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Introduction

Local Languages and Education in Southeast Asia: Framing the Special Issue

Langues locales et éducation en Asie du Sud-Est : cadrer le numéro spécial
Nicolas Salem-Gervais
p. 7-25

Résumés

Cet article est une introduction au numéro 45 de Moussons, consacré aux langues locales dans le secteur de l’éducation en Asie du Sud-Est. Cette région étant caractérisée par sa diversité, notamment sur le plan linguistique, les questions liées aux langues locales s’y posent avec une grande acuité, particulièrement dans la perspective de leurs places dans les systèmes éducatifs. Les enjeux autours de ces choix de politiques linguistiques scolaires sont multiples et cruciaux : (1) préservation de la diversité linguistique et culturelle, (2) accès à l’éducation des minorités ethniques, et (3) implications politiques et identitaires en matière de constructions nationales. Après un point sur la terminologie et quelques considérations sur la diversité linguistique en Asie du Sud-Est, nous détaillons les arguments en faveur de l’introduction des langues locales dans l’éducation formelle, les différentes modalités possibles de leur utilisation, et les multiples défis qui peuvent se dresser sur la route de ces politiques. Nous concluons cette introduction par une brève présentation des six contributions – traitant du Cambodge, de l’Indonésie, du Laos, du Myanmar, des Philippines et de Singapour – qui composent ce numéro.

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I would like to thank the colleagues and reviewers who contributed to certain sections or provided valuable comments on earlier drafts. The views and analysis presented here, as well as any remaining inaccuracies or errors, are solely my own.

1This special issue of Moussons is dedicated to local languages in education across Southeast Asia, a region widely characterized by its diversity, including in linguistic terms. Although numerical estimates dealing with languages inevitably involve certain limitations and shortcomings (which will be briefly discussed in this introduction), the comprehensive database Ethnologue maintained by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) does provide useful orders of magnitude. According to this database, out of 7,150+ living languages worldwide as of 2025, approximately 1,370 “living indigenous languages” are spoken by more than 685 million people in Southeast Asia.1

2Through contributions dealing with six of Southeast Asia’s eleven countries—Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Singapore—the present issue of Moussons explores the relations between linguistic diversity and education policies. It considers implications on several critical issues, which include (1) the preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity, (2) access to (quality) education, and (3) the strengthening of national cohesions.

About Terminology

3The expression “local languages” has been chosen for this issue’s title to designate languages spoken in specific regions or by particular groups within Southeast Asian countries. National languages and the languages of former colonial powers are thus not the main focus here, although they are, of course, critically relevant for understanding the relative situations and statuses of these “local languages.”

4Contributors to this special issue have made different choices in terminology to designate and describe local languages. These choices are influenced by their own preferences and perspectives, as well as by established expressions in the different countries of Southeast Asia. While the diversity of these expressions and their implications are of interest, for a general framing of the topic in this introduction we have opted for the expression “local languages.” This designation—which, outside of specific national terminologies, can be roughly equated with “regional languages”—has been employed by several scholars in similar contexts, including within Southeast Asia (see, for example, Kosonen 2008; Sun & Goh 2023). In our view, this expression offers the advantage of being less ideologically charged than some of the more commonly used alternatives.

  • 2 In this article—while acknowledging that the distinction is not an exact science—we adopt the conve (...)

5Among them, “ethnic languages” is possibly the most frequent, and arguably convenient in informal daily usage, but it is not scientifically sound—what would be a ‘non-ethnic’2 language? “Ethnic minority languages” appears to be more precise, but actors linked to these languages and identities often find the expression somewhat disempowering, as it could suggest that as ‘minorities’ they should adapt to the language policy choices relevant to the majority.

6In contrast, “indigenous people/languages” is commonly used, including in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People adopted in 2007 and in the more general context of rights-based advocacy. In our view, however, this designation presents the inconvenience of encouraging an explicit or implicit link between specific ethnolinguistic identities and particular sub-national territories. This connection can be especially problematic in regions that are diverse, disputed, or both, and may fuel complex issues and intractable controversies manifesting as ‘competitions’ towards indigeneity, through competing historical narratives and legitimacy claims over territories.

7The expression “non-dominant languages”—used by some authors working on education in Southeast Asia (see, for instance, Kosonen 2010; Perez 2019)—seems also unsatisfactory. In our opinion, it tends to encourage an overly simple dichotomy in contrast to languages deemed as “dominant,” overlooking the fact that the relative situation of a particular language can be dramatically different depending on the scope of the analysis. In other words, a language can be unquestionably ‘dominant’ in a specific local territory while being clearly ‘dominated’ by other languages on a broader scale, whether regionally, nationally or internationally.

