The young Panjabi speech community in Glasgow

Mahendra Verma

Fri. 2:00-4:05 C

This paper will report the preliminary research findings of the investigation into the attitudes and motivation of the learners of Panjabi in Glasgow, Scotland. School, community and family are generally regarded as the main contributors to the sustenance and support of the heritage languages of the minority (in particular, the non-indigenous) children. In view of the incoherent and often contradictory, and also monolingual, ethnocentric nature of the central government's minority language policies, the local education authorities, schools and teachers generally offer inadequate response to the heritage language needs of the (potentially) bilingual Asian children. The national curriculum for languages other than English in England and Wales does not offer sustainable strategies to help the minority children in the maintenance and development of their heritage languages. The situation in the Scottish curriculum is no different. In this paper we will examine the patterns of language use among a small sample of young learners of Panjabi, who received language instruction in the community schools in Glasgow. The community language support is an important commitment on part of the adult Asian immigrants. The concept of the community language school is an interesting development. The weekend or twilight classes are held in gurdwras, community centres, often in the homes of the teachers, and in state schools. This research is part of an on-going larger research in the linguistic situation of Asian minority communities in Great Britain.