THE DILEMMA OF MULTILINGUALISM IN IRAN


REZA KALANTARI
The Dilemma Of Multilingualism In Iran

THE DILEMMA OF MULTILINGUALISM IN IRAN

Reza Kalantari
Tabriz Applied Educational Research Center, Iran

E-mail: rmkalantari@gmail.com

APA Citation: Kalantari, R. (2012). The dilemma of multilingualism in Iran. English Review:
Journal of English Education, 1(1), 6-16

Received: 09-08-2012 Accepted: 12-10-2012 Published: 01-12-2012

Abstract: Iran is a multilingual country with linguistic and cultural diversity. Minority
languages such as Turkish, Kurdish, Baluchi and Arabic are spoken in Iran which
constitutes part of the culture and ethnic identity. Iranian community is dominantly a
bilingual community. Persian as an official language used as linguistic and cultural
homogenization while minority languages are not used in education system. The
controversy bilingual education and programs to serve language minority students is
complex and puzzling for education authorities. On the other hand one of the challenges
Iranian faces is how to reconcile conflicting perspectives of bilingual education regarding
globalizing of English. Currently, most of parents prefer their children to learn English as it
is the language of business, aviation and scientific research. In contrast according to Iran’s
comprehensive scientific plan, Persian should be scientific language of the world in the
near future. In this research, challenges, perspectives and solutions of bilingual education
in Iran were analyzed. The results indicate that conflicting of minority, majority and
international language is an important challenge and developing, promotion and
expansion of Persian is a future outlook. Furthermore some suggestions and solutions to
reconcile bilingual education were made.
Keywords: bilingual education, minority, majority and international language

INTRODUCTION
It has been estimated that

approximately two-third of the world’s
population is either bilingual or
multilingual; that is, more than half the
people in the world routinely use two or
more languages in their daily
communication. Multilingualism and
multiculturalism are social facts of this
new century, which can be seen in most
classrooms and playgrounds. People use
the term bilingualism in different ways.
For some, it means an equal ability to
communicate in two languages.

For others, it simply means the
ability to communicate in two languages,
but with greater skills in one language.
In fact, it is more common for bilingual
people, even those who have been
bilingual since birth, to be somewhat

dominant in one language. Calling
someone a bilingual is therefore an
umbrella term. Underneath the umbrella
rest many different skill levels in two
languages. Being bilingual is not just
about proficiency in two languages.
There is a difference between ability and
use of language. Someone may be quite
competent in two languages, yet rarely
or never use one of those languages.
Such a person has bilingual ability but
does not act or behave bilingually.

Iran, a multicultural society, is
home to a number of language
communities speaking Turkish, Kurdish,
and Arabic languages among others.
Many children learn and speak their first
language at home and study all of their
courses in Persian throughout their
education. It means that many children

mailto:rmkalantari@gmail.com


ENGLISH REVIEW: Journal of English Education ISSN 2301-7554
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didn't receive any education in their
native languages; the majority of the
students were members of an ethnic or
linguistic minority, whereas the school
was dominated by the mainstream
language and culture. It means that
educational curriculum is based on
Persian, the majority language.

Based on this evidence, it can be
said that this curriculum not only been
ineffective for the non-Persian speaking
students, but it also has created a
problem of bilingualism of home and
school for the non-Persian speaking
populations. It seems that bilingual in
Iran is kind of subtractive bilingualism.
Unlike additive bilingual that a child is
allowed to develop a certain language,
s/he is learning in a community where
both languages and cultures are valued,
then the child is most likely to develop
additive bilingualism in the sense that
the second language and culture are
added to the first language and culture
and both L1 and L2 complement and
enrich each other.

One the other hand, subtractive
bilingualism means that the child learns
a second language at the expense of the
first, and in this case the learning of L2
deletes or subtracts L1. According to
Arefi and Alizadeh (2008) being
bilingual in Iran doesn’t help them to
develop cognitive development because
of all of the children come from
subtractive bilingual programs which
may have mitigated and potentially
positive impact the children’s
bilingualism might have had on
cognitive development.

