In this globalized era, where everything is connected, it is profoundly hoped that language should no longer be seen as a barrier. With this, the introduction of English as an international language has been developing these past decades, allowing people from non-English speaking countries to master the language, and developing countries are no exception.
Nowadays, a growing number of children in developing countries can speak at least two languages, namely their mother tongue and English—beside English, sometimes the second language taught in schools is the dominant official language in the country.Â
This is due to the proliferation of multilingual programs in educational institutes that gives more chances for the students to become biliterate and to equip them for the idea of the borderless world.
However, we should be aware of the language patterns and systems in non-English speaking countries as well, because, apart from mother tongues and the second language, they also recognize various orthographies and scripts.Â
Orthography refers to systems for writing a language, while a script itself means a set of unique characters used in a language. For instance, Thailand recognizes the Thai script and Myanmar uses Burmese script.
Furthermore, one script can be the root of multiple orthographies. When we write sentences in English or Spanish, we use English and Spanish orthographies; but the script is rooted in Latin. In Thailand, languages of Akha and Lawa use Thai script, and in Cambodia Tampuan and Bunong orthographies are written based on Khmer script.
It is easy to judge that people from non-English speaking countries with such complicated and various orthographies and scripts should put more effort to acquire literacy in English because they must learn about their mother tongues and English from scratch and these languages use a different set of script and orthographies. It is not a solid truth.Â
Through an article titled Bilingualism and Writing Systems, Benedetta Bassetti conveys, when people first learn to obtain literacy in their first language or mother tongue, they would start to acknowledge pivotal principles of literacy—such as how the language sounds and how to interpret certain symbols or characters. When they learn their second language, they do not have to re-learn about those principles again, as they already got the framework.
Moreover, the framework can assist the learners in learning other languages whose orthographies and scripts are unrelated. This is in line with the argument of Cheryl Dressler and Michael Kamil from First and Second Language Literacy, claiming that sub-skills and skills we developed while learning our mother tongue would help develop our literacy in the second language; this is called transfer of linguistic skills.
The Benefits of Biliteracy Â
The levels of comprehension about how language works are different from one individual to another. Certain individuals can be a fast-learner and highly talented when it comes to language and literature, yet others should take more time, but the more we understand about languages, the broader metalinguistic knowledge we have.Â
The biliterate individuals have a firm foundation in recognizing the structural differences between their mother tongue and the second language and can utilize their literacy strategies than those of monolingual learners.
Take a look at Thailand. Thailand has its script or a set of unique characters, yet it can be written in Latin characters or script as well. The same case with Japan, in which Japanese has two types of scripts, namely Hiragana and Katakana but their words can also be written in Latin characters or script. This is somewhat tricky.Â
In countries like Thailand and Vietnam, learning their syllables require syllable level awareness through reading before focusing on phonemic awareness. But when they learn about an alphabetical script, the learners must focus on the phonemic awareness first.Â
The more biliterate learners understand syllables and alphabets, the more their phonemic levels would increase. Thus, another benefit of becoming fully biliterate is an increase in reading skills.
Suggestion
Can an individual learn two languages at the same time? Or should we master our first language before continue learning other languages? A study by Christina Page from the Kwantlen Polytechnic University titled Biliteracy Across Scripts, where she got an in-depth data from her exposure on Southeast Asia’s language development, suggests that learning two languages at the same time would not impede the whole comprehension.Â
Instead, it can support the transfer of linguistic skills within the languages. As an additional suggestion, the study finds that since early childhood, learners must have a sound comprehension in Latin alphabet first, since Latin-based alphabet and syllables can be a good basis for learners to continue study other languages.
Many Southeast Asian local languages partially recognize both local and partially Latin syllables, and phonological awareness obtained from the Latin-based syllables is the skill that would help the learners to acquire the second language skills. By mastering the literacy skills of the mother tongue first, the cognitive skills can easily be transferred to subsequent languages. To date, Cambodia is one of the countries that have applied this method.