _ Embracing Language Pluralism
Author: 01 Forum
Published: Updated:
Author: Wu Junfei
Last month, an old video recorded by Phoenix TV anchor Tian Tong was censored for discussion, which once again caused controversy in Hong Kong society over the use of simplified and traditional characters.
This incident shows that in the situation of the growing population of Putonghua and Simplified Chinese, the "biliteracy and trilingualism" policy has not been implemented in Hong Kong, not only has it not been enforced by the SAR Government, but also has not reached a social consensus.
In the new era of governance and prosperity, as Hong Kong is further integrated into the overall situation of national development, the central government hopes that Hong Kong will undertake a greater historical mission.
The future of Hong Kong lies in reform. The focus of reform is internationalization, and the key element of internationalization is linguistic pluralism, which is the way to deal with related issues.
A truly international city should have international influence on the outside and international elements on the inside.
The most cosmopolitan cities can be called “global cities ”, typical of London in the United Kingdom and New York in the United States. They not only have global political, economic, and cultural influence, but they also host immigrants from all over the world, and dozens of languages are widely used by local residents, demonstrating a spirit of tolerance and mutual understanding of the different cultures of the world.
The metropolises with the next degree of internationalization have some international functions but mainly play a regional impact, such as Paris, Geneva, Zurich, Singapore, Dubai, etc. They also have the characteristics of internationalization such as linguistic and cultural diversity of residents.
After the establishment of the HKSAR Government in 1997, the policy of "biliteracy and trilingualism" was implemented. "biliteracy" is Chinese and English. "trilingualism" refers to Putonghua, Cantonese and English. Putonghua is written in simplified Chinese, and Cantonese is mainly in traditional Chinese.
Many Hong Kong people can only speak simple Putonghua, which is relatively unfamiliar with simplified characters, and some people never speak Putonghua.
In most schools in Hong Kong, Cantonese is used to teach Chinese, but Putonghua is also provided for students to have the opportunity to learn Putonghua.
These are not problems. The problem is that Hong Kong ’ s language policy is not inclusive enough, which runs counter to the SAR ’ s goal of promoting internationalization.
At present, Hong Kong society needs to clarify the status of the official languages of English, Putonghua (Simplified Chinese) and Cantonese (Traditional Chinese), especially the status of Putonghua and Simplified Chinese in law, and encourage and even require primary and secondary students to master a foreign language.
The specific approach is not to force every Hong Kong resident to be proficient in English, Putonghua (Simplified Chinese), Cantonese (Traditional Chinese) and a foreign language, but to legislate that "biliteracy and trilingualism" are compatible in society at the same time, that is, to accept the legitimacy of Putonghua (Simplified Chinese) and increase its use.
For example, in the early stage, traffic road signs, government building signs, school signs, company signs, scenic area signs, etc., in addition to the existing English and traditional Chinese, the addition of simplified Chinese.
The acceptance of Putonghua (Simplified Chinese) is not only in line with the Basic Law of Hong Kong, but also an expression of Hong Kong ’ s obedience to and respect for the authority of the Central Authorities, and the need for the further internationalization of Hong Kong society.
China ’ s vast territory, large population and multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-dialect, only the use of the country ’ s standardized language and script, in order to reduce communication costs, ensure smooth communication, unimpeded dissemination of government decrees, and promote the development of economic, political, cultural and other undertakings.
Putonghua and simplified characters began to be promoted in 1956, reflecting the new civilization since the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, and are indispensable communication tools and information carriers among people.
Mandarin and Simplified Chinese are international languages in themselves.
As of April 2023, more than 180 countries and regions around the world have conducted Putonghua Chinese education, and 82 countries have incorporated it into the national education system. More than 30 million foreigners are learning Putonghua Chinese, and the cumulative number of people learning and using Putonghua Chinese is close to 200 million.
Therefore, we can say that as part of China, if Hong Kong does not accept Putonghua (Simplified Chinese), then many of the benefits of internationalization will be lost.
At present, Putonghua (Simplified Chinese) is still despised and even rejected in Hong Kong ’ s education, executive, legislative and judicial systems, which is undoubtedly not in line with the trend of Hong Kong ’ s internationalization.
For the SAR Government, Putonghua (Simplified Chinese) is the language tool used by local governments in Hong Kong to understand and appreciate the documents and instructions issued by the Central Government.
If Hong Kong government officials are not proficient in Putonghua (simplified Chinese), it is difficult for them to understand the political, economic and social systems and civilizations of the national entity, and to accurately grasp the direction, principles and policies of the central government in governing Hong Kong.
An international Hong Kong must continue to raise the standard of English in the community.
For historical reasons, English is one of the most widely used languages in the world, occupying the dominant position of the Internet, and is recognized by the international academic, legal and business communities as the language of communication, has become a bridge to connect people around the world, playing a vital role in the development of human civilization.
English is the carrier of many research and innovation achievements in the fields of science and technology, culture and arts, and social science. English books, papers and reports contain the latest human knowledge and information, which helps people broaden their horizons and improve their ability to innovate.
