UN­ESCO has de­clared 2019 as the In­ter­na­tional Year of In­dige­nous lan­guages. This prompted me to look at Pun­jabi from UN­ESCO’s view­point.  While we are wor­ried about the fu­ture of the Pun­jabi lan­guage, Pun­jabi is not dy­ing writes the au­thor af­ter thor­ough re­search and analy­sis. While gov­ern­men­tal ap­a­thy to­wards Pun­jabi in Pun­jab is ev­i­dent, ef­forts by lovers of the lan­guage will def­i­nitely en­sure that Pun­jabi not only sur­vives but grows.

Pun­jabi is not dy­ing. Pun­jabi will not die. To­day my Ma-boli -mother tongue -Pun­jabi is spo­ken by lesser num­ber of peo­ple, is fac­ing threats of as­sim­i­la­tion and ac­cul­tur­a­tion, its oral his­tory has not been well doc­u­mented and its use on the in­ter­net is still want­ing. Still, let’s face it. It is not an en­dan­gered lan­guage

Some years ago, when a promi­nent In­dian news­pa­per high­lighted that there is a UN­ESCO re­port fore­cast­ing the death of Pun­jabi lan­guage in 2050, like many oth­ers, World Sikh News too was con­cerned. WSN de­cided to ver­ify the ve­rac­ity of the re­port and find out how the Pun­jabi lan­guage which was spo­ken by a few mil­lion world­wide would van­ish from the sur­face of the earth.

WSN de­cided to go to the root of the mat­ter and con­tacted the UN­ESCO of­fice in Delhi.  Like us, even the UN­ESCO re­searchers and doc­u­men­tal­ists were dis­tressed at the news re­port pur­port­edly re­fer­ring to a pur­ported UN­ESCO re­port, about which they too were not aware of.  The re­searcher’s re­frain was, “Oh! It is in a news­pa­per in Pun­jab” re­flected the con­tempt for base­less re­port­ing.

Lack­adaisi­cal ap­proach to im­por­tant mat­ters is not a prob­lem only with gov­ern­ments; even the most com­pet­i­tive me­dia ig­nores ba­sic norms of jour­nal­ism.

The UN­ESCO of­fice in Delhi dili­gently checked up their records, ver­i­fied facts from their Paris head­quar­ters and this is what they had to say, “The sec­ond (and lat­est to date) edi­tion of the At­las (At­las of en­dan­gered lan­guages) does not list Pun­jabi as an en­dan­gered lan­guage. We are cur­rently in the process of de­vel­op­ing the third up­dated and ex­tended edi­tion, and it will be up to the ed­i­to­r­ial board to take this kind of de­ci­sions.”

“The sec­ond (and lat­est to date) edi­tion of the At­las (At­las of en­dan­gered lan­guages) does not list Pun­jabi as an en­dan­gered lan­guage.”

Not fully sat­is­fied, we wrote back again, urg­ing them to look for the ba­sis of such ref­er­ence by em­i­nent au­thor and jour­nal­ist Kuldip Na­yar as part of his lec­ture de­liv­ered un­der the aegis of Pun­jabi Bachao Manch, which func­tion was also at­tended by lead­ing au­thors and a for­mer vice-chan­cel­lor of Guru Nanak Dev Uni­ver­sity.  The only ba­sis they could find was a re­port on Welsh and Pun­jabi lan­guage in Eu­rope. We pe­rused the sum­mary of that re­port too and found ab­solutely no ref­er­ence to the lan­guage be­ing en­dan­gered in any way, ei­ther in Eu­rope or in the world.

Prob­ing fur­ther, we asked them, “Is there even a re­mote pos­si­bil­ity of Pun­jabi be­ing there in the next draft re­port and some­body leak­ing this re­port to the me­dia or to some lead­ing jour­nal­ists?  Their re­ply was, “it was highly un­likely that the me­dia could ac­cess such a re­port even be­fore its fi­nal­iza­tion.”

So, it can be safely said, with a jus­ti­fied sigh of re­lief that there is no UN­ESCO re­port to sug­gest that Pun­jabi would dis­ap­pear in the com­ing decades.  The cor­re­spon­dence with UN­ESCO pro­vided an op­por­tu­nity to dig deep and un­der­stand the con­cept of en­dan­gered lan­guages.

How do lan­guages be­come en­dan­gered and what is the sta­tus of Pun­jabi? Lan­guage di­ver­sity is es­sen­tial to the hu­man her­itage and each and every lan­guage em­bod­ies the unique cul­tural wis­dom of a peo­ple is the UN­ESCO man­date.  Al­though 6,000 lan­guages ex­ist, the co­op­er­a­tive ef­forts of lan­guage com­mu­ni­ties, lan­guage pro­fes­sion­als, NGOs and gov­ern­ments will be in­dis­pens­able in coun­ter­ing the threat to the ex­is­tence of many.