Khadivi (2010) states that as long
as one can become a balanced bilingual;
reach the third floor (high level) of
proficiency, one can benefit from more
positive effects. The purpose of the
present paper is to make the case for the

need to address the problem, and seek a
rational solution to it.
The specific research questions that the
present study addresses are the
following:
1. What is the language planning policy
in Iran?
2. What is the status of minority
languages in Iran?
2. What are language challenges in Iran?
3. What are language perspectives in
Iran?
4. To what extend Persian can be an
important scientific lingua franca in the
world?

Bilingualism of home and school
in Iran has even been recognized as a
problem by the very curriculum
planners at the national level. It can also
be argued that bilingualism is a problem
because it, or the national planners'
concocted solution, does not necessarily
lead to balanced bilingualism and may
even cause dilemmas that could be
harmful. As such, bilingualism of home
and school in Iran creates serious
challenges for the Iranian educational
system.

The first challenge that Iranian
educators face is shown by the two
international studies that Iran has
participated in: TIMSS and PIRLS. In
both studies Iranian students ranked
almost last. In the international reading
comprehension study of 1970 Iran
ranked 14th among fifteen participating
countries, and in PIRLS 2001, 32nd
among the 35 participating countries
(Karimi, 2003). At the same time Iranian
bilingual students got lower scores than
monolingual in reading comprehension
test (Karimi and Kabiri, 2010).

The bilingualism seems to have
contributed to the high rate of retention
and grade repetition. Therefore, the use
of minority languages is the need for



revamping the educational system in
order to bridge the identified gaps. The
second challenge refers to sociopolitical
factors. Majority languages don’t play
any role in Iran's education system. The
challenge arises when these majority
languages are major or official language
in neighborhood countries.

Every one is bilingual. That is,
there is no one in the world who does
not know at least a few words in
languages other than the maternal
variety. Iranian non-Persian children
face some problems, the grade repetition
and retention rates among these
populations are higher, as are the drop-
out rates, in comparison with the Persian
speaking population. An example is in
the largest Turkish (Azary) speaking
province, the repetition rate is much
higher in first grade compared to the
fifth, countryside compared with the
cities, and in areas less exposed to
Persian (due to lack of
electricity/television) than other areas.

Addeeb (1993) has also found
that among all school subjects, the
language courses have a greater
contribution to grade failure/repetition
than non-language courses. Given the
bilingualism problem, both the
educational system and the individual
teachers have been challenged to come
up with some sort of solution. Analyzing
bilingualism and given the experience of
other countries similar to Iran in
population composition and the case for
implementation of some form of
bilingual education must be made what
this paper addresses.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Iran is a home for many
cultural/linguistic groups speaking
Persian, Turkish, Arabic, and Kurdish.
Yet the official language for school

instruction is Persian, the language of
the majority groups, creating a problem
of bilingualism of home and school for
millions of non-Persian speaking
children.

According to article 15 of the
Iranian constitution which emphasizes
the basic right of all these language
groupings to use their mother tongues in
their schools and in the promotion of
their native cultures but the national
educational and curriculum planners do
not seem to put much stock in the latter
part of the said article. From a dialectical
constructivist perspective, language is
considered to be a significant social tool
for overall development (Vygotsky,
1978).

Children's construction of
knowledge is initially guided by their
mother tongue and then by the language
of formal instruction if it is in fact other
than their first language. However, if the
child learns and uses two languages
simultaneously, i.e. if he/she is bilingual,
the two languages would collectively
provide an even better tool for
development.

Until the 1960s, it was commonly
assumed that bilingual students who
were learning in their second language
must inevitably have been at a
disadvantage. This notion began to be
challenged in the 1970s and 1980s. A
closer examination of the results of
bilingual students across various subject
areas, including mathematics, showed
inconsistent results. Although it seemed
to be true at times that bilingual students
as a whole did not perform as well as
their monolingual peers, there were also
some results that showed bilinguals
excelled.

There are a number of notions
that need to be considered: whether the
students are balanced bilinguals, the



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level of proficiency that the bilinguals
have in each of their languages, and the
environment in which they learn.
Balanced bilinguals are bilinguals who
have equal proficiency in their languages.