As the most commonly used communication tool in common law countries, English has become a fundamental element in international financial and trade transactions.
Many multinational companies, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations use English as a universal language, and familiarity with English is an essential skill for people working in these institutions.
English is the official language of Hong Kong, which is one of Hong Kong ’ s international competitive advantages.
Maintaining and improving English is of utmost importance to the people of Hong Kong, whether it is for internationalization or for the development of science and technology.
As the inheritor of traditional Chinese culture, it is necessary for Hong Kong to continue to use and protect Cantonese.
Cantonese is spoken by more than 100 million people around the world and is the mother tongue of many overseas Chinese. Cantonese retains the distinctive features of the Chinese language of the Qin and Tang dynasties, maintaining the nine tones and most of the written pronunciation of the ancient Chinese language, and carrying the traditional Chinese culture that shines unique throughout the world. The Cantonese community generally uses the Cantonese pronunciation of the Old Liwan District of Guangzhou in the late Qing Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty as standard Cantonese. Cantonese has a lot of advantages over Putonghua, such as richer tone, and more rhythmic beauty when reciting ancient poetry; the pronunciation of near-Italian words is the same, but different, so that the pronunciation of near-Italian words is similar but different, easier to express; There is a curl, that is, there is no problem that "z, c, s" and "zh, ch, sh" are easily confused in Mandarin.
As the traditional carrier of Cantonese, traditional characters are undoubtedly the treasures of Chinese traditional culture, which can spread the beauty of Chinese writing and facilitate future generations to read the classical literature left by Chinese ancestors.
In addition to Chinese and English, the number of Hong Kong people who speak other languages is negligible, which is a shortcoming that Hong Kong society needs to make up for.
Under the international development strategy of Hong Kong, the community needs a large number of foreign language talents who can meet the development needs of major strategic areas and key areas.
After the baptism of globalization, coupled with the emergence of artificial intelligence, the core task of foreign language ability has been to play the role of language interaction, knowledge tools, to pay more attention to the cultural connotations, ideological connotations and value connotations behind different languages, so the instrumental, humanistic and ideological aspects of foreign languages are equally important.
Faced with no major changes in the world in a hundred years, Hong Kong calls on a large number of professionals with a global perspective, proficient in the use of foreign languages, familiar with international rules, and proficient in international negotiations to participate in global governance, actively disseminate China's ideas, publicize China's development achievements, and tell the story of China in the new era.
Therefore, in order to form a foreign language education structure, subject professional structure and talent training structure to meet the needs of higher level internationalization in Hong Kong, it is even necessary to establish a special foreign language college and international relations college.
In implementing the policy of linguistic diversity, Hong Kong can learn from Switzerland.
There are four official languages in Switzerland, including German, French, Italian and Romansh, and they are written into law, while the actual languages in society are more numerous and English is more mastered by most Swiss people.
All official languages of the Swiss Confederation (government documents, legal texts, official websites, major building signs) must be written in German, French and Italian.
Official documents issued by the federal government, such as ID cards, passports, or banknotes, are written in four official languages, with English on the passport.
At Swiss supermarkets, products are marked in three main languages, namely French, German and Italian.
In order to ensure that all linguistic communities are adequately respected, the Swiss Language Act specifies the multilingualism of the country, and the Federal Office for Culture promotes these languages and the culture associated with them.
Not every Swiss speaks all four official languages, and most people communicate in their own languages within their own language communities, but they never exclude the right of other language communities to use other official languages.
Language diversity is an essential element of a cosmopolitan city and an important driver of social progress. Only through continuous dialogue and exchange among residents of different historical and cultural backgrounds can we integrate and create a great city of ideas and creativity.
Both now and in the future, Hong Kong must embrace the values of globalization. Although globalization has suffered a temporary setback, the in-depth development of globalization is the future direction of the world. Respect for linguistic and cultural diversity can restart the process of globalization and ensure that globalization is not hijacked and ended by hegemonic cultures.
Chinese pioneers follow the spirit of "harmony but difference", which means respecting cultural differences and diversity, and achieving harmony through mutual communication and exchange.
While maintaining the cultural identity of the local Cantonese language in Hong Kong, we should pay attention to absorbing the language and culture of the Mainland, actively learn and draw on the excellent cultural achievements of foreign languages, dialogue without confrontation, communication without closure, compatibility without exclusion, learning from strengths and weaknesses, free absorption, harmonious coexistence, and common progress.
Chapter 66 of the Dao Sutra says, “The reason why Jiang Hai can be King of the Hundred Grain, and he can be King of the Hundred Grain with his good deeds ”, which is a truth that deserves to be remembered by every Hong Kong people on the issue of linguistic diversity.
Ng Chun-fei is the director of the Bauhinia Party Policy Research Institute.
The article is only the opinion of the author and does not represent the position of Hong Kong 01.
Please email us at 01view @ hk01.com.
Please attach the author ’ s real name and contact details.
If not applicable, no notice will be given.

