On Sunday 21 February BBC Persian Television, on the occasion of “The International Mother Language Day” dedicated “Nobat-e Shoma”, its most popular programme to the current state of non-official (vernacular) languages in Iran and Afghanistan. The BBC presenter as well as its official website chose to use the term “Local” instead of vernacular or non-official languages thus announcing the programme: “How Is the State Of Local Languages in Your Country?” The term “Local Language” was subsequently repeatedly used in the programme addressing the viewers in Iran and Afghanistan.

While the omission of the term “Vernacular or Non-Official Language” may have been a simple oversight by the BBC programme makers, editors and presenters, and that they may have indeed been completely unaware of the political and cultural implications of the use of the term “Local Languages” in the Iranian context, we nonetheless believe following clarifications are in order.

The Arabic loan word “Mehali” in Persian which roughly means “Local” in English, as is widely known, carries negative connotations for non-Persian speakers in Iran. They take it to mean marginal and second rate, if not outright inferior and insignificant. We are surprised and dismayed to see the BBC chooses to apply this term to Azeri and Kurdish languages in Iran, when they are official (constitutionally accepted) languages in the neighboring states of Azerbaijan and Iraq. We find the use of the term Local to refer to Azeri and Kurdish languages totally unjustified, if not factually inaccurate, given the political and cultural status and demographic and economic weight of the Azeri and Kurdish communities in contemporary Iran. While we warmly welcome the BBC initiative to broadcast radio and television programmes on the state of non-Persian languages, cultures and histories in Iran, we strongly believe the unstudied or selective use of such negative and derogatory terminology to define cultural and linguistic identities of non-Persian communities will only encourage political extremism and cultural and linguistic denial and suppression against them. We are confident that the management of the BBC would not wish to be party to this injustice. We therefore feel that we are justified to ask them to issue a public statement to acknowledge their error and perhaps to apologies to the non-Persian communities in Iran.

For more information see: http://motherlanguages.wordpress.com/