8The concept of “mother tongue” as well as the related concepts of “first language” and “home language” are also commonly used in education research, census data collection, and advocacy. These concepts are indeed useful and meaningful, but depending on very diverse situations, their mobilization by different actors may contribute to overlooking the fact that children do not necessarily have a single ‘mother tongue.’ In some cases, they may be equally, differently, or even more proficient in the national language than in the language(s) associated with what is considered to be their ethnic identity(ies). Furthermore, there are situations where what is promoted as a “mother tongue”—often in contrast with a national language—may be a specific variety endorsed and promoted by particular actors and not necessarily the actual variety that all children enrolled in an education system, school, or classroom speak at home.

Language Diversity in Southeast Asia: A Few Key Considerations

  • 3 Useful references on this topic, each covering slightly different geographical scopes, include Enfi (...)

9A detailed description of the language diversity across the eleven countries generally considered as forming Southeast Asia (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor, and Vietnam) exceeds the scope of this introduction;3 nonetheless, a few comments appear relevant before proceeding to the relations between local languages and education.

  • 4 According to the International Monetary Fund, in 2024, the total populations of the eleven Southeas (...)

10These eleven countries differ greatly in terms of their physical features, surface areas and population. The smallest country, Singapore, has a surface area below 750 km2, and the least populated, Brunei, counts fewer than half a million inhabitants. The size and populations of these two countries represent only a small fraction of these features for most other southeast Asian nations. Indonesia, at the opposite extreme, is close to two million km2 and has more than 280 million inhabitants. Two other nations—the Philippines and Vietnam—have populations greater than 100 million and another two—Thailand and Myanmar—have more than 50 million.4

  • 5 The figures provided by Ethnologue for “living languages” in the eleven Southeast Asian countries, (...)

11The language situations within Southeast Asian countries are also extremely diverse, including in terms of the sheer number of languages spoken throughout. According to Ethnologue, in 2025 Cambodia is home to 21 “living indigenous languages” whereas Singapore only has two. Malaysia, Myanmar, and the Philippines each have well over one hundred, and Indonesia tops the list with more than 700.5

12The relative situations of these countries’ main or national languages are also extremely diverse when looking at the share of the population speaking them as their first language. Cambodia and Vietnam appear comparatively more homogenous, with respectively about 96% and 85% of their populations being native speakers of the national language.6 In contrast, similar estimates are below 50% in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Timor. Another basic (and admittedly still somewhat simplistic) indicator could be the ratio of “living indigenous languages” to the total population of each country. This suggests comparatively greater linguistic diversity in Brunei, Timor, and Laos compared to Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia, which lie at the other end of this approximate ranking. Taking into account the “non-indigenous languages” listed by Ethnologue slightly alters the order of this list, but does not significantly disrupt it, except for the position of Singapore, which stands as an outlier in “indigenous languages” terms.

13Though these general orders of magnitude are useful for beginning to understand the diversity of national landscapes in linguistic terms, it is at least equally important to keep in mind the multiple caveats involved in producing such figures. To begin with, the categorization and listing of “languages,” implicitly versus the notion of “dialects” (and including in terms of “indigenous” versus “non-indigenous”) entails significant methodological challenges and is inherently influenced to different extents by various political considerations, which are often debatable.

14Figures dealing with the proportion of native speakers of the main/national language(s) also tend to be problematic because, depending on the context, they may be based on the share of the population considered as belonging to the ‘ethnic majority,’ which is often a problematic notion and loosely defined category in itself. These figures may not include those who are de facto native speakers of the national language, regardless of how they ethnically self-identify. Varieties close to the national language—like in the case of Thailand’s Northern, Northeastern and Southern ‘dialects,’ which are still vigorous in their oral forms—could also be categorized in different fashions, merged with or distinct from the national language, while their speakers may or may not be equally or more familiar with the spoken and/or written forms of the national language since childhood.

15In a comparable manner to these numerical estimates, ethnolinguistic maps—such as the ones produced by Muturzikin7 or Worldgeodatasets8—are useful and compelling tools to envision the distribution of languages in a given country or region but also entail major shortcomings. These include the accuracy and currency of the data collected over vast regions, which is often questionable. Both of the aforementioned maps for Southeast Asia, for instance, seem to suggest that Mon is the primary language spoken in the Yangon area in Myanmar, which is incorrect (unless it is, for some reason, referring to a very distant past when this was the case).9

16Another issue of language mapping comes from the limitations of representing language diversity beyond a certain level, both in terms of number of shades and challenges of fine-grained representation. This leads to groupings and simplifications that are arbitrary to some extent, if not wholly debatable. As an example, different language mappings of mainland Southeast Asia, including the two aforementioned, merge or aggregate very differently diverse Tai/Thai/Lao/Shan varieties according to different categorizations, which are shaped not only by linguistic considerations but also by political representations and mapping constraints.