Title:

Content: Chen Po-wei insisted on using the "mother tongue" in the Legislative Yuan to question Minister of Defense Qiu Kuo-cheng, who believed that language is a tool of communication, and that communication is more efficient if the Mandarin language is used during questioning.
Chen Po-wei countered with "Duck Ba".
On the whole, however, Chen ’ s performance seems to have hit the nail mark this time, partly because the issue he is asking is not related to the local language, but rather the issue of defense diplomacy, which is not easy to express in the mother tongue.
In addition, at a time when the removal of Q is boiling over, Chen Po-wei chose to make a big move to ask questions in Hokkien before he was removed, which inevitably makes people feel that he is holding up the basic routine by playing a calculated role in intensifying the antagonism between the linguistic groups.
Even though it has been nearly two weeks since the end of the incident, the discussion is mostly about the pros and cons of the pan-political saliva attack and defense, the issue of Taiwan's language ecology is rarely addressed.
There is a historical background to the sensitivity of language in Taiwan. In 1937, during the Japanese occupation period, Japan promoted the Imperial Nationalization Movement and implemented the "National Language Movement" (in this case, the national language refers to Japanese), which prohibited the use of Taiwanese mother tongue and Chinese.
In order to eliminate Japan's influence in Taiwan, the Nationalist government began to vigorously promote the "Mandarin Movement" (Peking dialect) around 1956, and it was not abolished until 1987 after the lifting of martial law.
More than 30 years of language policy, resulting in language inequality and language loss.
To date, at least 10 of the 26 indigenous languages have died and four are in danger. In addition, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) assessment, Taiwanese Hokkien is a “definitely endangered ” language, while Hakka has entered the stage of“ seriously endangered ”.
If Mandarin had not been established as an official language at that time, would Taiwan ’ s diverse dialects have developed in a balanced way?
The answer is “not necessarily. ”
Language is not only a tool of communication, it is also a carrier of culture, representing the culture, historical memory and ethnic identity of the people who use the language.
Therefore, even if there is no language policy involved, when two or more languages meet, it is inevitable that political power will be strong.
Power competition between ethnic groups grows, which in turn affects the language and natural ecology.
For example, the so-called national melting pot, respect for multicultural America, although there is no political force to set the official language, but as everyone knows, English is the high-level powerful language of the United States.
In fact, in the United States, the phenomenon of "double language" (Diglossia) is obvious, black English (AAVE), Hispanic English (Chicano English), etc., is generally regarded as a low-level language, representing low education, informal language, or low social class language.
According to various studies, in the United States, those who speak a recognized ethnic or regional dialect of English have lower wages and employment rates than those who speak mainstream English.
So, if you set multiple languages as official languages, can you solve the problem of double language inequality? The answer is still “not necessarily ”.
In order to escape the influence of Spanish colonization, the Bolivian Constitution stipulates that the languages of all ethnic groups are official languages, and a total of 36 official languages are recognized, making it the country with the largest number of official languages in the world.
Under the country ’ s 1994 education reform program, schools were required to teach these 36 official languages.
However, the reality is difficult to do, Spanish is still the most powerful language in Bolivia, and many ethnic groups are still regarded as poor, low education, and low social class identity.
Being able to speak high-level Spanish is a lifeline for the underprivileged, who often disguise their ethnic identity to work in cities, so that even though many ethnic groups have been promoted to official languages, the problem of extinction has not been improved.
If setting the official language and language bullying are not necessarily directly related, how can the phenomenon of high-level and low-level double language in Taiwan be improved? Some reflections are as follows:
1. Language policy must be multilingual.
Any language policy needs to learn from history through careful planning and matching of experts and scholars to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
Because resources and human learning power are limited, when one language is blessed, it means that other languages may be crowded out.
Although the government is actively promoting the bilingual policy by 2030, it is fully committed to promoting English. Although it is well-intentioned, many linguists have solemnly warned about the dangers of promoting English.
For example, Anne Pakir refers to English as the “killer language ”, while John M. Swales compares it to Tyrannosaurus because it is too powerful to destroy any weak language that coexists with it.
Once the government smashes into a large amount of resources, if there are no good supporting measures, I am afraid it will become the current disaster of Taiwan's language ecology.
2. Strengthen the "language attitude" cultivation.
At present, the government's bilingual policy is extremely narrow, and almost all of them are aimed at strengthening English skills and improving English proficiency.
Very little is known about the "language attitude".
However, the attitude of the language user determines the vitality of the language.
In Hebrew, for example, its revival illustrates the importance of language attitudes.
The revival of the Hebrew language in just 25 years, more than two thousand years after its death, created an unprecedented miracle in the history of the language ’ s revival, and this dramatic miracle was the result of the Jewish nation ’ s strong nation-building, which led to an attitude of allegiance and glory to the Hebrew language that succeeded in bringing it back to life.
In other words, the attitude of the language user is the key factor in determining the vitality of the language.
Taiwanese people generally have a foreign mentality, value English, ignore the mother tongue, such a sense of linguistic inferiority, it is easy to speed up the loss of minority mother tongue after the promotion of bilingual policy.
In addition, if the status of the local language between the declining attitude, with the political parties in turn to promote localization, the Fukien language has become a label of love for Taiwan, the sword of transformation and justice, and the soft spot of political enemies, the Fukien language has become a tool of political struggle.
Perhaps because of this, Chen Po-wei will choose to deliberately use the Minnan language to single out the foreign provincial defense minister before the removal case, and play this big show of love for his mother tongue and Taiwan.
The author believes that positive "language attitude" education, in addition to strengthening the ethnic group's sense of pride and centripetal force for their mother tongue, also includes the inclusiveness of other languages.
If we oppose the practice of the Chinese language to suppress the native language, then we should not now politically manipulate the native language and maliciously create language conflicts and ethnic conflicts.
The means of retribution for language hegemony will not only not promote ethnic integration, but will only deepen ethnic hatred and division.
If Taiwan wants to start from the wrong language policy of the past, it should understand the past language history, reflect on learning from history, and not blindly promote language policy, but also pay attention to the next generation of language attitude education, families and schools to help children understand the value of mother tongue, respect different mother tongue use groups, in order to really promote a pluralistic and multilingual society.
(The author is an associate professor of English at National Chengchi University)
※ The above statements do not represent the position of Wangzhong Media Group ※
# Language # Native # English # Official Language # Attitude