“In the In­ter­na­tional Year of In­dige­nous lan­guages -2019, let us take this op­por­tu­nity to in­ter­act with UN­ESCO and see what we can do to save the var­i­ous di­alects of Pun­jabi, in both the Pun­jabs, which could be de­fined as an in­dige­nous lan­guage and about which UN­ESCO would be in­ter­ested.  Sik­li­gari and Parsee of the Sik­li­gar Sikhs cer­tainly fall into that cat­e­gory.”

UN­ESCO un­der­takes ex­ten­sive re­search into the sta­tus of lan­guages world­wide.  We view UN­ESCO guide­lines in the con­text of Pun­jabi lan­guage. UN­ESCO says, “A lan­guage is en­dan­gered when its speak­ers cease to use it, use it in an in­creas­ingly re­duced num­ber of com­mu­nica­tive do­mains, and cease to pass it on from one gen­er­a­tion to the next and if a lan­guage loses all its speak­ers, it be­comes an ex­tinct lan­guage.”

Well, as far as pre­sent-day Pun­jabis are con­cerned, they do use Pun­jabi, may be some­what less, and a siz­able sec­tion does pass it on from one gen­er­a­tion to an­other, though the de­creas­ing num­bers is a con­cern.  The Sikhs, Hin­dus and Mus­lims in East Pun­jab and Mus­lims and Sikhs in West Pun­jab con­tinue to use the lan­guage. Hence, ex­tinc­tion is not even a re­mote pos­si­bil­ity.

UN­ESCO fur­ther says, “Lan­guage en­dan­ger­ment may be the re­sult of ex­ter­nal forces such as mil­i­tary, eco­nomic, re­li­gious, cul­tural or ed­u­ca­tional sub­ju­ga­tion, or it may be caused by in­ter­nal forces, such as a com­mu­ni­ty’s neg­a­tive at­ti­tude to­wards its own lan­guage. In­ter­nal pres­sures of­ten have their source in ex­ter­nal ones, and both halt the in­ter-gen­er­a­tional trans­mis­sion of lin­guis­tic and cul­tural tra­di­tions.”  Un­doubt­edly, the Sikhs and Pun­jabis are de­vel­op­ing a neg­a­tive at­ti­tude to­wards their own lan­guage.  The gov­ern­ment of In­dia has at­tempted cul­tural geno­cide of the Sikhs in a va­ri­ety of forms in­clud­ing machi­na­tions to sub­vert the Pun­jabi lan­guage.  Var­i­ous de­part­ments of the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment, in­clud­ing the state leg­is­la­ture do not use Pun­jabi.

Start­ing with the de­layed for­ma­tion of the state of Pun­jab on lin­guis­tic lines as was done for the whole coun­try to the non-ac­cep­tance of Pun­jabi as an of­fi­cial lan­guage in those states where it is spo­ken ex­ten­sively, lack of spon­sor­ship of re­search and de­vel­op­ment in Pun­jabi as an in­ter­net lan­guage, –all these have def­i­nitely af­fected the growth of the lan­guage, in its own home­land, still no chances of ex­tinc­tion.

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An­other pa­ra­me­ter used by UN­ESCO to test lan­guage vi­tal­ity is re­view of the gov­ern­men­tal and in­sti­tu­tional lan­guage at­ti­tudes and poli­cies in­clud­ing of­fi­cial sta­tus and use. UN­ESCO should carry out a re­view of the role of the gov­ern­ment of In­dia and the gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab for us­age of Pun­jabi.

While Pun­jabi is not en­dan­gered, gov­ern­men­tal ap­a­thy is a con­cern and peo­ples’ use of the lan­guage needs to be bol­stered. With a num­ber of or­gan­i­sa­tions con­scious of this, ready to meet the chal­lenge head­long, there is no doubt that Pun­jabi will find its due place.

“While Pun­jabi is not en­dan­gered, gov­ern­men­tal ap­a­thy is a con­cern and peo­ples’ use of the lan­guage needs to be bol­stered. With a num­ber of or­gan­i­sa­tions con­scious of this, ready to meet the chal­lenge head­long, there is no doubt that Pun­jabi will find its due place.”

In the In­ter­na­tional Year of In­dige­nous lan­guages -2019, let us take this op­por­tu­nity to in­ter­act with UN­ESCO and see what we can do to save the var­i­ous di­alects of Pun­jabi, in both the Pun­jabs, which could be de­fined as an in­dige­nous lan­guage and about which UN­ESCO would be in­ter­ested.  Sik­li­gari and Parsee of the Sik­li­gar Sikhs cer­tainly fall into that cat­e­gory.  His­to­rian Dr Hi­madri Baner­jee has stated that, Sik­li­gar Sikhs use Sik­li­gari as a spo­ken lan­guage not just for com­mu­ni­ca­tion but through­out their his­tory, the lan­guage has served as their first line of de­fence.

Let us pre­pare to cel­e­brate the forth­com­ing Mother Tongue Day on 21 Feb­ru­ary with Pun­jabi gusto, flavour and spirit. In the 550 year of His birth cel­e­bra­tions, Guru Nanak has blessed the Pun­jabis. They are fully awake and aware. Pun­jabi will not die.