Mehrdad Farahmand - BBC Persian - February 22, 2004
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| Each year on 21 February, UNESCO celebrates International Mother Language Day. |
Since five years ago, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has declared February 21 as International Mother Language Day, urging nations around the world to help preserve languages passed down from previous generations through mutual understanding, tolerance, and dialogue.
Globally, there are approximately six thousand languages spoken, but according to statistics provided by UNESCO, only four percent of the world’s population speaks ninety-five percent of these languages.
Iran is also a country where the mother tongue of a large portion of its population differs from the official language of the country. However, every day, the number of people speaking local languages decreases, and the decline of these local languages is accelerating at a faster pace.
Dr. Hassan Anvari, a cultural scholar and university professor in Tehran, considers the national media to be the main threat to local languages, particularly emphasizing the role of television programs for children, which help them learn Persian before entering elementary school. However, this emphasis on the Persian language prevents them from speaking their native language.
He also points to cultural factors and social behaviors, including the fact that speaking in a local language or having an accent derived from the local language while speaking Persian is often seen as a loss of dignity and a source of embarrassment. This has led some parents, even in cities where Persian is not widely spoken, to teach their children Persian from the start, and as a result, the children speak Persian instead of their local language.
In Iran, local languages have largely remained as spoken languages, significantly influenced by Persian in terms of grammar and vocabulary. Even though books and publications are printed in some local languages, only a very small number of those who speak these languages read books and publications in their native tongue because the lack of teaching these languages in schools and universities has deprived them of the opportunity to become familiar with their written and literary forms.
Meanwhile, Article 15 of the Constitution of Iran allows the use of local and ethnic languages in the press and media, as well as teaching the literature of different ethnic groups in schools alongside Persian. However, to date, except for the Armenian language, no other ethnic language or literature has been taught in Iranian schools or universities.
In Iran, there have been some limited movements to implement this constitutional article and to revive and promote local languages. However, these movements have not yet achieved significant success.
Dariush Ashouri, an Iranian writer and researcher living in France, sees the main reason for the non-implementation of this constitutional article as the lack of sufficient motivation among the masses of ethnic minorities to revive and promote their local languages. He believes these movements remain confined to a small group of intellectuals and have not reached the lower layers of the ethnic communities, as these issues do not have urgency or priority for Iranian ethnic groups.
However, some experts also believe that, considering Iran's current situation where the government is faced with growing public demands and rising dissatisfaction, there is a possibility that ethnic ideas may spread from intellectuals to the masses, and the issue of mother languages could fuel ethnic tensions. This is particularly concerning given that some of the languages considered local in Iran are official languages in neighboring countries. Dariush Ashouri believes that the way to prevent such a risk is not necessarily to prioritize the implementation of Article 15 of the Constitution, but to foster a modern state in Iran with a strong economic infrastructure. Economic exchanges between different ethnic groups in Iranian society could lead to national solidarity, and the need for a common language would reduce resistance to Persian and mitigate ethnic tensions and separatist movements.
Despite all of this, a broader view of the issue of mother languages reveals a much larger reality before our eyes: in a world that is becoming smaller day by day, according to Dr. Hassan Anvari, Persian itself is a local language and is at risk of extinction.
Dr. Anvari, the editor-in-chief of "Farhang-e Sokhan," one of the most recent Persian dictionaries, says that the total vocabulary of the Persian language does not exceed one hundred thousand words, while the number of words in the English language exceeds one million.
He believes that all languages of the world are retreating in the face of English, and languages like Persian will no longer be able to serve in science and knowledge in the future. They will remain at the level of a language used for local communication, where poetry is written and stories are told.
The link to the original text in Farsi on BBC Persian:
روزجهانی زبان مادری و ايرانيان