Language purification efforts can be measured by indicators like state language usage and languages taught in schools.

Title:

Content: The right is using the crisis in Ukraine to push for more fossil fuel extraction

Fossil fuel backers are putting pressure on the government to restart fracking, despite public opposition.

Russia’s threats and now invasion of Ukraine is being used by right wing journalists and think tanks to call for the UK to renew fracking and explore for more oil in the North Sea.

Calls for greater fossil fuel production have been growing for some months, with groups like the Tufton Street based Net Zero Watch leading the calls to roll back the unambitious green plans of the Johnson government. Like minded pundits like Darren Grimes and Douglas Murray have also been advocating for the UK to restart fracking.

Dr Benny Peiser, the head of Net Zero Watch has said that, “Unless Boris Johnson puts domestic gas production first and isolates Putin’s useful green idiots, the UK will become impotent in face of Putin’s energy war.”

A group of 30 Tory MPs and the fracking company Cuadrilla also signed a letter calling for the resumption of fracking in Lancashire, something that the activist Barbara Richardson said would create renewed opposition by affected communities near fracking sites.

But fracking comes with serious environmental problems, and a large increase in fracking in the UK would mean more UK shale gas supplied to the global gas grid, meaning any reduction in energy costs would be spread around, not just enjoyed by the UK.

Chaitanya Kumar, the Head of Environment and Green Transition at the New Economics Foundation says that “unless the government somehow stipulates that a portion of shale is only for the UK (which it hasn’t proposed), we are unlikely to benefit from a shale boom in terms of energy bills. Even if the government did such a thing, fracking would still not bring bills down as bill payers would have to pay for a highly uneconomic sector.”

Instead of fracking, the UK could increase investment in green energy infrastructure. Research by the TUC has shown that the UK spends only 0.6% of its annual GDP on the green transition. This figure is based on the UK’s 10 Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution, which allocated only around £12 billion in extra spending on green infrastructure as part of the pandemic recovery.

The TUC says that “The UK’s green recovery plans remain only a tiny fraction of that in other G7 countries. Scaled by population, the UK green investment plans are only 26% of France’s, 21% of Canada, 13% of Italy’s and 6% of the USA’s.”

Not only is there lots of capacity to improve the UK’s ambition to achieve greater energy security, but the public has an appetite for it, with polls suggesting people in Scotland would be happy with more onshore wind.

As of 22 February, the UK’s electricity supply has been made up of around 36% wind energy and 42% renewables for the past week. Despite the windy weather, almost 20% of our electricity is still made from burning gas. Over the past year as a whole, over 40% of the UK’s electricity comes from fossil fuels, though the National Grid estimates that by 2030, only 1-3% of electricity will come from fossil fuels.

There is no reason why we need to continue to rely on imported gas, or restart fracking, to meet energy demands. Becoming energy independent is an obvious way to remove the UK’s dependence on gas imports, particularly from Russia, and to insulate against energy price rises caused by global demand.

The Levelised Cost of Energy for solar and wind power has also come right down in price, making it much cheaper to produce renewable energy than it was a decade ago.

Net Zero Watch also uses unreliable and optimistic estimates of the amount of recoverable shale gas under the UK. One recent newsletter from the group states that “just 10 per cent of the shale gas recovered from the Bowland basin in the north of England could supply 50 years of current UK gas demand and would significantly undercut the demand for imported gas.”

This claim was also recently repeated by Cuadrilla boss Francis Egan in a letter to the Telegraph.

However, a recent LSE publication suggests that this projection is based on outdated statistics, as “according to the British Geological Survey, initial estimates in 2013 suggested that the Bowland-Hodder area may have held between 23.3 and 64.6 trillion cubic metres (tcm), but a more recent analysis in 2019 suggested the figure is closer to 4.0 tcm. A 2014 study estimated that the Midland Valley hosts 1.4–3.8 tcm. Given the uncertainties, it is difficult to produce a reliable estimate of the shale gas resources that are technically and economically viable to extract in the UK”.

Britain’s waterways are already polluted by sewage, and restarting fracking would mean the drilling of hundreds of boreholes, which could lead to contaminated water, as it has done in the US. Then there’s also the problem of earthquakes caused by fracking. It was regulations about limiting earthquakes which caused Cuadrilla’s operations to stop in 2019, and unless these regulations are relaxed, it’s hard to see how any fracking site could operate legally.