17Finally and perhaps even more profoundly, swathes of color on a map suggest linguistic homogeneity over a given territory, which poorly transposes actual language practices, such as dialectal variations and multilingualism. Although somewhat extreme and not representative of all situations across Southeast Asia, the example from Myanmar of a Kachin woman given by McCormick (2019: 246) offers a picture of multilingual complexity beyond the reach of mapping:

The case of the Kachin is illustrative: a “Kachin” woman may speak Lhaovo with her mother, Rawang with her father, Jinghpaw with other Kachin subgroups or in church, and Shan in the market, in addition to being educated in Burmese and English. Depending on the context, her languages and ethnic identities could include Lhaovo and Rawang, Jinghpaw or Kachin as a superordinate identity, and Burmese as a national identity, none of which can be reduced down to a single essential identity.

18Not only does this example provide a vivid and compelling illustration of the limitations of maps as conceptual tools to envision language practices over given territories, it also highlights the shortcomings of essentialist and rigid ‘one-to-one’ conceptions of single linguistic and ethnic identities for individuals, largely shaped by colonial understandings of societies. More often than not, senses of belonging and language practices of groups and individuals are indeed much more complex, heterogeneous, intertwined, multilayered, and fluid through space and time than the patches of color on an ‘ethnolinguistic’ map may suggest. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this particular example also explicitly points out education as one of the few key sites of language exposure and practice, and thus language-related stakes.

Why Introduce Local Languages in Formal Education?

19Advocacy towards introducing and using local languages in formal education—here widely understood as both public and non-state/private forms of structured schooling and higher education—typically revolves around three main arguments that will be briefly examined in the following paragraphs: (1) contributing to the preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity, (2) promoting access to (quality) education, and (3) strengthening national cohesions.

20Over the last few decades, parallel to the growing attention to the decline of global biodiversity, linguists and sociolinguists have attempted to raise awareness regarding the ongoing erosion process of language diversity (Nettle & Romaine 2000; Grinevald & Costa 2010). According to an Ethnologue estimate from 2022, roughly 44% of the 7,164 languages spoken throughout the world were endangered. Predictably, this threat is acute in linguistically diverse parts of the world such as Southeast Asia: in a similar 2016 estimate, 32.9% of the 1,247 living Southeast Asian languages were classified as “in trouble” and 9.1% as “dying” (Lewis, Simons & Fennig 2016). Some of the staunchest advocates of multilingual education have described the absence or scarcity of local languages in education as “one of the most important direct causal factors in this (process of) disappearance,” amounting to a form of “linguistic and/or cultural genocide” also depicted as a “crime against humanity” (Skutnabb-Kangas & Dunbar 2010). While other researchers discuss language-in-education policy issues in more nuanced terms, genuine shifts toward more inclusive policies are nonetheless widely regarded as one of the key interventions for preserving linguistic and cultural diversity (Asia-Pacific Multilingual Education Working Group 2013; Bradley 2023).

  • 10 “40% don’t access education in a language they understand”, UNESCO website, 2023, URL: https://www. (...)

21The second argument in support of introducing local languages in schooling deals with access to ‘quality’ education. According to several estimates (Walter & Benson 2012) about 40% of the world’s population does not have access to formal education in the language they speak at home.10 This figure is unsurprisingly particularly high in ethnically and linguistically diverse regions such as Southeast Asia (Kosonen 2005). In line with the goals of the Education for All movement launched by UNESCO and signed by 164 countries in 2000 in Dakar, an abundant academic literature supports what common sense seems to suggest: starting an educational journey by becoming literate in one’s first language during early grades of primary education before moving on to other languages and writing systems tends to yield better educational results than starting schooling in a language one is less familiar with (Dutcher & Tucker 1994; Benson 2004). This is the rationale for the promotion of mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE), a model according to which students start formal education in their ‘mother tongue’ before being introduced to other languages, which will be further described in the next section.

