Multilingualism – the use of two or more languages within a polity – is often seen by governments as an impediment, if not a threat, to nation-building and national identity. In promoting official language(s), many governments, therefore, discourage, even oppose, the use of minority languages. The hostility towards the use of Spanish in the US, lack of government support for Cantonese in Hong Kong, and the state-led suppression of Urdu in India exemplify this ideology.
The spread of the pandemic COVID-19 and the measures to tackle it, however, challenges monolingual ideologies and practices of governments because the degree of success in fighting the outbreak depends substantially on the dissemination of correct information in different languages. Many governments, who otherwise have aggressively implemented monolingual policies, have taken recourse to minority languages to spread awareness about the pandemic. The availability of knowledge in the languages of the people not only ensures that the message is not misunderstood due to a poor level of command of the official language but also creates trust, which increases the likelihood of acceptance.
Roots of monolingualism
The roots of the monolingual state ideology trace back to 19th century European nationalism in which language, nation (as a cultural unit), and country (as a political unit) were considered coterminous. Until the arrivals of guest workers after World War II and more recent migrant and refugees from Asia and Africa, European countries such as Germany, Spain, France, and England were “good” examples of this model in which language, the people, and the country coincided. In order to give authenticity and credibility to such a conception of a nation-state, histories of languages were created to show that they had existed for centuries. An example of this is the use of the term “Old English” to refer to the language spoken in England before the Norman conquest, which is barely comprehensible to modern English speakers. The term “Old English” created a sense of history and continuity for English, which was used to legitimize the monolingual ideology. During the Indian national movement, literatures produced in other languages such as Braj Bhasha, were couched under the Hindi language in order to give it some historical legitimacy. This European monolingual state ideology gradually spread to become part of many other state policies.
In the USA, where till World War I multilingual activities including those in German, Spanish, and French were accepted, English emerged as a defining characteristic of being American. This was accompanied by hostility towards other languages and English became not only a dominant mode of communication between immigrants of different ethnic origins but also an insignia of patriotism and loyalty to America. This ideology of equating language with state loyalty became quite manifest in cases of discrimination against Muslims following 9/11. For example, a passenger on a Southwest Airline flight was kicked off because he uttered the Arabic expressions Insha Allah, God willing, on the plane.
A very grotesque expression of equating language with patriotism and loyalty surfaced in Delhi in 2016 when some members of the right-wing RSS approached artists who were writing an Urdu couplet on a wall as part of Delhi government’s #MyDilliStory campaign and ordered them to stop writing in Urdu and forced them write the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name over it. They also asked them to go to Pakistan. The members of the RSS said they could tolerate anything but the Urdu script. To them Urdu, a language spoken in India by Muslims, is a sign of lack of patriotism.
Communicative Function of Language
In sociolinguistics literature, the function of language as a carrier of social meanings such as national identity, loyalty, and patriotism is referred to as indexical. The function of language to convey ideas, such as the one I am doing right now, is referred to as communicative function. With regard to COVID-19, it has become clear that the best way to fight its outbreak is to make people aware of how it spreads and how it can be stopped.
There are two major linguistic challenges in containing the spread of virus. The first is the dissemination of information about preventive measures to all people in their own languages, i.e. mother tongues. The second is countering misinformation about its spread and prevention.
The presence of multiple languages within a country could create a communication barrier with devastating consequences for the country as a whole. Many minority groups within a country may not have a good command of the official language and therefore may misunderstand the message in the official language. The hygiene and health information must therefore be made available in all major languages.
Multilingual health communication in Qatar
Qatar, with a population of only 2.6 million, is linguistically an extremely diverse country because Arabic-speaking Qatari citizens constitute only about 10% of the population. The remaining 90% come from many countries, including a large number from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Pakistan. The official language of Qatar is Arabic, but English is widely used. However, a large number of the expatriate population consists of workers who neither know Arabic nor English (Dubai has a similar linguistic profile).
The communication of health information therefore is quite a challenge. In addition to Arabic and English, Qatar’s Ministry of Public Health made the decision to create handouts and posters in Bangla, Urdu, Hindi, Tagalog, Tamil, Nepalese, Sinhalese, and Malayalam. These handouts are available on the website and on social media platforms such as Twitter.
Related to the language barrier is the issue of literacy. Many workers from South Asia are either illiterate or semi-literate and therefore an alternative media that they can understand was needed. In addition to the written posters, the Ministry also made the message available in a video format in the above-mentioned languages of the expatriates. Although a study is needed to assess how effective these measures were, there is hardly any doubt that the Government made serious efforts to use the multilingual resources to reach out to different language groups living in Qatar.
The availability of information in the languages of the people has another positive aspect. It increases the chances of acceptance of the message. Dr Yu Lha has shown that health information available in Chinese was not helpful, especially to elderly people in her village located in Tibetan regions of western Sichuan province. The community effort to translate the message in the local languages helped significantly in conveying the precautionary measures needed to arrest the spread of the virus.