From 2020-22, the UK earmarked £37 billion for the Covid Test and Trace system, which is now coming to an end as the government has ended free Covid tests. The TUC has suggested that allocating “£85 billion for emergency green infrastructure would move the UK up into 3rd position in the G7 league table (for green infrastructure spending) and… create 1.24 million quality green jobs in the immediate term”. If we can allocate the necessary funds to fight Covid, why can’t we do it to fight climate change?

Frank Gordon, Director of Policy at the Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology (REA), told LFF that “Effective routes to markets for all technologies are essential. For example, the Government could provide a real catalyst by holding well-funded, regular CfD (Contracts for Difference) auctions, with a mix of technologies such as deep geothermal and marine included, set out over a three year rolling timetable. We also need national, transparent, flexibility markets for energy storage and related technologies, in order to enable the transition.”

“The UK Government’s Crown Commercial Service (CCS) – the largest single purchaser of power in the country – should also be directed to procure 100% of power from renewables. Finally, renewable investment will be deterred as long as fossil fuel subsidies remain in place, with the public picking up the costs for offshore oil site decommissioning, for example. The Government should instead commit to ending these subsidies, as well as steadily increasing the carbon price, to drive investment for renewables.”

A survey by the Department for Business in 2021 found just 17% of people in the UK support fracking. There is clearly a concerted effort in right wing media and pressure groups like Net Zero Watch to reopen the fracking debate. Yet, if the goal is energy security, there are many other, greener ways to achieve this.

Progressive parties could also be using security-based arguments for promoting green energy. The Labour Party, so concerned with being patriotic these days, could even make an argument that it’s a patriotic duty to develop the UK’s green energy resources, which would reduce our dependence on imported gas and create over a million jobs.

The right should not be allowed to seize on this crisis to push discredited, polluting forms of energy extraction.

John Lubbock leads on the Right-Watch project at Left Foot Forward

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Title:

