“Better than chanting a thousand words in a dead language, is one soothing word spoken in the vernacular.”
– Gautam Buddh
International Mother Language Day (Vernacular) is a day celebrating our diverse vernacular languages. It is held annually on February 21 worldwide to empower and promote awareness of our multilingual and multicultural diversities in the 21st century.
International Mother Language Day was proclaimed by UNESCO in November, 1999. It represents the day in 1952 when students demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bangla, as one of the two national languages of the then Pakistan, were shot and killed by police in Dhaka, the capital of what is now Bangladesh.
Vernacular languages, once despised and suppressed, are today significant instruments of change in post-colonial societies in the 21st century. They have become sites of literary resistance, have become the lingua franca of many independent states, have helped spur the growth of bilingual and inclusive education and are used in multiple platforms in the digital media industry today.
Vernacular as a site for literary resistance
In any society, the standard linguistic variety is often given more prestige and status than the varieties spoken by the subaltern community. This was the situation in Fiji and the Pacific. English was the language of the British colonisers and it was used in political governance, business administration and law, media, and formal education.
One of the casualties of this linguistic legacy is how a nation’s cultural and political history was recorded. Fiji’s, likewise other Pacific nations histories, were all documented initially by expatriates and later locals in the English language. Fiji’s political and cultural narratives need to be anchored in their own vernaculars for greater authenticity and for genuine nationalism to flourish in post-modern societies.
Writers and artists all over the globe including Fiji are now using their vernaculars as a site of literary resistance to oppose the dominant culture, the extreme capitalist market strategies, to assert the subaltern identities of individuals in a global digital economy.
In 1994, the Booker Prize was given to James Kelman, a Scottish Glaswegian author who wrote about experiences from his own community using the language of his home, culture and the Glaswegian working class. He uses Glaswegian and English in his ‘protest novel ‘instead of the standard high variety Queen’s English .He states that “he is not content to take language as it’s given through the structures of authority …writing in my vernacular is a way of talking about the validity of my own culture…I have a right to write from my own experiences, from my own community…” (Ledbetter 1995:9)
In Fiji, we have Fiji-Hindi and the i-Taukei standard Bauan dialect and other provincial dialects and these vernaculars are our home languages for the majority of the population. Both vernaculars have been given recognition in the present constitution and this tantamounts to the government’s resolve to strengthen vernacular education and awareness amongst its people today. This constitutional development augurs well for the linguistic future of our vernacular languages.
Professor Subramani, through his ‘Dauka Puraan’ written in Fiji-Hindi and his soon to be published, Fiji-Maa: Mother of a Thousand is also using the vernacular as a subaltern site of literary resistance to help de-colonise our minds and our perceptions about how to survive in this post-modern world. He is also celebrating the multi-lingual and multi-cultural identity of Fiji-Hindi and like Kelman, the Booker prize winner who has received negative publicity for writing in a non-standard language, Subramani and those that write and research in the vernacular, also have had to endure unwarranted criticism from people who prefer to maintain the elitist, dominant nature of their languages at the expense of subaltern vernacular languages.
Fiji-Hindi is the linguistic legacy of the Girmityas from the indenture period and the most appropriate language to record their social and cultural history. It is the mother tongue, the vernacular of the majority of Fijians of Indian descent in Fiji and those living in the diaspora today. It is worthy of being celebrated as it is defines our unique social identity.
It needs to be supported by all of us, to be used in all forums with pride and not shame. It was heartening to hear Fiji-Hindi being used so eloquently by A.Khaiyum in the build-up to the 20014 election in a national TV election debate. Likewise the use and popularity of iTaukei vernacular in local television programs are a clear testimony that vernaculars are very relevant to Pacific livelihoods today. More support and awareness is needed by the i-Taukei intellectual leaders to develop more fiction and non-fiction iTaukei literary projects.
Vernacular languages are successful linguistic tools to help understand and relate to people in all domains of life. The Father of Advertising, David Ogilvy, a business tycoon once said: “If you are trying to persuade people to do something …you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think .We try to write in the vernacular…”( Ogilvy 1998:56)
Bilingual and inclusive education
The theme for this year’s celebration is “Mother Tongue instruction and Inclusive Education”. Educational initiatives like Vernacular forums and vernacular workshops can help promote inclusion and quality learning by supporting bilingual and multi-lingual education especially the use of the mother tongue , at all levels and in formal and non-formal settings, teacher training and media literacy forums.
Teaching children in their mother tongue helps them to deal with their new reality, learn better and benefit from the cultural continuity of their homes. Many nations now accept that early childhood services and the early primary school grades should be provided in the mother tongue. They know that research has shown that teaching in the home language is more effective than teaching in a foreign language in achieving positive learning outcomes and developing children’s strong cultural identity and sense of self-worth. It is also more cost effective and prepares children for multi-lingual education. Mother-Tongue instruction is internationally acknowledged in Articles 2, 17, 20 and 30 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. (Mother Tongue Multi-Lingual Network 2017)
In Fiji, some drawbacks include the mentality that vernaculars are not as significant as the English language, linguistic illiteracy stemming from a socio-elitist perspective , stereotyped attitudes that Fiji-Hindi is not a real language and officials lacking the creativity and necessary linguistic skills to develop appropriate , field tested MTB (mother tongue-based) learning materials and activities, that vernacular education is cost- prohibitive and lack of intellectual and institutional support for vernacular writers and researchers to pursue the vernacular crusade in Fiji.
As Fiji celebrates International Mother Tongue Day or week in its various communities, schools and work stations, let us note what Nelson Mandela once said: “If you talk to a man (person) in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his vernacular, that goes to his heart.”
? Regina Naidu is the head of department for literature and language at the FNU Lautoka campus. Views expressed are hers and not of this newspaper or the institution she is affiliated with.
