By Gurmukh Singh

Date:14-01-05

Source: Hindustan Times

Tamil and Punjabi are the only two Indian languages which have been given official recognition abroad. In Singapore, Tamil, along with Malay, Chinese and English, is one of the four official languages of the island-nation. The language is a very visible part of the cityscape in Singapore. Even coins carry denominations in Tamil.

In neighbouring Malaysia, Tamil is one of the top three languages.

Well, what the Tamil language has achieved in South-East Asia, Punjabi is on the way of acquiring in Canada where it is already the sixth largest spoken language. In fact, in the two important Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Ontario, it is the third largest spoken language!

If you happen to fly by Air Canada, you won't miss odd instructions in Punjabi.

And in British Columbia, where Punjabis constitute about eight per cent of the province's population of about four million, efforts are under way to seek 'Canadian' status for this language.

And spearheading the campaign is the Punjabi Language Education Association (PLEA) of British Columbia.

"Punjabis have been in Canada for more than 100 years now. If we are accepted as part and parcel of this society, why not our language?" asks PLEA president Balwant Sanghera, who is also a winner of Order of British Columbia and a community leader.

English and French are the two official languages in this country of 32 million. And other major spoken tongues such as Punjabi, Chinese, Japanese, German and Spanish are termed 'foreign' languages.

"We are roping in other ethnic groups like Chinese to put pressure on authorities to give a better deal to minority languages. If we are not foreigners in this country, why should our languages be deemed 'foreign' in our country?" he argues.

The association is celebrating International Mother Language Day on February 20 as a promotional day for Punjabi. "On that day, we will have a open-house meeting on the importance of Punjabi in Canadian multicultural society. Jinny Sims, who is the president of the British Columbia Teachers' Federation and backing our cause, is attending that meeting," says this retired BC school psychologist.

Many believe once the language is deemed 'Canadian,' federal funding will help its promotion. "Because of the arrivals of new Punjabi immigrants, there are hundreds of jobs in banks, government departments, hospitals and offices where Punjabi-language trained people are needed in this province. Once we have funding and regular teaching, we will have the skilled people to fill up these jobs. Government funding will help us publish books, create libraries and train teachers," says PLEA vice-president Sadhu Vinning who also teaches Punjabi at the University of British Columbia.

In British Columbia, Punjabi was recognised as a second language in public schools in 1994. "Which means it can be taught as an full subject from Grade 5 to 12," adds Vinning.

In the city of Surrey, which is the largest municipality in Canada and where Punjabis constitute about 30 per cent of the 400,000-strong population, it is taught in many schools.

"Take any major city in this province, and you will have a school teaching Punjabi. In the capital city of Victora, Abbotsford, Richmond, Williams Lake, etc, we have Punjabi-teaching schools. We are urging school boards to teach it in more school during school hours with a proper curriculum," says Sanghera.

Vancouver-based world-famous University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University are the two Canadian universities offering Punjabi courses.

"We teach basic, intermediate and advanced courses and each course is of one-year duration. We have up to 100 students in a year," says Vinning whose book No More Watno Dur was the first bilingual poetry collection published in Canada.

In the University College of Fraser Valley, Punjabi is taught as a credit course. Amazingly, there are about a dozen Punjabi language weeklies and three radio stations in Vancouver. The newly started Multivision Channel daily devotes an hour to Punjabi news. "We have a half-hour news bulletin on weekdays, and a special program on Sunday," says Kulvinder Kular of Multivision Channel.

City halls, transport, hospitals, offices and banks issue instructions in Punjabi as well as in other five languages.

Curiously, there are over 100 Punjabi writers, poets and authors in this province. "Many of them write not only in Punjabi but also in Hindi and English. They are members of the Writers Union of Canada that has writers like Margaret Atwood as its members. Which has helped spread awareness about Punjabi in the mainstream society," says Ajmer Rode of the Punjabi Writers' Forum.

In Toronto, Punjabi comes after English and Italian as the third largest spoken language. "We have 10 Punjabi weeklies and as many radio stations," says Kuldip Deepak who in 1977 started Canada's first Punjabi radio program Punjab Di Gunj which raised $37,000 for tsunami relief in just two hours last week.

"With the UN recognising Punjabi among the top 11 languages with 150 million speakers in 120 countries, there is no reason why we shouldn't seek Punjabi the status it deserves in Canada," says Sanghera.