This article focuses on the ever-increasing stress on multilingual education (MLE) in policy documents, especially its pairing with mother tongues in education (MTE). This focus brings into relief the relationship between MTE, the preservation of linguistic diversity and social democracy. We argue that the outcome of this relationship crucially…

Thomas Babington Macaulay's 1835 minute on Indian education is widely held to be representative of the views which underpinned the English East India Company's replacement of Persian with English as the official language of administration in India in 1837, and the promotion of English and Indian vernacular languages as part of colonial educational…

Podcasts are a unique media that have been used in Indigenous and endangered language communities in the form of Indigenous radio podcasts, instructional websites, or tools to aid classroom instruction. A podcast called Rituals of Kanauji speakers was created in Kanauji, a low-resource Indian language variety. Using this case study in Kanauji, I…

The study aimed to explore the indigenous language of Gujjar and Bakerwal tribal communities of district Ganderbal of Jammu and Kashmir, India. The design of the study is qualitative in nature. The researcher employs purposive sampling in selecting the sample. The researcher surveyed 81 Gujjar and Bakerwal households and interviewed 22 (19 Male…

Family language policy (FLP) impacts the maintenance of heritage language(s) in the family domain, where parents play a crucial role in making language-related decisions for their children. Globalisation, immigration, the COVID-19 pandemic, and digital communication have all affected FLP. Studies are now calling for examining how dispersed…

The paper deals with the issues of the cultural and linguistic diversity of Indian schools. The influence international policies and national policies, provision to preserve the linguistic and cultural diversity in classroom and schools. The role of education to preserve the linguistic and cultural diversity needs in schools. Based on various data…

The widespread marginalisation of heritage languages in public and political discourse coupled with the association of proficiency in host languages with personal and professional gain have led many diasporic communities to shy away from transmitting their heritage languages at home (Curdt-Christiansen 2016): a context considered to be optimal for…

This conceptual paper reports the rare and unprecedented mother tongue based schooling of Tibetan children in exile in India as a success story that can serve as a model for displaced and indigenous peoples. A brief historical development of Tibetan language is offered to highlight the circuitous journey of Tibetan language from the indigenous to…

Using Hindi and Urdu as examples, illustrates the shortcomings in the definition of South Asian languages that has been attempted in Britain so far. Argues that description and definition of a language have to include aspects of culture, religion, script, politics, and the speakers' own perception of their language and language choice. (SED)

There are at least 6,000--7,000 languages spoken in the world today, with over half of them endangered. And 61 percent of the endangered languages are within the Asia and Pacific Region. The publication is a report derived from the Regional (Asia and Pacific Region) Workshop on Mother Tongue/Bilingual Literacy Programs for Ethnic Minorities, held…