Indigenous Languages in Bangladesh: Loopholes behind the Scene
Abstract
Every citizen of a country has his or her own linguistic rights whether he or she belongs to the mainstream society or not. Linguistic rights mean the rights to learn and to use one’s mother tongue (Arzoz, 2007). In this paper, the author highlights the constraints of indigenous people in Bangladesh in using their own mother tongues. Indigenous people have been living in Bangladesh from pre-colonial period with their own cultural uniqueness. Though they are living in a country which fought for its language right in 1952, concerning their own languages they are now marginalized constitutionally, economically, and socially. They have little space for using their languages socially and academically. Thus, the author focuses on some problems which are depriving indigenous people of using their own vernaculars. He also provides some recommendations enlivening indigenous languages at a certain level.
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