Bilingualism of home and school
is a worldwide phenomenon and as such
has been dealt with rather positively in
countries like Singapore, Canada,
Switzerland, and many more, through
introduction of some system of bilingual
or multilingual education (Lambert,
Genesee, Holobow, and Chartrand, 1993).
Students in Singapore, a country with
four official languages, face no
difficulties in regards to bilingualism of
home and school. The same can be said
about China wherein the curriculum
planning has been successful in
remedying the problems that existed in
this area. In contrast it is problematic in
other countries even in Europe.

BILINGUALISM IN IRAN
The current population of Iran is more
than 75 million people which makes it
on the most populous countries in the
Middle East contains whiten itself
different languages and ethnic minorities.
Yet the official instructional language of
all Iranians is Persian, the language of
the majority grouping. The second
greatest language grouping in Iran is
that of the Turkish speaking people, the
authors are members of this group; their
community size in the northwestern
provinces of Iran is fairly large and
comparable to the number of Persian-
speaking area.

If it is not the majority group in
the whole of Iran; the Azerbaijanis are
clearly both the majority and the
culturally dominant group in the
northwestern part of the country.
Kurdish, Arabic, and Baluchi are spoken
in Iran too. Surely, there are smaller

groups who have no specific
geographical location like Armenians
and Aasooryans speaking people. An
interesting point in Iran is that some of
the provinces in this country are named
based on the dominant cultural-
linguistic group residing in them (e.g.,
Fars, Kordestan, Lorestan, Baluchestan,
etc.).

We should note that most
regional languages are related to Persian
and belong to a larger Iranian family, a
branch of Indo-European. Turkish, the
major non-Iranian language, spoken in
the northwestern part of the country, is
greatly different from Persian and is
branch of Altaic language. In some parts
of the country, this linguistic diversity
coupled with religious differences has
led to ethno-political difference (e.g. in
the province of Kurdistan).

For a long time, bilingualism was
considered a negative factor threatening
the national unity in Iran (Afshar 1989).
Now it is going to be appreciated that
the different cultures, languages, and
varieties that coexist in Iran and are
acquired in the natural process of
socialization constitute an important
part of the national wealth, and that
cultural-linguistic diversity can be a
valued resource for continued social
development and renovation and the
maintenance of social health in a rapidly
changing society.

Since the minority languages are
not used in education system it has
made some educational problems.
Educational authorities proposed
different solutions such as a month-long
special course for non-Persian speaking
children. But it can hardly be adequate
for this purpose, as it cannot make up for
the six-year long exposure to the mother
tongue. More ever, the absence of the
native language from the curriculum



during the school years is certainly not a
step toward such bilingualism.

On the contrary, this would lead
to what Santrock (2002) has called
semilingualism, or lack of proficiency in
either one of the two languages.
According to Hameedy (2005) the
academic gap between the Persian and
non-Persian speaking students have not
been bridged even after four years of
schooling.

LANGUAGE PLANNING IN IRAN
The literature on language planning and
language policy is extensive and
includes both theoretical studies and
rapidly expanding case studies of
specific language policy and planning
efforts in various parts of the worlds.
Language planning has been in existence,
as a field of inquiry; for six decades but
it did not become a sharply salient issue
until sociolinguistics began to focus
attention on the speech forms, problems,
and aspire solve these problems. In the
past decades, language planning
attracted increasing attention toward
research.

Language planning in Iran has
emphasized the need for Persian to have
a well-defined language policy that
integrate the status of Persian in the
psyches of Iranian and be aware of the
use and spread of foreign language. In
the United Kingdom prior to the 1980's
when the general policy of the
educational system was that of single
language instruction as well as the
benign policy of linguistic assimilation
(Paulston, 1988), the same type of
policies, it can be said, is still used in
Iran.

There is no policy of supporting
the majority languages in education
system and priority is not given in
teacher training, curriculum

development and school time tables to
local languages, regardless of supporting
them in the media such as newspaper,
TV and radio. Iran is a bilingual country
and as a brief chronology illustrates,
modern education in Iran is relatively
young. Despite the educational system
of centuries ago, the first modern school
is no more than 150 years old. In the
first European-modeled school,
Darolfonoon; modernized education in
Iran some foreign languages such as;
French, Russian, and later English were
taught.