Content: What will be the language policy of Kazakhstan
Photo: Zakon.kz
The Ministry of Science and Higher Education has developed a draft "Concepts for the development of language policy".
Current situation
The current language situation shows that the number of speakers of the Kazakh language is growing.
According to official data, among the Turkic-speaking peoples, 72% of Uzbeks, 71.7% of Uighurs, 58.5% of Kyrgyz speak Kazakh at the level of colloquial speech, and 12% speak Kazakh at a high level.
Among the Slavic diaspora, 25.1% of Russians, 23.7% of Ukrainians, 22.8% of Belarusians, 22.1% of Poles, as well as 25.2% of representatives of the German diaspora understand the spoken Kazakh language.
Among these diasporas, the share of reading and professionally writing in the Kazakh language is 2.9%.
These quantitative changes still require an improvement in the quality of the use of the state language.
According to the results of the National Census, the population aged 5 years and older (13,768,406 people (80%) speak the state language, of whom 8,472,661 (49.3%) speak daily life.
This indicator demonstrates that the majority of the population understands the oral Kazakh speech, reads and writes freely.
Problems in the implementation of language policy:
• in some areas of society, the state language is not fully used in accordance with its regulatory and legal status;
• in connection with the development of texts of laws in the original and other documents in the Russian language with subsequent translation, impede the functioning of the state language and the full disclosure of its potential;
• in the implementation of language policy, the opportunities of the state language to become the leading language in the field of public service, in the field of services and so on are not fully used;
• the language policy does not define mechanisms for increasing the need for the state language;
• language policy does not take into account demographic processes in the country, the characteristics of regions, the composition of nations;
• some non-governmental organizations do not have an option of official Internet resources in the state language;
• in all spheres of public relations, the request of consumers to request a document in the state language is not satisfied;
• The current legislation on the language requires amendments and additions to it, since the problem of the state language is not solved at the proper level.
Vision of language policy development
Modern language policy should be aimed at modernizing the Kazakh language on the basis of Latin graphics, further improving language culture, as well as developing the language capital of citizens, ensuring the full activity of the Kazakh language as the state language.
The development of language policy is based on the following strategic principles:
• a full-fledged activity is carried out to expand the use, improve the culture of the state language in all spheres of society;
• strengthening the normative base of the Kazakh language as the state language;
• strengthening the status of the Kazakh language as a language of interethnic communication;
• improving the use of the Kazakh language as a language of international communication;
• introduction of the practice of adopting the law in the Kazakh language;
• priority will be the further development of scientific and practical foundations of Kazakh terminology as the basis of the language of science and records management in the state language and implemented a set of measures;
• projects aimed at digitalization of Kazakh linguistics are being implemented;
• State support will be provided in the study of the state language and languages of ethnic groups and the organization of training courses;
• implementation of language reform on the basis of the new Latin alphabet;
• the level of proficiency in the Kazakh language in organizations of the state and non-state sector is monitored and improved;
• a requirement will be introduced requiring civil servants to speak the Kazakh language;
• a set of measures aimed at the development of the language capital of citizens is being implemented.
In this regard, the objectivity of the need to develop new conceptual solutions that meet the requirements of modernity is emphasized.
The main approaches to the implementation of language policy
1.
Language policy and demography
The share of the population using the Kazakh language in everyday life is different in the republic, which still requires systematic work in this direction.
To establish the language balance in the republic, for the purpose of competent writing of documents, proper management of office work, a schedule for the phased transfer of office work in state bodies into the state language in the context of regions is approved.
2.
Language and public service
The issue of including the criterion for the preparation of documents in the state language in the rating of calculating the effectiveness of civil servants will be considered.
During the reporting meeting, the heads of central state bodies, especially when visiting remote settlements, when delivering reports on dialogue platforms with the population in the state language, priority is given to the state language.
During the implementation of the Concept, requirements will be developed that oblige civil servants to speak the Kazakh language.
At the same time, the main working language of the public service will be the state language
3.
Non-governmental organizations
The question of the state language, which has become one of the most discussed, especially in places of service of the population (trade, food, maintenance, etc.), will be devoted to a new mechanism of solution.
The issues of launching the version of all electronic databases in the financial sector in the state language on 1C: Accounting will be worked out.
A hotline service will be created at local executive bodies to ensure public participation and take prompt measures to protect the purity of the language, prevent non-compliance with the norms of the literary language, violations of the lexical and grammatical rules of the Kazakh language in advertising, at public catering facilities.
An important issue is the development of a special law "On the State Language", which is a factor in strengthening the identity of Kazakh society, taking into account linguistic, ethno-demographic and political conditions.
This law provides ample opportunities for clearly establishing the status of the Kazakh language as the state language, determining the scope of its use, increasing the culture of use.
Work on the formation of prerequisites for the adoption of the law will be carried out in stages.
Improving the spelling rules of the Kazakh language
Work will be carried out to unify words with various variations, to unify the writing of complex words and complex names by making additions and changes to the current rules of spelling of the Kazakh language.
The electronic version of the current spelling and punctuation rules is provided for general availability.
It is envisaged that competence will be transferred to the authorized body in the field of language development for approval of the standard of the existing spelling rules by the regulatory legal act.
The main directions of transition to the Latin script
Language planning involves the adoption of a new Kazakh alphabet based on the Latin script and its spelling in accordance with the relevant regulatory documents.
When justifying the existing rules of spelling of the Kazakh language, additions and changes will be made to the new alphabet.
Scientific and methodological substantiation of spelling rules will be compiled.
In addition, a standard for setting the order of alphabetic characters on the keyboard will be approved.
Relevant versions of normative legal acts aimed at ensuring the availability of information in the Kazakh language, the Kazakh-language interface and Kazakh letters on products such as computers, keyboards, mobile phones and other technical means, on medical, production equipment, cash registers imported into the territory of Kazakhstan and manufactured in the country will be developed and adopted.
A step-by-step translation of the Kazakh alphabet to the Latin script will be carried out.
Gradually, educational organizations will be transferred to the Latin script.
Development of orthological means of the Kazakh language based on the alphabet based on the Latin script
Guides will be developed for different groups of consumers (schoolchildren, editors, broadcasters, politicians, trade managers, copywriters and speechwriters, academics, the public, etc., depending on the level of demand).
For the examination, discussion, approval of the results of reforms relating to the Kazakh script, it is envisaged to create an interdepartmental expert body - a spelling commission.
Regulation of onomastic space based on the Latin alphabet