22Thirdly and finally, the inclusion of local languages in formal, and notably public, education systems is seen as liable to bring political benefits, contribute to national cohesion, and promote peace in conflict-affected countries. This vision is a complete departure from the policies leaning towards assimilation that were often used to build nations in the 19th and 20th centuries. To assess the overall performance of language-in-education policy and practice across extremely diverse and constantly evolving contexts is admittedly a complex task, hardly devoid of diverse preexisting ideological biases and political views. Nonetheless, several studies suggest that demonstrating an inclusive conception of national identity by providing leeway for the use ethnic minority/local languages in formal education—or by directly supporting this practice—does offer states much leverage in terms of fostering a sense of national belonging and unity in the long term. In contrast, the promotion of a monolithic conception of national identity has yielded widely varying degrees of success, depending on contexts and historical circumstances. This approach is often prone to backfiring, as it can create resentment and fuel the mobilization of local identities against the State-promoted national identity (Brown & Ganguly 2003; Lo Bianco 2016). The inclusion of local languages and cultures in formal education is thus perceived as a tangible token of respect towards ethnic minorities/local identities (which may or may not be linked to the constituent entities of a federal state) by demonstrating an inclusive conceptualization of the national identity.

Using Local Languages in Education: Different Modalities

23In practice, introducing and using local languages in formal education can take different forms, with different implications and challenges. Firstly, although depending on different schooling models across different countries, these languages can be used in government/public schools themselves or in parallel education systems set-up by communities and/or the private sector, with different models of bridging to and recognition by the national education system should that be possible.

24In terms of modalities, local languages can be taught as subjects, typically a few hours every week, and up to different grades of schooling. A common approach is to teach them in primary schools, but depending on different situations and policy choices, these teachings may continue throughout middle, high school, and in some cases even higher education. They can also be offered as elective subjects at different levels of schooling.

25Local languages can also serve as a medium of instruction. Mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) is a model that has gained traction over the last few decades. MTB-MLE entails starting schooling in the local language (‘mother tongue’) both as an oral and written media of instruction and with a more or less early and progressive transition towards the national language throughout the grades of schooling, typically with the progressive addition of one or several foreign languages. A substantial body of empirical literature suggests that this approach, when it is practically feasible, tends to produce better academic outcomes across all subjects than the monolingual approach, including in the subsequent learning and mastery of the national language itself (Cummins 1984; Dutcher 2001; Benson 2002; Benson & Young 2016; see also Bustos-Orosa & Symaco in this special issue).

26Another option is to use the local language(s) as informal oral media of instruction—sometimes referred to as “classroom language”—in order to facilitate the teaching of the national curriculum, which remains in the national language. This option is generally perceived as offering significantly less pedagogical benefits than proper MTB-MLE, in which the students become literate in their mother tongue first. However, it is likely to offer much more flexibility for teachers to adapt to their classrooms, most especially in settings where the student population is diverse and where deciding on a single standard local written medium of instruction is not always possible or evident.

27In practice, many countries have several parallel education systems that may use different combinations of these approaches. For instance, there may be non-state institutions following a mother tongue only model or putting a particular emphasis on the mastery of the language associated with a particular ethnic/local identity, while government/public schools may or may not teach local languages as subjects and/or use them as classroom languages in relevant contexts.

Common Challenges

28Although including local languages in different education systems through diverse modalities relevant to different contexts does offer a lot of leverage for benefits in the three dimensions described above—cultural and linguistic diversity preservation; access to quality education; and strengthening national cohesion—challenges and pitfalls are also numerous. These include, most notably, the human and financial resources needed to produce curricula and train teachers in multiple languages, which require a decisive and sustained political will to support language-in-education reforms.

29Another common challenge—although situations can differ greatly—is related to language attitudes. Ethnic minority parents and families themselves sometimes lack interest to formally learn or have their children learn the language(s) associated with their ethnic identity(ies) at school. They frequently perceive the mastery of the national language, as well as international languages such as English or Chinese, as more important for providing economic and social opportunities. Despite advocacy efforts by diverse actors who may have different educational or political priorities, parents may not always be easily convinced by arguments that suggest the acquisition of literacy first in the local language gives better educational results, including in the mastery of other languages. A common attitude—although these situations are not necessarily static—is to value local languages for specific usages within the community but to perceive languages that have a higher status outside of the community as more desirable to learn within the framework of formal education (Adriano, Franco & Estrella 2021).

30Another common and daunting challenge in highly diverse regions of the world such as Southeast Asia is the sheer diversity of languages to include in formal education. This challenge can be described, albeit somewhat artificially, as two-fold. First, in certain locations such as towns in minority-populated areas, situations where children in a single school have different linguistic backgrounds are relatively common. This type of situation is challenging, especially when it comes to implementing the most ambitious language-in-education reforms, such as MTB-MLE. This approach could indeed mean that one has to split schools or classes according to different languages of instruction. Not only are such circumstances particularly demanding in terms of the resources needed to support the language-in-education reforms (i.e. opening new classrooms and training more teachers in multiple languages in a single school), but they may also be questionable or controversial, depending on very diverse local linguistic and political situations, particularly in how they contribute to the aforementioned social cohesion objectives of language-in-education reforms. In certain situations, separating children according to ethnic identities/media of instruction may well defeat the very purpose of including ethnic minority languages in education to foster peace and national cohesion.