Countering misinformation
The second challenge in fighting the pandemic is countering misinformation circulating, inter alia, on the social media platforms. In India, this has been a huge challenge as in addition to WhatsApp messages the sources of misinformation are sometimes the elected members of the parliament. In fact, the Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Ashwini Kumar Choubey told reporters that staying in the sun for 10-15 minutes every day could be helpful. Another example of misinformation in India with severe economic consequence is that the virus spreads from the poultry. This led to a huge plunge in the retail price of chickens which led to cases of suicide of farmers. Both the misinformation and fake news about the virus can only be dealt with effectively by deploying all linguistic resources to reach out to the people.
Whether it is the challenge of disseminating correct information or dealing with the challenges of misinformation or fake news about COVID-19, multilingualism must be used as a resource to reach out to the people in languages they understand and trust. Along with other tools such as medical, clearly language is an important and effective one in our fight against the pandemic.
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This post provides great insight into the reality of multilingual/multicultural societies. There are many articles with regards to the importance of reserving and promoting cultures and languages of all ethnicity group regardless the population of group speaking those languages, and yet this pandemic proves that in reality it doesn’t happen as scholars would hope for it to be. Unfortunately, I have witnessed how some minority groups have missed out on important health messages in some parts of Africa and Middle East. If one thing is to be learned from this year, I hope it is that we cherish equality of all cultural groups regardless their population, and practise even in our small linguistic group, to make sure when times are difficult, people can find comfort and necessary information and resources in their own language regardless where they live!
Thank you, Dr Rizwan, for a very insightful post about the monolingual mindset of nation-states, and how this mindset impacts the effective communication of important health information.
Hi Laura,
Re: the tweet for Sinhala – I’m wondering if the (Sri Lankan language) in brackets is a way to get the attention of local employers of Sri Lankan guest workers (mainly domestic and construction). The guest workers might not usually access tweets from the Ministry of Health. Therefore the description is for the benefit of English literate employers to pass on the video to their Sri Lankan staff – assuming those staff are Sinhala speakers and not speakers of another Sri Lankan language like Tamil!
But then the other tweets like the one for Malayalam don’t have a similar description about the language, so not sure. Also, the Sinhala tweet does not have a written English introduction for the video like the other ones – can’t read Arabic so not sure what the Sign language tweet says. Interesting that the top 3 tweets (Urdu, Malayalam, Tagalog) all note the name of the male doctors in their English intros but don’t see the same for the two posts featuring women in the Sinhala and French tweets!
Thanks Rizwan, for this interesting overview.
Hi Niru,
Belated reply to say yes! that makes sense! A practical consideration 🙂 But as you say, it’s funny that it’s inconsistent. Maybe someone different wrote the accompanying text for each of the translations? Interesting observation re gender!!
Again this post shows today’s nation state is far removed from its former multilingual texture. Since I was reading A History of Arab Peoples recently this contrast struck me first.
Also, once again I was amazed by the resurfacing of multilingual undercurrents in the time of pandemic which certainly acts as a liminal stage not just for individuals but also for the whole sociocultural fabric of society! Hope that after this liminality we incorporate what we learned and experienced into the new yet mundane flow of life, for instance reinserting multilingual services into heretofore neglected spheres.
This is a good point. Just wanted to add that multilingualism has started to establish itself, and there is evidence of that from much before Covid19. I have written about use of expatriate languages in Kuwait. It remains to be seen if the recent experiences including the post-Covid ones will (or will not) help strengthen multilingual practices.
Thanks Dr Rizwan for this interesting discussion. It’s great to see that monolingual language policy is being challenged by the current pandemic, and thanks for including a bit of background and examples about how this monolingual mindset and equation of one nation-one language can undermine or clash with multilingual activities.
I noticed in the image of the Twitter videos that there are some inequalities between the different languages. Only the French and Arabic ones have text in their respective languages. The others all have English text, and all have hashtags in English/Arabic only. I wonder if this has impacts on how well they are accessed by their target audiences. Other than that, I wonder the indexical value of this divide – are certain languages more valued/legitimate in the digital world? Or is it simply a matter of the linguistic profile of the staff responsible for the Twitter account? Also, for the Sinhala one, putting in brackets (Sri Lankan language) suggests that there are multiple audiences for this post (including some who are literate in English but unaware that Sinhala is a Sri Lankan language). This makes me wonder about the symbolic value of this/these Tweet(s). As well as communicating practical information, do the tweets also help perform/demonstrate certain desirable qualities, eg. a government department that is inclusive? Just some thoughts!
I’m also wondering, did these/similar videos appear in other media, like on television, or in audio versions of local radio?
Thanks, Laura! You are raising some important questions. It’s very hard, if not impossible, to challenge entrenched language regimes at the height of a crisis like the current pandemic. Efforts such as these are a step in the right direction but still heavily constrained by monolingual ideologies, linguistic expertise and capacity, as well as a one-size-fits-all approach (not all language communities have the same needs; so it’s not enough to simply translate the same information over and over again into various languages; we also need to consider literacy levels, specific information needs, etc.)