After the approval of the Kazakh alphabet based on the Latin script, on its basis, the issue of standardization of names of the corresponding onomastic spatial physical and geographical objects, administrative-territorial units and their component parts in connection with their uniform writing will be considered.
Measures will be implemented to popularize new names, bring international names and city codes in line with Latin names (in particular, in the field of air and rail communication), ensure the correct writing of toponymic names on maps in cross-border regions.
Updated onomastic names will be introduced into widely used maps (Google, Yandex, 2gis), as well as navigation tools.
At the initial stage of the translation of the Kazakh alphabet into the Latin script (at least 5 years), the Kazakh alphabet on the modern Cyrillic script will be conducted in parallel with the alphabet on the Latin script.
The modern alphabet will gradually be phased out in accordance with the roadmap for the phased transfer of the Kazakh alphabet to the Latin script (action plan), the schedule for the phased transfer of educational organizations to the Latin script.
Improving the methodology of language teaching
It is important to improve the quality of language teaching using the capabilities of modern information technologies.
Measures to attract scientists in connection with improving the methodology, improving the methodological skills of teachers, exchanging experience, and stimulating will also be considered.
Of particular importance is the issue of improving the qualifications of methodologists and teachers of educational centers teaching the state language of citizens working in various spheres of society.
The developers of the project see the following ways to increase the effectiveness of the methodology of teaching the Kazakh language
1.
Formation of a special general base of systematization of scientific and educational-methodical works on the methodology of teaching the Kazakh language.
2.
Organization of mass open online courses "Kazakh tili".
3.
Organization of internships and courses that improve the qualifications of teachers and methodologists teaching the Kazakh language.
4.
Increasing the number and improving the quality of textbooks, teaching aids and other products for students of the Kazakh language.
The system of teaching the Kazakh language
A system of language teaching will be developed, starting with school-age children and ending with adults.
The system includes two directions.
First, a general state system of language teaching is being created.
Secondly, in accordance with this system, curricula and educational and methodological complexes of new content will be formed, as well as modern teaching technologies, and the scientific and methodological potential of teachers and teachers will be increased by improving the quality of language teaching from schoolchildren to adults.
The use of a voucher when teaching citizens the state language
According to the results of the study, 1,025,270 (8.1%) of adult respondents do not speak the state language (2.5% do not speak Kazakh at all, 5.6% understand some words).
For this category of citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan through the project "Language Voucher" favorable conditions will be created for free study of the Kazakh language.
The voucher will be used as an effective means of education, professional development, retraining courses.
Improving the methods of teaching the language of citizens with special needs
A curriculum and programmes will be developed to improve language teaching methods for persons with special educational needs.
It provides for the training of trainers, the training of teachers with special qualifications, teaching citizens with hearing and speech impairments.
The issues of developing materials for the training of sign language interpreters in the Kazakh language, the release of teaching aids for citizens with special educational needs, created by a special tactile point relief font, large font and Braille, including taking into account recognized international practices, will be discussed.
It is planned to create a service for voicing printed texts in the Kazakh language.
Language Training Centers
For free education of the adult population, Kazakh, Russian and English language courses will continue to work in state language training centers.
In order to increase the status and wages of teachers of language training centers, amendments will be made to the Decree of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated December 31, 2015 No. 1193 "On the system of remuneration of civil servants, employees of organizations maintained at the expense of the state budget, employees of state-owned enterprises" (by increasing the level of the correction coefficient).
Expanding the scope of the state language
Work will continue on clarifying the requirements of the legislation on languages, providing methodological assistance to business entities in terms of placing requisites and visual information.
To expand the scope of application of the state language, to provide support to individuals and legal entities in conducting their activities (naming objects), it is planned to create a dictionary of names in the Kazakh language (the base "korneki.kz").
Enhancing the language culture of society
To comply with the language norm, it is necessary to unify language means, orthoepic, orthographic, lexico-phraseological, grammatical (morphological, syntactic, word-formation) norms.
The availability of language tools developed in this direction to the society will be considered.
Through social networks, published materials related to language in social networks will be monitored, work will be carried out to disseminate quotes from famous people, public figures, bloggers, people who actively use the social network, increase their recognition by the population, motivate them to work for the benefit of society, and provide support.
Work will be carried out on the publication of industry dictionaries, collections of sayings, proverbs, children's books, works of fiction, foreign prose in the Kazakh language.
Once every two years, a sociolinguistic study of topical problems of the Kazakh culture of speech will be conducted in the republic, concerning the observance of traditional norms of the national literary language, determining the main trends in its development, generalization and systematization of linguistic knowledge about the characteristics of new norms and communicative qualities of the word.
Activation of the use of the Kazakh language as a language of science
To increase the functionality of the language of science, work will be carried out to intensify the use of Kazakh terms, systematize borrowed terms when they are assimilated.
Specialists with the formed competence of the language of science will be trained, quantitative and qualitative indicators of scientific works in the state language will be increased, foreign scientific works in the Kazakh language will be available and terms will be unified.
Increasing the share of content in the Kazakh language
The development of high-quality products in the Kazakh language, able to meet the demand of children and adolescents of preschool and school age, where the level of digital literacy is growing every year, will allow in the future to solve the problem of lack of mastering the Kazakh language by young people.
Given that society needs separate group, situational games in the Kazakh language, focused on virtual-cognitive, intellectual, didactic, entertaining, the state should provide maximum support.
This will give a new impetus to the transition of the language of IT-technologies to the Kazakh language.
Group games in the Kazakh language will be developed based on popular game scenarios.
To ensure the availability of the interface of foreign games in the Kazakh language, communication with developers is established and experience is exchanged.
In order to fill the YouTube video hosting with high-quality Kazakh-language children ’ s content, cartoons and series will be selected and duplicated.
Key expected results by 2029:
1.
The share of the Kazakh-speaking population in the republic is 84%.
2.
The proportion of the population speaking three languages is 32 per cent.
3.
The proportion of the population enrolled in courses in the new alphabet and spelling rules is 15 per cent.
4.
The share of office work of central state and local executive bodies in the state language is 94%.
5.
The share of the terminological fund based on the rules of spelling of the Latin alphabet of the Kazakh language (with an increasing result) is 40%.
The project is posted on the Open NPA portal for public discussion until April 25, 2023.
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Governments must carefully consider language purification efforts to promote linguistic diversity and protect national languages.