31Second, in countries with the most cultural and linguistic diversity, the classic conundrum of what should be considered a separate ‘language’ or just a mere ‘dialect’ constitutes a substantial challenge to the introduction of local languages in formal education, especially for reforms entailing their use as written media of instruction. MTB-MLE approaches necessitate the production of written curricula in a necessarily limited number of languages, which implies a discretization and a standardization process that contrasts with the fluidity of oral language practices, dialectal variations, and complex senses of belonging to imbricated ethnic and linguistic identities. Depending on local linguistic and political situations, this process can be contentious. The production or promotion of standard(ized) languages in formal education can indeed partly defeat another purpose of these reforms—namely maintaining linguistic and cultural diversity—with the standard(ized) language possibly becoming one of the most direct threats to dialectal diversity (Woolard 1998; Wa-Mbaleka 2015; Lane, Costa & De Korne 2018; Salem-Gervais & Raynaud 2020).

Overview of the Contributions in this Special Issue

32The final section of this introduction briefly outlines the contributions from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Singapore, highlighting the specificities and ongoing trajectories of these six countries in relation to local languages and education within the broader regional Southeast Asian context.

Cambodia

33Cambodia offers the case of a country with comparatively little linguistic diversity, where the political and educational stakes around languages are thus arguably lower than in its more diverse regional neighbors. Over the last few decades, international institutions such as UNESCO have repeatedly presented Cambodia as one of the ‘good students’ of multilingual education in Southeast Asia.

34Similar to most other countries of the region, Cambodia’s first formal education initiatives in local languages date back to the colonial era. These were subsequently overshadowed by post-colonial nation-building endeavors that prioritized the propagation of the national Khmer language and the building of an overall Khmer-centric national identity. Parallel to this process, many years of war and conflict resulted not only in educational scarcity, but also in some highland refugees fleeing across the border to Vietnam. Here they would become acquainted with written materials in their mother tongue, which had been created by the South Vietnamese government in collaboration with Christian linguists.

35After the country’s re-opening in the early 1990s, efforts to rebuild education were strongly supported by international NGOs, and multilingual education among the highland minorities was, like in Vietnam, taken up in part by Christian organizations. These organizations have been key in the creation of alphabets based on the Khmer script, as the Cambodian government did not accept the use of the Latin-based orthographies created by their fellow missionaries in Vietnam with the highland refugees of the 1960s.

36Close cooperation between NGOs, international institutions, and the Ministry of Education led to the Multilingual Education National Action Plan in 2015, which had the aim of improving and expanding multilingual education up to Grade 3 throughout the country. This action plan was also meant to mark a shift from NGOs as key implementers to a more government-owned multilingual education. While the implementation of this plan has been widely perceived as incomplete, a follow-up plan is meant to address some of the identified deficiencies.

37Catherine Scheer’s contribution to this special issue does not seek to provide an exhaustive picture of multilingual education in Cambodia. Instead, it offers valuable insights into the sometimes differing perspectives of various actors and stakeholders. Khmer officials of the Ministry of Education, for instance, state in interviews that they value indigenous cultures and languages, but they have also tended to see their mission as primarily a way to facilitate the integration of indigenous minorities in the Khmer education system framework. International NGO representatives express a wish to favor access to education and maintenance of cultural diversity, with some seeing literacy in the mother tongue as also being key for people to access the sacred texts of Christianity. Finally, the author’s interlocutors—all Bunong inhabitants of Mondulkiri Province—appear to have a range of attitudes towards the Khmer-based script of their own language. While some state their preference for the older Latin script, an emerging generation of largely educated indigenous activists have relied on the new writing system, for instance to document and transmit their oral literature in a broader context of rights-based claims.

Indonesia

38Indonesia holds a unique position regarding “regional languages,” a term used to refer to languages other than the national and foreign languages, as it is distinguished by extraordinary linguistic diversity with over 700 languages. Notably, Javanese, the most widely spoken of these languages, has more native speakers than Indonesian, the national language. At the time of independence in 1945, more than half of Indonesia’s population probably were Javanese speakers, but the choice of Indonesian, which was rooted in a strong national narrative, has never been disputed. While the linguistic landscape has shifted over the past 80 years, the national language continues to be a second language for over 70% of the population. Throughout this period, Indonesian has been disseminated through the education system and media, achieving widespread comprehension and usage across the population. Simultaneously, regional languages are experiencing a gradual decline, raising growing concerns about their future preservation.