Regarding the Islamic Revolution
in 1979 led to the implementation of
Islamic values in the all area even in
language planning, however it seems
that there is no comprehensive language
planning in Iran.
As Riazi (2005) states:

The major problem after the
Islamic Revolution, however,
has been the lack of an official
language-planning blueprint
in the country to determine the
status of available languages,
as well as expectations from
language teaching and
learning curricula in the formal
education system. (P.107)
During the post-war period in Iran

different roles for the native languages
in the educational system have been
defined. But the oldest and most
common model has been the learning of
the Persian language as a curriculum
subject by both the native and non-
native students.

PERSIAN AND NATIONAL
IDENTITY
Twentieth century is characterized by an
obsession with nationalism, often on the
basis of one state per ethnic group per
language. Language interlocks with



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national identity. As a consequence,
Persian plays an important role in the
formation of national identity in Iran. A
threat to independence of different
regional of the country in the late
twentieth made a special focus on
Persian as linguistic and cultural
homogenization.

According to Mehrmohammadi
(1992), this centralization in the control
of unique culture and language was a
solution for independence. Yet the issue
of bilingualism is seldom addressed and
its conditions and consequences are
rarely studied in Iran partly because of
the fear that it might give rise to
separatist movements and hence
threaten the national cohesion, vis-à-vis
security.

Furthermore, while most
countries around the world have already
responded to the issues of globalization,
internationalization, and competition
among multinationals by endorsing
bilingual and multilingual educational
systems, Iran has not been willing to
move in this direction in order to keep
national unity and identity among the
young school generation (Farhady 2008).

This in part can be accounted for
by the fact that countries like Hong Kong,
India, Japan, and China see English as
the key to the international world of
commerce; whereas, Iran is more
conservative when it comes to foreign
language policy. The main reason for
this is the politicization of the language
issue after the Islamic Revolution and
the fear that English presents a threat to
the Persian language and Islamic culture
(Khubchandani, 2008).

However, attempts have been
made to promote the majority languages.
For instance, everyday a lot of
newspapers are published in majority
language in Iran, local radio and

television programs regularly broadcast
everyday which attract many listeners
and provide primary and secondary
employment for the minority language
speakers. The question, however, is how
local broadcasting alone can save a
language which is losing its functions
within the family domain. Although
radio and television alleviate the
pressure, they are only short-term
remedies for the dying language. Media
cannot uproot the source of the problem.
When the older generation vanishes, the
media will hardly attract the younger
generation in any significant scale.

Iran is an old developing
country, as it originated nearly 25
centuries ago, and over its entire history,
Persian (Old, Middle, New) has
functioned as the standard language.
This lingua franca has always coexisted
with other varieties and regional
languages (Schmitt, 1989). This co-
existence is the result of the political and
sociocultural integration of an old
developing country whose various
ethnic groups want to be connected with
and unified under their Great Tradition.

According to (Fishman, 1968) the
ancient literatures, legal codes, heroes
and leaders of the past command
admiration; the old developing nations
can withstand much greater linguistic
diversity and unrest as a result of
integration. Thus, based on Fishman's
theory, in Iran, the stable and
widespread coexistence of separate
dialects or languages with the standard
language is indeed natural and expected.

Therefore, linguistic division
alone is not a vital factor to inflame
political conflicts within an old must be
involved. However, the analysis of
Nercissians (2001) study for two groups;
Armenian and Azerbaijani community
residing in Tehran shows that despite



the considerable difference in the
language behavior of the two groups,
important common patterns could be
seen to exist. Both groups value the
knowledge of Persian, the common
language used in day-to-day
communication as well as the official
language used in the educational and
other formal establishments.

At the same time, both groups
express strong desire for the retention
and use of their mother tongue. We
should note that religious, Islam as an
umbrella, has played a significant role in
language identity. Some 85% of Iranians
are Shiite. This linguistic diversity with
religious similarities has promoted
political relationship between language
groups. This is another reason why in
Iran linguistic division has not led to
political conflicts (Borjian, 2004).

In Iran, the impact of external
factors, which have promoted linguistic
challenge, can easily be detected
amongst the minority languages which
are major languages in the neighborhood
countries. Turkish, spoken in
northwestern of Iran, is the official
language of neighboring Turkey and the
Azerbaijan Republic, who regularly
broadcast radio programs for Turkish
speaking minorities abroad. The
programs aim at encouraging the
speakers to see themselves as part of a
transnational Turkish speaking nation.
Baluchi, however, belongs to the larger
Iranian language family spoken in the
southeast of Iran. Although Baluchi is
not a dominant language anywhere,
there are a lot of speakers who live in
Pakistan.

