Photo source: Wikimedia Commons
By J.S. Bakradze, Staff Writer
The University of Toronto (U of T) is one of the largest university networks in the world. It has around 88,000 people enrolled, and a large alumni network. 28% of U of T’s students are international, and it is considered one of the most diverse learning institutions in the world. With this knowledge, people would think that U of T leads the way in linguistic diversity—but they would be wrong, at least to a large extent. Despite the fact that French is Canada’s official language alongside English, Canada’s largest university has no option of taking most non-French language courses in the French language. U of T also has absolutely no department, and only one undergraduate and one graduate course, for Caucasus studies. Countries as important to civilization as Armenia and Georgia and their respective cultures are, apparently, too niche to study.
It is estimated that on average, each year, about nine languages go extinct. Many more are losing relevance in an increasingly Anglophone world. Canada has been haunted by its past sins of erasing the linguistic identities of Indigenous children, so why isn’t U of T taking charge in trying to preserve disappearing languages? To be fair to the university, it does have a linguistics program and it is, at least from what I have seen and heard, fairly rigorous and competitive. But more is needed.
The university has a large selection of students from almost every country in the world and has representatives of many cultures. We need it to step up and safeguard these languages. A good start would be to offer benefits, like reduced tuition, to people who are proficient in major Indigenous languages from Canada. Another thing to consider is that currently, U of T has many students and student groups from cultures whose languages it does not teach. I can think of Armenian Students’ Association and Georgian Students’ Association as vibrant communities full of native speakers of their respective languages. U of T even employs professors who are proficient in these languages. In one such case, one of the professors is even employed as an instructor in another language.
To not sound too harsh, I give credit to the university for having several courses dedicated to Mandarin, Korean and Japanese. With East Asian countries making up 4 of the top 10 countries of origin for international students in the university, there is an increased demand for such important languages and cultures, and I am glad to see firsthand how the university has strong courses in these areas. But we need more for other languages and their cultures.
This would also make economic sense. The more niche languages could create a whole new set of jobs that could be filled by select professors/educators, and they would in turn add the passion they have for their culture to their field of work. I know because I would. Everyone wants to feel included and one of the most diverse universities in the world should be leading the way for all of us to follow.
