The monolingual mindset
By Mila Vargas, Nossal High School
If I were to say: Kumusta at maligayang pagdating!
Most of you probably wouldn’t know what it meant, and honestly, if I hadn’t asked my mum, I wouldn’t either. But, as she will attest, ‘kumusta at maligayang pagdating’ means hello and welcome in Tagalog, the language of the Philippines and of my mother.
The language that I don’t know how to speak.
Despite being one of the most multilingual countries in the world, Australia does not prioritise learning languages. Children, who begin their education knowing their mother tongue have a 5 in 6 chance of losing it by the time they graduate high school. The only state that mandates learning another language is Victoria, and that is only until year 6. We as a nation have retreated into what linguist Michael Clyne calls the “monolingual mindset”.
I will never forget the day my mum came to me with tears in her eyes and apologised for not having the words to communicate her love. I will never forget because it was then that I realised what not knowing how to speak Tagalog truly meant. It wasn’t just an inconvenience at family gatherings, or a few seconds on google translate. It was a part of me that was missing. It was nawala. Lost.
That was when I knew I needed to learn Tagalog, and If there was anyone I could turn to, it would be my mum. If there was anyone I could feel safe around it would be my mum. Her being there was part of what linguists call “language ecology”, and it meant that I was with someone who would support and encourage me to learn. But what if my mum wasn’t there? What if when I wanted to speak Tagalog I was punished? What if everything about who I am was denied to me in favour of “assimilation” into white Australia? This is not a horror I have had to face. But it is the truth of the Stolen Generations and many more First Nations people, and it cannot be forgotten.
The reason why so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages have gone extinct is not because of apathy or indifference. It’s because for years the Australian government tried to silence them. It’s because until the 1970s, racist policies banned and discouraged Aboriginal people from speaking their languages. It is because Children, stolen from their families and brought up in Christian missions, had the words of their oppressors forced into their mouths. This is the undercurrent that hides behind Australia’s devotion to the monolingual mindset. This is what we must fight against. Now. Ngayon.
Change takes time. But we have none, and no one knows this better than Professor Jakelin Troy, a linguist at the University of Sydney and member of the Ngarigo people of southeast New South Wales. Growing up, Professor Troy saw how the older generations of her community were scared into not speaking their language.
She saw how they believed that passing it on would mean the ‘same kind of horror’ that they had faced. And she felt the weight of that silence.
Today, Professor Troy carries that experience with her as an advocate for Indigenous languages. She has lead work on the Australian curriculum and its framework for learning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and fully embraces her own of Ngarigu. Her hope is for Indigenous people everywhere to feel the same support and encouragement she pushes for here in Australia. And yet, whilst those like Professor Troy tell us that “the future is in our own hands”, many still do not hear their calls. Many still do not see what we have to lose. Many still do not understand that wika ang lahat. Language is everything.
Around the world languages are dying. According to International Language Service Inc, from 1950-2010 we lost 230 and are projected to lose thousands more in the coming years. These are links to our history, the foundations of culture and identity, and we are watching them die.
Over 6 months into the United Nations’ decade of Indigenous languages and the world is waking up to the urgency of our situation.
Overseas, organisations such as Living Tongues are working to document rare and endangered languages, whilst others operate within communities publishing children's books in their native tongues. Here in Australia, experts like Dr Vicki Couzens, co-chair of the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages, tell us about the long road ahead. But she also reflects the hope we have for our future. Where languages don’t die in the mouths of children. Where the monolingual mindset is no more.
And where I can tell my mother ‘mahal kita’ and know it means ‘I love you’.