WESTERNIZATION AND
NATIONAL IDENTITY

After World War II, English
began to spread around the world and

was taught in most countries as either
the sole foreign language or as one of the
foreign languages. During the Pahlavi
Dynasty (1925-1979), close political,
social, economic, and military
relationship between Iran and the US
speeded up the westernization in the
country (Riazi, 2005).

We should consider that deciding
on a language to be taught as a foreign
language in a country is not a matter of
pure academic choice but a matter of
government policy often motivated by
political, social, economic, and
educational factors. English became an
important requirement in the Iranian
military because a good command of
English was needed for the army
personnel to go to the US for further
specializations.

In addition, teaching English
became a social need and private
language schools mushroomed in the
capital and many large cities. Farhady
(2008) stated that knowledge of English
became an essential requirement for
many job opportunities for the younger
generation. Thousands of Iranian
students were sent to US universities to
get higher educational degrees. Many
Iranian universities created sister-ship
relations with American universities,
which facilitated the allocation of
scholarships for students to complete
their degrees in American universities.

In contrast, after Islamic
revolution in 1979, due to the absence of
political relations with the US, the
educational policy makers formulated a
plan to promote learning and teaching of
five foreign other languages including
German, French, Italian, Spanish, and
Russian.

However, due to insufficient
number of teachers and a low number of
applicants for these languages, English



ENGLISH REVIEW: Journal of English Education ISSN 2301-7554
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has been the most dominant foreign
language taught at the high schools. An
interesting point is that while teaching
English was almost banned early after
the revolution, it has been given the
same number of credit units as other
main subject matter areas such as
biology and chemistry in high schools in
Iran.

PROMOTING PERSIAN AS A
INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE
Globalization seems as a threat for
language of the countries. Crystal (2003)
shows that the phenomenon of
globalization, coupled with the
increasing leadership of English has
motivated many nations to consider
their language planning policies. Those
nations opt to strengthen the
preeminence of their own language
within their national borders and
worldwide. In this regards, according to
Iran’s comprehensive scientific plan,
Persian should be scientific language of
the world in the near future.

Persian has played and still plays
an overriding role in Muslim society
competing with Arabic. In addition,
defending in fact the language of the
degree of necessity for English and
status of English and Persian in Iran is
very important. Some study reveals that
the degree of necessity for Persian is
increasing during the past decades. The
functions of English and Persian are
clearly-defined without any seeming
competition in contrast the past which
there was struggle between Persian and
English.

However, seeking native
resources for coping with technological
transformations has become an
important sociopolitical goal in Iran,
where the contemporary world
condition is viewed as a cultural-

invasion attempt by the west. In addition
to its importance in the general area of
language planning, and the associated
areas of culture planning and identity
planning, the study of bilingualism in
Iran is of important for educational
planning in the corresponding speech
communities.

One part of influence of Persian
depends on influence of Islam. Bhatia
and Ritchie (2006) stated that Persian
was viewed as an imposed language in
much of India; thus, with Moughul
patronage, Persian "became a marker of
Islam". As a consequence, after
independence in 1947 when India and
Pakistan became independent nations,
the influence of Persian continued to
regenerate in Pakistan, a Muslim nation,
while it reached a state of fossilization in
India. In contrast, after independence
Sanskrit began to regenerate its original
impact in India due to its associate on
with Indian culture.

Some conflicts of language refer
to language group inequality. Inglehart
and Woodward (1972) analyze language
conflicts as a function of group
inequality. They state that in almost all
bilingual and multilingual societies,
there is an upper language and one or
lower languages. While the upper
language represents prestige, power,
and a higher status of the speaker, the
lower languages signify the opposite.

Linguistic divisions will lead to
political conflicts when a dominant
language group obtains the social,
political and economic power within the
society and blocks the social mobility of
the minority language groups. Therefore,
based on Inglehart and Woodward's
point of view, language conflict has its
roots in the unequal economic, political,
and social status of a language group. It
is true that bilingualism makes some



serious problems for non-Persian
students but Iran's linguistic diversity
has not led to political conflicts as there
is no distinctive economic, political, and
social inequality.