39In this context, the contribution by Jérôme Samuel offers a detailed examination of the policies, norms, and mechanisms established to regulate the use of regional languages within the Indonesian school system, with a particular focus on primary education. Regional languages have always been taken into account in the education system, particularly in the early years of schooling. Protests have been infrequent, driven more by pragmatism than by a strong opposition or commitment to preserving these languages. This means that only limited resources have been allocated except for a handful of languages, primarily the major regional languages with long-standing written traditions.

40The 1990s, however, marked a shift in the perception of regional languages. Initial concerns about their decline were further intensified by the decentralization process initiated in 1999, which contributed to increasing their visibility in school curricula. But despite this renewed interest, the emphasis remained on the belief that regional languages merely serve as a resource for promoting local identities. In contrast, consideration of the pedagogical benefits for pupils receiving an education in their first language, regardless of the difficulties involved in implementing such practices, has long been neglected. It was only in the 21st century, and particularly since the 2010s, that this was truly taken into account by public authorities and communities alike.

Laos

41Laos offers the case of a landlocked and mountainous country, with a comparatively small population but very significant cultural and linguistic diversity. Historically, the authorities of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) have prioritized the Lao language in the process of building a post-colonial nation-state, including through orthography simplification reforms and with schooling as one of the main vectors of its dissemination. Despite the advocacy efforts of various international organizations and NGOs, support to ethnic minority languages has been limited, including in the education sector.

42As described in the contribution by Souvanxay Phetchanpeng and Marieke Charlet, the use of local languages as secondary oral media of instruction—categorized as “classroom language(s)” in this introduction—is permitted. This practice, however, seems to be primarily a makeshift solution to cope with the language barrier issues in schools populated by ethnic minorities with little exposure to the national language. Its implementation is contingent upon the availability of teachers with local language skills, which is often constrained by a teacher appointment and deployment policy which typically entails frequent transfers. While ethnic groups with less exposure to the national language (most notably at home) tend to underperform in their educational journeys, teachers transferred to remote villages are sometimes compelled to learn rudiments of the local languages to be able to perform their duty.

43Based on several recent research projects, including some in which they had direct involvement, the authors also emphasize in their contribution the importance of an adequate pedagogy in the process of overcoming language barriers. Schools implementing ‘student-centered’ teaching strategies—typically as participants to NGOs programs—as opposed to the classic ‘teacher-centered’ approach tend to yield better results. In some specific cases-studies, children from ethnic minority villages even outperformed children from Lao-speaking villages, despite the curriculum being in the national language.

44Language, however, unsurprisingly remains one of the most crucial aspects in ensuring context-relevant teaching practices, with the potential to stimulate children’s interest and make them actors of their own learning, as opposed to passive recipients. Language-in-education and pedagogy reforms thus complement and reinforce one another, and improvements in both areas are likely to yield compounded educational benefits.

45Moving forward with such reforms, however, is likely to remain challenging. Language-in-education reforms in the most ethnically diverse countries—as outlined earlier in this introduction—indeed entail multiple daunting challenges, including in terms of resources. More specifically, the diverse political, economic, and cultural influences of Laos’s comparatively more powerful neighbors—such as China, Thailand, and Vietnam—may help explain the continued prioritization of spreading the national language, including through education.

Myanmar

46Myanmar has very significant cultural and linguistic diversity, with several ethnic groups able to look back at their respective ‘glorious pasts’ and ancient written traditions prior to the colonization era. The country’s independence was also founded upon federal principles and compromises between different groups after World War II.

47The status of ethnic minority languages in formal education has been a highly politicized issue throughout the country’s modern history. The absence or scarcity of these languages in government schools, most notably under successive military juntas, has long been described as evidence of an assimilation project into a national identity largely centered on the language and culture of the ethnic majority (a process often referred to as ‘Burmanization’). Meanwhile, throughout decades of insurgency, multiple ‘Ethnic Armed’ and ‘Civil Society’ Organizations have developed their own parallel education systems, which typically prioritize their own ethnic identities and languages, albeit to different extents.

48As described in the contribution by Nicolas Salem-Gervais, Amber Spreelung, Hawng Tsai, and Pau Sian Lian, the 2011-2020 decade of transition from a military to a quasi-civilian government witnessed significant reforms towards democratization and decentralization, including in the education sector. Most notably, in relation to the topic of this special issue, approximately 65 local/‘ethnic’ languages were progressively introduced as subjects in government schools. Programs were also deployed to encourage the training of local teachers able to use relevant languages as “classroom languages” in primary schools. While these developments started in a rather slow and frustrating fashion, they were clearly gaining momentum towards the end of the decade. Outside of government schools, bridging between non-state ‘ethnic’ education systems and the national Ministry of Education was also overall improving, with several of these education systems co-administering “mixed-schools” with the Ministry, often with hybrid curricula.