Title:

Content: The vision of India as a multilingual nation is under attack

Lack of livelihoods in areas where marginalised languages are spoken has led to migration to areas where mainstream languages are spoken. This has led to India’s linguistic diversity shrinking further

GN Devy

On the eve of Independence, making dignified space for all Indians, across their myriad socio-cultural backgrounds and irrespective of economic status, was a humongous political challenge for India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. He didn’t have the luxury of putting some questions on the backburner—if we were to avoid a further fragmentation of the nation and protect its integrity as a ‘Union of States’, as a unit that the post-Independence generations of Indians have taken for granted.

Fortunately for him, and for India, there were intellectual giants in the Congress and outside it who could weigh in on these questions with information and insight and come up with answers the young democracy needed. One of those tangled challenges was the language question.

Unlike some European nations, India was not monolingual. It was always, in all historical eras, a multilingual place. To force India into a monolingual nationalism would certainly have led to its fragmentation, but nor would it do to allow a linguistic anarchy to overcome the process of nation-building.

Nurturing the linguistic variety and richness of this land, for its own sake as well as the political purpose of keeping us all together, was an exercise both delicate and arduous. This fine balance, needed to preserve the autonomy of India’s many languages while protecting the unity of the nation, was achieved through the formulation of the linguistic states and the Schedules of the Constitution.

On 26 November 1949, when the Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution of India, there were 14 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. They were (in order of the number of speakers): Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Assamese and Sanskrit. There have been three amendments to the Eighth Schedule in the past 55 years, and there are currently 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule.

The States Reorganisation Commission was created, in part, in response to the popular language movements in Hyderabad and Punjab. But it was also a response to the need to define the federal structure of a newly emergent nation. The popular language movements in Andhra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Maharashtra and Karnataka had a strong emotional tenor and broad-based support.

The tribal languages did not, at that point in our history, have the potential to generate such movements; that momentum came several decades later, which led to the creation of the states of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh in 2000.

The formation of linguistic states was a way of acknowledging the dignity of India’s many languages while also keeping them all committed to the idea of India as a ‘Union of States’, it formed the very basis of our idea of India as a federal nation.

The stamp of Nehru’s understanding of modernity and nationalism is clearly seen in these two actions. During his time as Prime Minister, he took care to make the Census exercise far more comprehensive than it used to be in the colonial era.

It is often forgotten that the only Census in India in which every mother tongue was covered, and announced to the nation, was conducted in 1961—in Nehru’s time. Never before or after has any Census presented the linguistic landscape of India with such complete transparency. The list of ‘Mother Tongues’ reported in the 1961 Census had 1,652 entries.

Since Independence, Indians have accepted our linguistic diversity as a social norm and an inalienable feature of this nation. As citizens, we waste no opportunity to state our tolerance of other languages. When nationalism emerged in Europe during the 19th century, conformity to a ‘national language’ was seen as an attribute of citizenship. Though inspired by Europe’s ideas of nationalism, the Indian struggle for independence did not get bogged down in any linguistic chauvinism.

In the 1971 Census, the then government decided to list only those languages that had more than 10,000 speakers—that list had 108 entries; the 109th entry was ‘all others’.

The policy of using a cut-off figure further alienated already marginalised minor languages. They started disappearing in the political discourse and, likely as a consequence of this, from social life. The lack of livelihoods in areas where marginalised languages are spoken has led to an exodus to areas where mainstream languages are spoken. This too has accelerated the rate at which India’s linguistic diversity is shrinking.

The People’s Linguistic Survey of India found that an estimated 250 languages have disappeared during the past fifty years. In other words, India seems to have lost nearly a quarter of its ‘world views’ since Independence.

During the last census (2011), the language data for which was released in 2018, the citizens of India provided 19,569 names of ‘mother tongues’, described in technical terms as ‘raw returns’. Based on previously available linguistic and sociological information, the authorities decided that of these, 18,200 did not ‘logically’ match any known information.

A total of 1,369 names, or ‘labels’, as they are technically known, were picked up as being ‘names of languages’. The ‘raw returns’ left out represented nearly six million citizens. The classification protocol summarily axed the linguistic citizenship of these six million, rendered ‘not worth consideration’.

In addition to the 1,369 ‘mother tongue’ names shortlisted in this assessment, there were 1,474 other mother tongue names. They were placed under the generic label of ‘Others’, because the classification system could not identify the languages they spoke. The fortunate 1,369 were further grouped together under a total of 121 ‘group labels’.

These were presented to the country as ‘Languages’. Of these, 22 languages made it to the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, the so-called ‘Scheduled Languages’. The remaining 99 were described as ‘non-scheduled’ languages.

Most of these groupings were forced. For instance, under ‘Hindi’, there were nearly 50 other languages. Bhojpuri, spoken by more than 50 million, with its own cinema, theatre, literature and vocabulary, was shown as Hindi.

A population of nearly 30 million from Rajasthan had their own languages, but were shown to have Hindi as their mother tongue. The Pawri of tribals in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh was likewise hitched to Hindi, as was the Kumauni of Uttarakhand.

The report stated that 528,347,193 (over 528 million) people spoke Hindi as their mother tongue, which is simply not the case. The 2021 census has been postponed for political reasons and is not likely to be carried out till the next general elections in 2024; it may even be moved to 2031. By then, a very large body of smaller languages, and the diversity they represent, may have been wiped out.

Almost certainly, the communities worst affected will be the Adivasis and nomadic communities, whose numbers are small. However, the total number of such communities, whose languages will go unreported in the next Census, is large enough to cause concern.

The speakers of these communities will be subsumed within the statistical figures of other languages, mainly Hindi, since the larger sections of Adivasi communities live along the margins of Hindi-speaking areas.

No matter that the Constitution accepts right to expression as a fundamental right, no matter that language, for us humans, is the primary means of expression, hundreds of these languages of Adivasis and nomadic communities in India are likely to be wiped out of official records in the service of this Hindi-Hindu nationalism. Make no mistake, the vision of India as a multilingual nation is under attack.