My intro and a link to a 24-page essay composed by two outstanding professors are provided here entirely in English:

https://www.academia.edu/26351333/Tibetan_Chinese_Bilingual_Education?email_work_card=title

Given recent observations (and certain complaints) aired by various mass media organisations re reduced instruction in Inner Mongolian schools in the primary local language, i.e. the Mongolian tongue, it is important that a professional analysis appeared 4 years ago on language diversity in Tibet

Profesors Chunlin Yao and our own Ghil’ad Zuckermann, respectively from (1) The North China University of Science and Technology and (2) The University of Adelaide published in their splendid collaboration a synopsis in Esperanto which I’m happy to provide in English on request.

THE AUTHORS IN QUESTION:

Yao Chunlin School of Foreign Languages North China University of Science and Technology No. 46 Xinhuaxidao Tangshan, Heibei PRC 063009 yao_chunlin@126.com; yao_chunlin@yahoo.com

Ghil‘ad Zuckermann 918 Napier Building Adelaide, SA 5005 Australia ghilad.zuckermann@adelaide.edu.au

Yao Chunlin is an Associate Professor in North China University of Science and Technology and a postdoctoral researcher in Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His research areas include sociolinguistics and endangered languages.

Ghil ‘ad Zuckermann,

DPhil (Oxon), PhD (Cantab) (titular), is Chair of Linguistics and Endangered Languages, a tenured Full Professor (Level E, the highest rank), at the University of Adelaide. He is a leading expert of (1) revivalistics, a new trans-disciplinary field of enquiry surrounding language reclamation (e.g., Barngarla), revitalization (e.g., Adnyamathanha) and reinvigoration (e.g., Irish), (2) multiple causation, cross-fertilization and horizontal gene transfer in languages, (3) sources of lexical expansion and camouflaged borrowing, (4) contact linguistics, and (5) the study of language, culture and identity.

Thanks Audrey!
Language awareness, institutional support and family language policies are all important in preserving minority/indigenous languages. Actually institutional regulation and implementation are vital to facilitate linguistic justice and equality.

Thank you Enkhzaya for your comments! Yes the language and culture itself is precious, yet I worry more about the people who speak this language than about the language itself. The question of how minority Mongolians is marginalised and how they are excluded from broader social participation due to the loss of bilingual schooling is much more pressing than the continued existence of language, (more accurately the script), itself.

Thanks Banie for pointing out the importance of teachers’ personal linguistic pedagogy. So far Mongolian teachers’ mandatory use of particular language in classrooms is not stipulated in official paper. I hope the type of code-switching you mentioned can enhance Mongolian kids’ learning despite some Mongolian translated textbooks’ shift to Chinese ones.

Thank you Gegentuul bringing this up. As Mongolian, it so heartbreaking to see what is happening in Inner Mongolia. I am truly thankful and proud of Inner Mongolians for keeping our culture alive. Mongolia has such a rich culture and history. Mongolian traditional script is such a unique (top-bottom) and it is definitely a huge part of our history and culture. As outer Mongolia, we use both Cyrillic and traditional script. But these days, Cyrillic has been used mainly. I had a chance to learn our traditional script when I was in high school. Personally, I feel quite sad that our kids will be grown up without knowing this traditional Mongolian script. Also is quite sad knowing that language with its unique script which only used by Inner Mongolians planned to be wiped out by the Chinese government. There are hundreds of people and organizations fighting against this reform in both Mongolia and Inner Mongolia to save our language. Inner Mongolia is such a small ethnic group in China but they are standing strong and some of people took their own precious lives already to let the world know how important for them keep their language and culture.
I really hope this protest against this heartless act will help Chinese official to change their decisions and allow Inner Mongolian children right to have equal education.

Thanks, Banie, for this informative comment! Clearly lots of advantages when students and teachers share a common language!

Thanks, Subin! The more languages you know, the better. No doubt about that. But some of the more general claims about the advantages of bilingualism are probably exaggerated and/or taken out of context …

Thanks, Tazin! You make a very important point: it’s easy to forget that multilingual literacies – like your grandfather’s ability to read and write fluently and academically in three languages – need not be as exceptional as we have made them to be in our English-centric monolingual world …

I am reminded of my parents and in fact, my grandparents ensuring that English featured prominently in education and other aspects of life, so that we all have greater opportunities to succeed. This was, of course, influenced by the aftereffects of colonial rule in countries like Bangladesh and more recently, globalisation that resulted in a lot of cultural references being Western and in English. My parents submerged their children in English in every way they could because that was painted as the path to success. They imposed a strict reading and writing regime on us from a young age but I never engaged in any of those literacy practices in Bengali. I disengaged from a lot of Bengali cultural practices because I was not good at them.

I find a little sad that my great grandfather could read and write fluently and academically in three languages and I can make that claim for only one. I feel the poorer for it. It highlights for me that the destruction of cultural knowledge through linguistic imperialism is just as pernicious as geographical conquests of old.