49In contrast to this decade of steady progress, the 2021 military coup has shattered Myanmar’s political landscape and triggered conflicts all over the national territory. In line with its tumultuous past, the education sector continues to play a central role in the opposition to the military’s State Administrative Council, both through the boycott of state education institutions and the development of non-state, alternative systems. Numerous historical or newly created education providers, founded in reference to ethnic identities and aligned to varying degrees with the National Unity Government and its Federal Democracy vision, have been providing education to increasing numbers of students since the coup; recent estimates typically range between 500,000 and one million, in contrast with 300,000 prior to 2021. Often operating in extremely difficult conditions, these education providers use their respective languages to different extents, depending on the complexity of the local language situations they are faced with and on the limited resources available.

50While this increasing presence of local languages in education is liable to bring benefits, the perspective of (re)designing a federal system—including in its language-in-education dimension—remains a daunting challenge. Senses of ethnic belonging and language practices are indeed often complex, intertwined, multilayered, and fluid, which contrast with the model of a ‘federal’ political map associating specific ethnic identities with specific territories. In this complex and volatile situation, the armed groups and their respective nation-building projects—in which education and language undoubtedly play central roles—are likely to remain among the primary forces shaping the political future of what is currently known as the Union of Myanmar.

The Philippines

51Home to considerable language diversity, the Philippines present a particularly interesting case study among Southeast Asian countries, being one of the pioneers in multilingual education, both regionally and globally. After earlier attempts and promising local experiments, the country’s Department of Education formally adopted an MTB-MLE policy in 2009, partly in response to UNESCO’s Millennium Development Goals. However, after a decade and a half, challenges and barriers to its effective implementation led to a law rescinding the policy in 2024 and the reinstatement of Filipino and English as the sole mediums of instruction.

52The contribution by Maria Alicia Bustos-Orosa and Lorraine Pe Symaco explores the historical background and pedagogical rationale behind the adoption of MTB-MLE as well as the guiding principles and objectives of the policy within the specific Filipino context. The main challenges to its implementation, as identified in the contribution, contribute to explain the recent policy shift and reflect obstacles also observed elsewhere.

53These obstacles include: the limited number of languages officially available as medium of instruction (19) compared to the country’s actual linguistic diversity (130 recognized languages and an estimated 175 “living indigenous languages,” according to Ethnologue in 2025); shortages in resources and teacher training; the difficulty of selecting a single mother tongue in multilingual settings; and parental skepticism favoring languages perceived as having higher status when it comes to formal education.

54The authors conclude by suggesting new directions for a language-in-education policy that would foster the training of multilingual children with comparatively better educational outcomes. These include more grassroot approaches to language education, where teachers and schools can determine what programs and teaching strategies will work best in their local specific language environment. In addition, the authors suggest that pedagogies related to “translanguaging,” for which recent research has documented some successes, could help nurture multiliterate, multicultural and multilingual students.

Singapore

55As a city-state where several languages primarily associated with other countries occupy central positions, Singapore stands in contrast to most other Southeast Asian nations in terms of its geographical features and linguistic ecology. As described in the contribution by Gilles Forlot, when Singapore became independent in 1965 its multicultural fabric required the rapid development of a national education system in order to ensure its cohesiveness, and the issue of the diversity of languages had to concurrently be addressed. The founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s goal was to make Singapore a crossroads between Eastern and Western cultures, and he championed the essentialist idea that its citizens should retain their Asian identities. While English gained official status and became the language of instruction up to university level, each citizen also had to learn the Asian language of his or her community, known as the ‘mother tongue’ in the education system, primarily Chinese, Malay and Tamil, which became official languages as well.

56Although this policy yielded mixed success, it gradually yet significantly transformed the linguistic ecology of the city-state. When the country became independent, the vast majority of Singapore’s Chinese speakers used languages from southern China (notably Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew and Hakka), English, or even a local form of Malay. Post-independence school regulations imposed Mandarin on all Chinese Singaporean children and the other Chinese languages, still referred to by the government as ‘dialects,’ were banned from the public sphere, particularly the media. The Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC) was launched in 1979 with the main aim initially to discourage citizens of Chinese origin from using other ‘dialects’ by giving preference to Mandarin. The government’s explicit objective was also to leverage bilingual English/Mandarin skills as an asset in the globalization of the economy under construction.

