Making Water Flow Uphill

If some people have started speaking the language of wider communication, we in the Bible translation world are often affronted. 'Why would they desert their mother tongue for such a (boring?) language? We must encourage them back to the true path!' After all, we have believed our own publicity about the need for Scripture in the so-called heart language (people often have several of these).

So, why is it people start speaking these lingua francas?

Often it's a desire for education, self-improvement, and for a better job. Their parents may have put them in a school where the LWC was used. It's not that the children dislike their mother tongue, they just see it as the language they spoke to Mummy and Daddy before they started school and learnt their grown up language.

What should we do about this? Try and encourage them to revert to their mother tongue? That would be like trying to make water flow uphill.

Instead we need to recognise the language shift that is occurring, and produce bilingual Apps and so on that have both the LWC and the MT. The function of the latter is partly identity, and partly so they can share the App with folk back in the village. In other words we need to go with the flow on this one. It might be against our better (earlier?) nature, but it's the right thing to do.

LWC - language of wider communication e.g. French, Spanish, Russian, Classical Arabic
MT - mother tongue
Lingua Franca - a widely spoken language, usually used for trade, education, or diplomacy

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