The death of Tibetan?
Children in the Tibetan Autonomous Region are losing fluency in the Tibetan language as schools are increasingly teaching subjects in Mandarin. Now most students in Tibet will only hear Tibetan-speaking teachers in classes where they study the language itself. As a result, many parents in the region are saddened that Mandarin has become the dominant language of their children.
Read the article below about the Tibetan language in Tibet.
Complete the sentences below with NO MORE than TWO WORDS from the article.
In the 2010s, _____________ led to the use of Mandarin in elementary schools.
Students' use of Tibetan has ____________ leading to less competence in the language.
Arya Tsewang Gyalpo believes that the reduction in the use of Tibetan language is a threat to Tibetan's ______________
Karma Tenzin believes that use of Mandarin in schools has the effect of alienating ________ from their cultural heritage.
A 2020 Human Rights Watch report identified that _____________ have been pressurized to give preference to classroom instruction in Chinese.
Recently, Tibetan nationalists have been setting up ________________ which are often considered illegal by the authorities.
Instruction in Mandarin has been in effect in most middle and high schools in the region since the 1960s, but in the 2010s, many elementary schools and even kindergartens began teaching in Mandarin due to the educational policies of the regional government.
The switch to Mandarin in primary and middle schools has resulted in reduced competency in Tibetan due to diminished usage. Outside of school, often students can be heard using Chinese instead of Tibetan in their daily conversations. Furthermore, at school, children tend to get better grades in Chinese and other subjects, with little care or attention to Tibetan.
Arya Tsewang Gyalpo, the spokesman for the Central Tibetan Administration, believes that the waning use of Tibetan language in education is leading to a loss of national identity for the Tibetan people. “The current Chinese education policy in Tibet violates both China’s Regional Ethic Autonomy Law and the Tibetan Autonomous Regional Law,” he believes Article 36 of China’s Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law states that autonomous agencies in ethnic autonomous areas have the right to make decisions about education, including “the language used in instruction,” but only “in accordance with state guidelines on education and in accordance with the law.”
In neighboring India, Karma Tenzin, a researcher at the Dharamsala-based Tibet Policy Institute, asserts that Mandarin instruction in Tibetan schools is meant to achieve the Chinese government's aim of structural change in the region, stating that “It further erodes and marginalizes Tibetan culture and language and disengages Tibetan youth from their own culture and tradition.
A 2020 report by Human Rights Watch details a growing emphasis on Chinese-language schooling in Tibet, calling the trend “an assimilationist policy for minorities that has gained momentum under President Xi Jinping’s leadership.” Drawn from interviews conducted with Tibetan parents and teachers in six rural townships in the Tibet Autonomous Region, the 91-page report reveals a pattern of pressure on local schools to give preference to classroom instruction in Chinese, even at the kindergarten level.
Language rights have become a particular focus for Tibetan nationalists who informally organized language courses typically deemed “illegal associations” and teachers subject to detention and arrest, sources say.
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