Tamazight in Rotterdam
Migrant languages and Dutch schooling after 2004
This event is part of a demonstration of what Lera offers for running knowledge events. Its content is written with care and draws on real sources, but the conference has not taken place, and apart from the convener its participants are fictional.
From 1970 the Dutch state funded teaching in the language and culture of the country of origin for the children of migrant workers. In 1998 this teaching took a more formal shape under a new law, and on 1 August 2004 its funding was cut. The government's argument was plain: priority goes to learning Dutch. From then on, the home language of a migrant child became, at best, something done outside school hours and, at worst, an obstacle to "integration".
The story of children of Moroccan descent holds a bitter irony. Most of the families who came from the Rif to Rotterdam and Amsterdam spoke Tarifit at home, one of the varieties of Tamazight. But what they were usually taught in those very home-language classes was Standard Arabic, a language that was neither the language of home nor the language of the Dutch school. Tamazight became an official language in Morocco's constitution in 2011, but it never found a place in the Dutch school.
The result is a generation that understands the language of its grandparents but cannot read or write it, and that writes the language of school but is always counted a "newcomer" in it. The studies of Extra and Yağmur (2004 and 2012) have shown that Europe's large cities are multilingual in practice, but that their education policies treat this multilingualism as a deficit rather than an asset. A child who speaks French and German is "bilingual"; a child who speaks Tamazight and Dutch has "a language problem".
My argument is that this double standard is a matter of politics, not of pedagogy. A Europe that in its official documents asks every citizen to learn two languages besides their mother tongue cannot ignore the mother tongue of millions of its own citizens. My concrete proposal is to bring the teaching of home languages back into the school curriculum, with trained teachers and open textbooks, and to recognise Tamazight by the name its speakers call it.
Questions for discussion
- Why is the multilingualism of a European child counted as an asset and that of a migrant child as a deficit?
- If home-language teaching returns to school, which languages will be chosen, and by what criterion?
- What can local institutions such as libraries and neighbourhood centres do that the school does not?
References
Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal. 2003. Beëindiging bekostiging onderwijs in allochtone levende talen. Kamerstuk 29019, nr. 3 (Memorie van toelichting).
Extra, Guus, and Kutlay Yağmur, eds. 2004. Urban Multilingualism in Europe: Immigrant Minority Languages at Home and School. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Extra, Guus, and Kutlay Yağmur, eds. 2012. Language Rich Europe: Trends in Policies and Practices for Multilingualism in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press / British Council.