McEachern: When minorities turn against themselves

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

WHILE there can be benefits of having a national language, such as ease of communication between disparate groups, there can also be some unpleasant social side effects.

The institutionalization of a national language usually results in its inclusion in education, media, government, and other sectors. If this is not balanced by meaningful representation of local languages also (at least in their respective localities), then this creates a prestige imbalance. After decades of occupying privileged domains, people often come to view a national language as being more sophisticated, glamorous, and intellectual than their own native tongues. This perception can eventually become reality since, if people receive no formal education in their mother tongue for generations, the depth and breadth of one's vocabulary is sure to decline -- especially when being pumped with other languages like English and Tagalog (not to mention the effect of TV). Sure enough, every local and regional Philippine language has suffered increasing "shallowness," with most people exhibiting smaller vocabularies in their native tongue than their forefathers, especially in cities.

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It is a double-edged sword. The fewer words, metaphors, jokes, and other devices you know in your native tongue, the harder it is to express yourself. Given its restricted scope and usefulness, you will grow to prefer other languages in which you have been given formal instruction. And hence, the symbolic prestige of a language like Tagalog (aka Filipino) being designated as a national language eventually garners real prestige in the eyes of users as it begins to outshine their knowledge of their own mother tongues. People grow to associate their own languages with simple, informal, even crude speech, while they reserve formal, polite, or sophisticated speech for languages of status like English or Tagalog.

This imbalance in prestige creates a climate where local languages and their associated ethnic groups are frequently looked down upon. In one insulting scene in the 2006 movie Sakal, Sakali, Sakolo, a nanny was derided for teaching Bisaya to a child, while another character claimed to be "Pinoy" children must grow up speaking Tagalog. This movie, while fictional, reflects the disrespect that Visayans (and other Philippine ethnic groups) frequently endure, and also exposes the narrow view that one's citizenship is somehow predicated on speaking one language and no others.

Examples of linguistic imperialism are plenty. In Pinoy Big Brother, Princess Lieza Manzon was instructed to refrain from conversing in Cebuano with province-mate Paul Jake. (Fortunately Miss Manzon exercised her constitutional rights of freedom of expression and continued to speak in Cebuano, prompting Big Brother to acquire a translator).

In another example, Lito Osmena was not allowed by ABS-CBN to air his political TV adverts using Cebuano (for the Cebu market) without first submitting a Tagalog translation. (I fail to see the merits of this requirement...If ABS-CBN just wanted to make sure the ad didn't say anything controversial, could they not have found a single person to translate his submission for them, given all their resources and army of staff?!)

The discrimination faced by speakers of minority languages can sometimes result in self-consciousness or even disdain for one's own identity. Youth hardly every sing videoke songs in the 'dialect' since they are considered "corny" or "baduy." Teenage girls will often speak in Tagalog instead of their native language because they think it makes them sound cuter and will improve their chances with the boys. FM radio hosts rarely speak the native tongue, and I noticed that when they do, they put on this stereotypically crude accent. It is intended to be humorous, but it illustrates the fact that A) local languages are objects of mockery, even by native speakers, and B) normal, pleasant, neutral use of the local language is being undermined by its low class associations.

Prof. Tariq Rahman's description of the language situation in Pakistan resonates here:

"There are many literary works in Urdu and other languages that show how embarrassed the poor are by their houses, their clothes, their food, their means of transportation and, of course, their languages. In short, the reality constructed by the rich and the poor alike conspires to degrade, embarrass and oppress the less powerful. This relates to language-shame-being embarrassed about one's language-and hence to possible language death."

He is absolutely bang on. If a dominant group in a country manage to control the way marginalized groups are represented, those marginalized groups can end up internalizing these prejudices and hence make fun of themselves. Most of the wealth, highest levels of politics, and media are concentrated in Manila, so it is the voice that dictates the mainstream representation of other Philippine groups. This representation, unfortunately, is often derogatory. And now, we are seeing these belittled groups turn upon themselves and join in on the jeering.