LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Official Ways to Subjugate Languages -
School Setting as a Cause of Pahari Dhundi-Kairali Decline

Muhammad Gulfraz Abbasi, M. A., Ph.D. Scholar
Zafar Iqbal Khattak, M. A., Ph.D. Scholar

Abstract

In the study of language shift and maintenance, school has an important role to play. Language taught in schools represents both a tendency of the community and the policy of the government toward a certain language. School is a place where most of the times the new generation is purged of the local native languages.

Pahari Dhundi-Kairali or Dhundi and often known and used as Pahari (Abbasi et al, 2010: 207) is an indigenous language of Murree and its adjoining areas in Pakistan. This language has also been silently declared an outcast in the governments as well as private schools.

This paper looks at the outlook of the teachers regarding their/and their students' use of Urdu, English and Pahari languages in schools. We notice that Urdu is viewed as a prestigious language whereas Pahari is not considered a valuable language enough to be taught and used in the so-called disciplined environment of school.

Introduction

The role of school in language decline or maintenance is vital in the indigenous communities. There are so many articles of research and dissertations (e.g. Stroud, 2003; Sinha, 2009; Abdi, 2009; Asif, 2005) which have taken up the school setting wholly or partly to know what part it plays sociologically and psychologically, either for language preference or for creating a class system among the languages. School is considered a place in the indigenous societies as having a status of great respect and prestige. Teachers enjoy a respectable position in the society.

Not in the very distant past, most of the people used to be illiterate and would get the services of teachers for writing and reading letters, preparing any other legal document, etc. In the colonies there was a system of subjugation and people had to do what they were suggested and instructed. Similarly, the concept of government was very powerful.

So, the government schools, which were established in the beginning of the British rule in the sub-continent, had a powerful role. So, despite the opposition of the local population for the colonial masters and their schemes, the school kept on increasing its importance and stature for the local population. So, the schools and other educational institutions have been having a significant impact on the minds of the people in developing and creating a stereotypical point of view such as prestigious language and bizarre language. Since the gap between the elite class, middle class and lower class is increasing day by day, the gap among the languages regarding their respective prestige is also increasing.

The Role of Schools in Language Decline

The role of school in the maintenance or shift of a language is instrumental. It is mostly in schools that the preference for one language is imbued among the children. In Pakistan, the minority languages are dying out mostly because of the outcast status given to them in the schools vis-à-vis Urdu and English.

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Right to Education and Languages in India - Part I | An Application of Skills Integration in Language Teaching | Official Ways to Subjugate Languages - School Setting as a Cause of Pahari Dhundi-Kairali Decline | Speech Identification Scores in Children With Bimodal Hearing | Continuous Professional Development - An Issue in Tertiary Education in Bangladesh | Teaching the Extra - Essentiality of Bringing Eclecticism into Classroom | Effective Teaching of English: A CLT Perspective for Haryana | ELT in Libyan Universities - A Pragmatic Approach | Behavioural Problems of Secondary School Students - A Pakistani Scene | Selection Procedure for English Language Teachers' Professional Development Courses of HEC Pakistan - A Case Study | Cohesion and Coherence in the novel The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James | A Review of A. R. Kidwai 2009: Literary Orientalism: a companion | Dravidian Ideologue Kanimozhi and Her Language | Extensive Reading and Reading Strategies: A Try-Out | Trends in Language Shift and Maintenance in the Eranad Dialect of Malayalam | Interdependence of Law and Literature in Shakespeare's and Charles Dickens's Writings - A Reflection | The Interaction between Bilingualism, Educational and Social Factors and Foreign Language Leaning in Iran | Code Switching in Kailasam's Play - Poli Kitty | Morph-Synthesizer for Oriya Language Computational Approach | Question Formation in Pahari | Language in Politics of Recognition: A Case of the Nepali Language in the Creation of Political Identity of the Nepalis in Darjeeling | Technology Note - Creating Parallel Test Items with Microsoft Excel | Politeness Strategies Across Cultures | Bridge between East and West - Iqbal and Goethe | Syntactic Errors Made by Science Students at the Graduate Level in Pakistan - Causes and Remedies | Prospective Teachers of English in India: A Perspective | Reported Perceptions and Practices of English Language Teachers at Secondary Level in Pakistan | A PRINT VERSION OF ALL THE PAPERS OF SEPTEMBER, 2010 ISSUE IN BOOK FORMAT. | HOME PAGE of September 2010 Issue | HOME PAGE | CONTACT EDITOR languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com