Unless they are exceptionally well-prepared, no one will get their multilingual communication right this time but what the pandemic does is put linguistic diversity on the agenda: not only for inclusion in disaster preparation, response and recovery plans but into everyday procedures and processes to ensue equitable access.
Thanks Ingrid and Laura for your insightful observations regarding the asymmetrical relationship between different languages. I agree with Ingrid that centuries of monolithic language ideologies are not easy to change. I will give you an example of how entrenched sixth an ideology is in the Arab world. With reference to multilingual countries such as India and Pakistan, many of my UG students will often say ‘Fatima speaks Pakistani’ and ‘Ali speaks Indian’. You can see the ideology of equating languages with nation dates in action in such statements. I will keep these points in mind as I work through the data. Thanks agains for your observations.
Thank you for this insightful post. Multilingual health communication has become even more imperative during this pandemic, and sociolinguits have an important contribution to make in highlighting where and how multilingualism is being utilised. Laura’s observation sparked my interest so I had a quick look at the Ministry of Public Health’s twitter account and offical webpage.
I was surprised to find that the Twitter videos (images above) have not been reposted since mid-March. Both the twitter account and the website are predominantly in Arabic and English, with the exception of two Malayalam posts which were retweeted in early April. Perhaps this speaks to the accounts’ perceived audience or the underlying linguistic ideologies? Like Laura, I wonder which alternative online platforms are being used to disseminate the provided multlingual health communication? The question then arises: where and how do various linguistic communities seek health information in their languages?
Moving on to the official website, there is a link to a designated Covid-19 website which is available in four languages: Arabic, English, Malayalam and Hindi. Clicking through these pages, it’s interesting that most government issued educational materials have not been translated. On the Malayalam and Hindi webpages, the posters have captions in the relevant languages, yet the actual posters are only available for download in bilingual Arabic/English (example here: https://www.moph.gov.qa/english/Pages/Educational-hMaterials.aspx). These observations speak to what Prof Piller commented above regarding how difficult it is to serve multilingual communities’ needs and that translation in itself may not be enough. For comparison, a quick look at the Australian Department of Health’s website reveals a similar picture. There is a page with translated resources – interestingly, each of the 36 available languages listed have varying numbers of resources that have been translated, ranging from 1-32 translated documents (https://www.health.gov.au/resources/translated). The Department’s youtube channel includes videos which were provided by SBS, a public multicultural and multilingual broadcaster, in various languages, yet the videos’ titles and descriptions are all in English (https://www.youtube.com/user/healthgovau/search?query=%22information+from+SBS%22). Again, this leads me to wonder how individuals, who may not be proficient in the dominant language(s) access multilingual health communication resources where they’re made available?
tre bona laboro = a very good job in the International language Esperanto.
Renato Corsetti form Italy and UK
I was drawn to this post from Language on the Move because I believe in the importance of having resources in multiple languages to inform the maximum number of people about the dangers of Covid-19 as well as the ways to protect themselves from the virus. However, I was dismayed at the author’s inclusion in this post of an alleged incident targeting Muslims. I refer to this paragraph:
“A very grotesque expression of equating language with patriotism and loyalty surfaced in Delhi in 2016 when some members of the right-wing RSS approached artists who were writing an Urdu couplet on a wall as part of Delhi government’s #MyDilliStory campaign and ordered them to stop writing in Urdu and forced them write the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name over it. They also asked them to go to Pakistan. The members of the RSS said they could tolerate anything but the Urdu script. To them Urdu, a language spoken in India by Muslims, is a sign of lack of patriotism.”
While Islamophobia is vile and needs to be challenged, including what seems to be a rant about RSS led acts against Urdu seems irrelevant to this post on multilingual resources being key to fighting Covid-19. Worse it represents only a partial picture of what the #MyDilliStory entailed. In fact #MyDilliStory could be seen as a celebration of multilingualism because inhabitants of Delhi were encouraged to tweet their thoughts and feelings on Delhi in multiple languages, including Urdu. However, the author omits any contextual information, choosing to create an incomplete picture of intolerance and hatred of Urdu, and Muslims, in Delhi. When writing for a global audience, it is important to take care to represent the whole story rather than skewing it to suit one’s agenda. The inclusion of that paragraph is a jarring note that diminishes the value of this post.
The reference to Urdu was in the context of how the right-wing BJP government treats Urdu, which is an element of much-celebrated Indian multilingualism. This incident Must be seen within a larger phenomenon involving aggressive acts that target Urdu including renaming of places with Urdu/Muslim names. I would like to bring to your attention also the demand by an RSS member to purge NCERT textbooks of Urdu words.
I agree with you that there was not much context to the defacing of Urdu signs in Delhi, but I hope you understand that in a short piece like this one, it was not possible to delineate the context fully. I have discussed this in greater detail elsewhere, and I would be more than happy to share with you when it is out.