In order Persian be the lingua
franca in the world the following
administrative reorganization take place.
Iran is a big country with large number
of students accommodated by the state-
governed universities and higher
education: public universities, Islamic
Azad University(more than 500
branches), Payame Noor University
(Long Distance Education), private
universities, and evening sessions at the
public universities, plenty of faculty
members, researchers who are as sources
to produce scientific research in Persian.

Whereas European colonialism
that began in the fifteenth century in the
east country reduced the influence of
Persian (Abolghassemi, 2009), in contrast
in recent years, economic, technology,
medicine, and industries of Iran
cultivated. As we know language
expansion depends on economic,
political, and social development. So the
developed society of Iran can promote
its language. For example, the need for
traveling to Iran from different parts of
the world such as Middle East,
Azerbaijan republic, Iraq, Syria, and
some other Arab countries and
influences of Iran on these countries
increased leadership of Persian, as they
need to learn Persian in order to
communicate properly. It shows growth
of Persian speakers in the world.

However in order to Persian be
the lingua franca in the world it faces
with some challenges. According to
Iran’s comprehensive scientific plan,
Persian should be scientific language of
the world in the near future. This

document is well-designed in print but
applying is difficult.

First, the community should
assume responsibility towards a change
from quantity oriented to quality-
oriented promotion of Persian. This
requires cultivating all Iranian minds.

Second, the government should
assume responsibility toward providing
clear, practicable, and reasonable
language policies, and should
subsequently support the
implementation of the policy. In this
regard, fund, personnel, and other
requirements should be made available
to the people involved in promotion of
Persian. Iran hasn't got even a Noble
Prize for Literature to indicate of Persian
flourishing.

Handwriting of Persian is
another problem, using it as language of
Math, Chemistry, and Physics, using it
for car license plate seem difficult as it is
written from the right. Considering the
phenomenon of information and
communication technology with English
instruction and increase communications
equipment such as mobile, satellite
through them Iranian use English
alphabet instead of Persian is a new
problem. Meanwhile, Persian which is
used in other countries such as
Afghanistan and Tajikistan influenced
by Russian or Pashto culture and
language which vanish the
homogenization of Persian in the Middle
East.

CONCLUSION
Bilingualism of home and school

in Iran creates serious challenges for the
educational system of Iran. Results of
international studies prove this
phenomenon. In international studies
Iranian students ranked almost last.
Curriculum planners always search for



ENGLISH REVIEW: Journal of English Education ISSN 2301-7554
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ways to remedy this problem. For
example, they have designed a one
month preparatory course for the non-
Persian speaking students or they try to
design Persian text-books according the
non-Persian speaking students abilities
(Kalantari, 2010).

But none of these solutions are
effective for improving the non-Persian
students' drop-out rate. Because the
academic gap between native and non-
native students complete even after
several years of schooling. The study of
language groups in Iran shows that
despite the considerable difference in the
language behavior all groups value the
knowledge of Persian, the common
language used in day-to-day
communication as well as the official
language used in the educational and
other formal establishments. At the same
time, all minority groups express strong
desire for the retention and use of their
mother tongue.

Therefore, education authorities
in Iran should design such curriculum
that value not only majority language
but also minority languages. It seems
that if some day, English constituted a
threat to Persian in various in Iran.
Today Iran, while recalling with pride
their historical dominance in the sciences,
are not now struggling to foreign
languages i.e. English is neither an
indication of westernization or
culturalism, nor an indication of and
imitation of or assimilation to western
value. As Iranian attitude have changed
about the learning of English.

They believe that in order to gain
new technology, communicate with the
world, and to success in business, it is
necessary to learn English. As a
consequence, parents prefer their
children to learn English as soon as
possible. Mushrooming lots and lots of

governmental or private English
institutes in Iran even in small cities
proves this claim. Iran is an old country
and Persian has functioned as the
standard language. This lingua franca
has always coexisted with other varieties
and regional languages. According to
Iran’s comprehensive scientific plan,
Persian should be scientific language of
the world in the near future. To reach
this important aim it faces with some
challenges, some of them are
linguistically the others are socio-
politically.

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