Is It Possible for English-Mongolian Bilingualism?

Seven years ago, President Ts.Elbegdorj shocked Mongolians by announcing that the nation would become bilingual, with English as the second language.


Mongolian is a relatively small language, landlocked between two international giants, Russian and Chinese. As Elbegdorj pointed, English would be the definitive tool to open windows on the wider world.

The model for this process would be Singapore. The city-state officially uses English besides three other languages, Malay, Chinese, and Tamil.

Although the idea seems attractive and laudable, it has been doomed from the very beginning. If there is an unforeseen and unexpected event, Mongolia will never be an English-Mongolian bilingual country.

Bilingualism stems from need, not from law. A look to the history and situation of some really bilingual countries can give us a glimpse of how this phenomenon works.

A British citizen founded Singapore in 1819. From its very beginning it was a British possession with English as the only official language of a thousand Malays and a few dozens of Chinese. The flourishing economy attracted thousands of workers from different Asian countries. Those newcomers integrated into city life using English, which, besides being the only language of the Crown, became also the ‘lingua franca’ of all the ethnics groups. That way, Malays, Chinese, Indians, etc. continued to talk their native tongues at home or with those of their regions, but interacted in English with the rest of the population. That situation produced the modern Singaporean bilingualism.

Some other countries, like Wales, Ireland, Catalonia, the Basque Country, or even Inner Mongolia were conquered or dominated by foreign powers. The invaders, English, Spaniards and French, and Han, in those cases, imposed their languages.

Children were often discriminated if they used their native language, adults were beaten or imprisoned if they spoke Welsh, Gaelic, Catalan, or Basque, as was the case of the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. Moreover, the invasion was followed by a colonization; large numbers of settlers who did not speak and did not want to learn the local languages were moved to the new countries. The result was again, bilingualism: many locals lost their languages, and those who preserved it, knew the language of the invaders as well.

But Mongolia has none of those backgrounds. Ordinary people do not need to speak English at all. People can buy in Mongolian, watch TV in Mongolian, read in Mongolian, sing in Mongolian, and play in Mongolian. There is not an English speaking Government that imposes its language to the rest of the population. There is not a 20% or 30% of the population who are English. Mongolians are not losing their language because international pressure.

Different is the case of Bayan Olgii, were most of its inhabitants are bilingual or even multilingual. They use Kazakh, Mongolian, and Russian. There is a need: Kazakhs need to speak Mongolian because it is the language of the country. Mongolians need to speak Kazakh because they are majority in the region. Many people of both ethnic groups can speak Russian because of the close contact that the area has with Kazakhstan and Russia and their isolation from the rest of Mongolia.

This is not the first time that bilingualism has been a goal for Mongolia. Last century Stalin’s policies tried to create Russian-Mongolian bilingualism. The first step was the adoption of a new alphabet, the Cyrillic one. Afterwards their came schools in Russian, and uncountable examples of propaganda to speak the language. However, Mongolians did not need Russian at all, and all they could learn was broken Russian, a handful of words, and structures with a terrible pronunciation. Mongolia never became bilingual.

Seven years after President Elbegdorj’s words, bilingualism in Mongolia is still a project. The majority of people who are able to speak English well are those who have been living in any English speaking country. There are but a few fluent speakers who have never trod on any foreign land, but it does not make a country to be bilingual. For Mongolians, English is the same as for Europeans is Arabic or for Americans is Spanish: an important language spoken by millions of foreigners in which everybody can say a couple of words. Just that.

Maybe, what is behind the intention of the Government is not creating a bilingual country. Is it not the desire of standing out of the Sino-Russian orbit?

Source : Ub Post

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