by Thomas C. Mountain
Eritrea, a small nation on the African coast of the Red Sea, is home to six million people speaking nine different languages. Despite punishing sanctions imposed by western imperialism, Eritrea has made sure that young people from all nine language groups can read and write in their Mother Tongue, so that their cultures will survive.
Preventing Cultural Genocide with the Mother Tongue Policy in Eritrea
by Thomas C. Mountain
“Many of the languages that remain are threatened because the children of these ethnic groups are not literate in their mother tongue.”
The small east African nation of Eritrea has implemented the Mother Tongue policy nationwide to prevent cultural genocide within its nine different ethnic groups.
This is done by educating all children in tribal environments in their mother tongue until literacy at grade 5. By making sure that the ethnic minorities learn to read and write in their mother tongue the Eritrean Government is making sure that their culture survives, as well, for without one’s language one cannot practice your culture.
Historically, destroying peoples’ mother tongue is the means used to carry out a policy of cultural genocide with many thousands of dialects having disappeared during the western colonial and neo colonial era. Today many of the languages that remain are threatened because the children of these ethnic groups are not literate in their mother tongue, which will almost inevitably leads to the loss of their identity, their language and their culture.
It hasn’t been easy for Eritrea, hammered by global warming droughts and economically disadvantaged due to western inflicted sanctions and embargoes. With nine tribes with nine languages, some of which have never had a written form, the challenge of implementing the Mother Tongue policy for all our tribes has been hard work.
It has been well over a decade that the policy has become the practice nationwide and the next generation of Eritrean youth from all our nine tribes are now literate in their mother tongue, a policy the whole world needs to adopt.
Thomas C. Mountain is an independent journalist in Eritrea, living and reporting from here since 2006. His speeches, interviews and articles can be seen on Facebook at thomascmountain and he can best be reached at thomascmountain at g mail dot com
This week, two scholars provide an analysis of the 2024 presidential election. We talk about Project 2025, the conservative manifesto being used to save Joe Biden’s re-election, and how it should be…
Dr. Anthony Monteiro joins us from Philadelphia to talk about the 2024 presidential election, the aftermath of the Trump and Biden debate, and the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
We talk to Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly about the 2024 presidential election, the controversy surrounding Project 2025, and Joe Biden’s physical health - topics worthy of discussion that must be…
The words “political violence” are the latest hackneyed and dishonest phrase emanating from the political class. The assassination attempt on Donald Trump was a minor affair compared to the treatment…
Martyred Black Panther, George Jackson told us long ago that fascism has been the de facto political state of the US for some time. Today we can clearly see that both Trump and Biden are, quite…