57While implementing this policy of Asian languages maintenance, which only imperfectly reflected the reality of practices, the government remained attentive to ensuring the entire population had access to education in English. Before Singapore became a colony in 1819, the island’s residents had long been interacting in numerous languages, which they hybridized to suit their needs. These contacts had given rise to Bazaar Malay (Melayu Pasar) and, particularly with British colonization, to the colloquial forms of Singapore English known nowadays as Singlish. The latter quickly became the language par excellence of Singaporean popular identity. Focusing on language as an instrument of social success and economic competitiveness, the government’s attention was drawn to what they regarded as illegitimate linguistic practices, similar to the stance they had adopted with Chinese ‘dialects.’ In 2000, a new annual normative and prescriptive promotion campaign was launched for English: the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM).

***

58To conclude this introduction, the outlines of the six contributions featured in this special issue suggest and illustrate a final observation regarding local languages and education in Southeast Asia. The eleven countries forming the region indeed exhibit not only great diversity in the range of languages and dialects spoken, and in the proportion of the population that speaks the national language as a first language, but also in the degree to which ethnic and linguistic identities are politicized—notably in language-in-education issues. Insights and experiences from other countries within the region and beyond thus offer valuable lessons for language-in-education reforms, but it is also important to keep in mind that each country’s language situation and trajectory as a nation is unique. As described earlier in this introduction, these policies and reforms can be diverse in their modalities and across different parallel education systems. They typically entail genuine and profound educational and political opportunities, but also challenges and trade-offs that should not be underestimated.

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Note de fin

1 URL: http://www.ethnologue.com/ (accessed March 2025). A comparable database, Glottolog, catalogs 7,667 “Spoken L1 languages” throughout the world as of October 2024.

2 In this article—while acknowledging that the distinction is not an exact science—we adopt the convention of using double quotation marks for exact citations, and single quotation marks to signal a degree of critical distance or nuance in relation to a concept or a term.

3 Useful references on this topic, each covering slightly different geographical scopes, include Enfield (2018); Sidwell & Jenny (2021); Vittrant & Watkins (2019), and Abbi & Vatsyayan (2022).

4 According to the International Monetary Fund, in 2024, the total populations of the eleven Southeast Asian countries in million inhabitants were as follows: Brunei 0.45, Cambodia 17.18, Indonesia 281.6, Laos 7.69, Malaysia 33.46, Myanmar 54.51, Philippines 113.17, Singapore 5.94, Thailand 70.27, Timor Leste 1.37 and Vietnam 100.77.

5 The figures provided by Ethnologue for “living languages” in the eleven Southeast Asian countries, as of March 2025, are as follows (first number = “indigenous,”/second number = “non-indigenous”): Brunei (7/10), Cambodia (21/8), Indonesia (703/6), Laos (73/14), Malaysia (111/21), Myanmar (115/10), the Philippines (175/9), Singapore (2/23), Thailand (51/27), Timor (20/2), and Vietnam (93/18). URL: http://www.ethnologue.com/, accessed March 2025.

6 General Population Census of the Kingdom of Cambodia (2019). Completed Results of the 2019 Vietnam Population and Housing Census. Please note that in the case of Vietnam, as discussed later in this introduction, this figure seems to be based on ethnicity rather than on questions dealing specifically with language.

7 Link to the Southeast Asia map, Muturzikin.com, URL: https://www.muturzikin.com/carteasiesudest.htm.

8 Link to World GeoDatasets (SIL, behind a paywall), URL: https://worldgeodatasets.com/. The document we have managed to access references the 15th edition of Ethnologue (2005) and is thus probably not be the most up-to-date version.

9 As stated in the previous footnote, World GeoDatasets maps being behind a paywall, it is likely that an updated version of the Southeast Asia map already exists.

10 “40% don’t access education in a language they understand”, UNESCO website, 2023, URL: https://www.unesco.org/gem-report/en/articles/40-dont-access-education-language-they-understand.

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Nicolas Salem-Gervais, « Local Languages and Education in Southeast Asia: Framing the Special Issue »Moussons, 45 | 2025, 7-25.

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Nicolas Salem-Gervais, « Local Languages and Education in Southeast Asia: Framing the Special Issue »Moussons [En ligne], 45 | 2025, mis en ligne le 26 juin 2025, consulté le 17 juillet 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/moussons/12421 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/147jm

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Nicolas Salem-Gervais

UMR CASE (CNRS-INALCO-EHESS)

Affiliated with the Centre Asie du Sud-Est (statutory) and IRASEC (adjunct), Nicolas Salem-Gervais is an associate professor in the Southeast Asia Department at INALCO University, France. He has been working on various aspects of education and language-in-education in Myanmar for almost two decades.

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