Oman's national unity racks up high cultural costs as local languages fall silent - Al-... - 0 views
www.al-monitor.com/...-under-risk-of-extinction.html
Oman language languages culture identities nationalism
shared by Ed Webb on 26 May 21
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In Oman, the Gulf Cooperation Council country with the greatest linguistic diversity, eight of the country’s 10 languages are threatened or dying
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the minority languages in Oman belong to three families: the Indo-Iranian Kumzari, Lawati (also known as Khojki), Zadjali and Balochi; the Modern South Arabian Harsusi, Bathari, Hobyot, Mehri and Jabbali; and the Bantu language Swahili. Only Balochi and Swahili have enough world speakers to be considered safe from extinction.
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Some of the risks these languages face are due to the structural reforms — mainly in the field of education — instigated by Sultan Qaboos bin Said for the last five decades to promote national unity over a constellation of identities scattered across the state, with an emphasis on language. Ever since a coup orchestrated by British intelligence in July 1970 overthrew Sultan Qaboos’s father, Sultan Said bin Taimur, the state's official language, Arabic, has been a key element of this newly crafted Omani identity.
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Oman's efforts to increase literacy rates have further strengthened the use of Arabic as the language of education. Other mother tongues were not included in the curricula, even as secondary languages, in the regions where they were widely used. It hastened the decline of local languages, as their use became limited to the family and local community. As the number of public schools has grown steadily from one in 1951 to more than 1,100 in 2017, Al Jahdhami reports an "intense exposure to Arabic" among the youth and a shift toward the language.
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the young generations simply ask, “What would I learn this for?” because outside of the home, Arabic is the predominant means of communication
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Across Oman's Dhofar mountain range, between 25,000 and 50,000 people who belong to different tribes and clans speak Jabbali (or Shehri), which literally means "the language of the mountain." However, although the youth are proud of having a language of their own, with its colorful vocabulary for nature and the mountains, their language proficiency is much lower than that of the older generations. This is partly because the young generation, educated in Arabic, employs a mixture of Jabbali and Arabic. Furthermore, the internet and TV — whose content is predominantly if not exclusively in Arabic — are aggravating the loss of linguistic skills among young Omanis.
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In the north, the tribal community in the village of Kumzar tries to hold on to its language, Kumzari. At 5,000 speakers, UNESCO considers Kumzari severely endangered. It is a Southwestern Iranian language that is heavily influenced by Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Hindi and English.
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To save ancestral traditions and reach out to Kanim’s tech-savvy generation, a Dhofar-born singer has chosen to broadcast his Jabbali music on YouTube.
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a project led by the Ministry of Heritage and Culture is researching the languages spoken in the sultanate and another, by the Department of Culture at Oman’s Royal Court, is working on Oman's dead languages — ones that no longer have any speakers
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Local and international academics are working to document those languages before their remains disappear entirely, mainly in Dhofar and in the mountainous peninsula of Musandam, which overlooks the Strait of Hormuz.