The politics of language oppression in Tibet By GeraldRoche, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 2024. pp. 264

The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet is an important and timely contribution to the study of language dominance and destruction, as half the world is said to face these challenges today (p. 149). Author Gerald Roche begins his book by explaining the problem of language oppression wherein “people's choices about language are restricted by violence, domination, subordination, marginalization, and exclusion” (p. 4). He proposes a biopolitical approach to understand this issue and resist the marginalization of minoritized languages. Roche offers a rich ethnographic study of the Manegacha language, also known as Bao'an or Bonan in China (p. 161). Manegacha is an endonym spoken by approximately 8000 people in Tibet. Set against the backdrop of The People's Republic of China (PRC)'s politics in the Tibetan plateau, Manegacha is one of the minoritized languages facing language erasure due to language shift from monolingual Manegacha, to Tibetan–Manegacha bilingualism, and to Manegacha-Tibetan–Chinese trilingualism (p. 161). Drawing from years of fieldwork in the Tibetan plateau, and engaging with ideas of “linguistic justice, language emancipation, language rights and discrimination, colonialism and language shift, and the critical ethnography of language policy” (p. 6), Roche connects this shift to the larger issue of the oppression of minoritized languages. The book is organized into three parts—Erasure, Suppression, and Elimination—each comprising two chapters that elaborate on these interrelated themes. Chapter 1 opens with an overview of the “linguistic ideologies and practices that prevailed in northeast Tibet prior to the establishment of the PRC” (p. 14). Roche analyzes Manegacha speakers in the multilingual setting of the Rebgong district where Ngandehua, Tibetan, and Mandarin are spoken. Code-switching between these languages is common, although Tibetan carries greater authority because of its written tradition. Manegacha does not have a written script and Manegacha speakers engage with Tibetan writing in the form of spoken text—memorizing, repeating, chanting, singing, and other oral performances of the Tibetan scripture. They learned this from Tibetan Buddhist monks who recite Tibetan texts for Manegacha families, enabling them to develop auditory and script-based literacy (p. 28). Roche writes how Manegacha speakers would “painstakingly enunciate and repeatedly recite texts” (p. 30) but continued using Manegacha among themselves. For them, Manegacha remained the “center of their world” (p. 27)—the language of family, community, and everyday life. Chapter 2 focuses on the aftermath of the 1958 Tibetan uprisings in Amdo and Rebgong against the Chinese Communist Party rule that killed people, destroyed cultural institutions, and promoted the national language—Putonghua, or Mandarin. The aggressive push for Mandarin was the beginning of language oppression in Tibet where languages like Manegacha and Tibetan became endangered. Roche explains how the state's construction of minzu populations—state-recognized ethnic groups, each expected to correspond to a single language—has diminished the region's linguistic diversity, given that the number of languages in the PRC exceeds the number of minzu. In the case of Tibet, Tibetan was designated as the common language even though “Tibetan is not a single language” (p. 47). As a result, minoritized and unrecognized languages, such as Manegacha, were slowly erased and “removed from official discourse, excluded from public institutions, deprived of resources, and slated for elimination” (p. 43). Interestingly, the promotion of a single standardized Tibetan language by Tibetan elites and intellectuals also contributes to the state's project of erasing minoritized languages. The second part of the book, “Suppression,” centers on language subjugation, as Chapter 3 focuses on language oppression and resistance. Fifty years after the first major uprising in 1959, the protests that spread across Tibet in 2008 marked a renewed surge of Tibetan nationalist resistance to the PRC. Roche argues that Tibetan nationalism emerged in response to the PRC rule and should not be understood as natural or inevitable. He writes how Tibetan nationalists claim that “the soul of the Tibetan nation is language” (p. 65) and saves “the Tibetan nation from annihilation” (p. 68). They advocate linguistic purism, often marked by Sinophobic sentiment (p. 82), but it marginalizes languages like Manegacha, which are considered “mixed.” Caught between Tibetan domination and Mandarin imposition, Manegacha speakers are then denied the right to speak in their language. Chapter 4 extends the discussion of language oppression to the global power circuits of the Tibet movement, which Roche calls global Tibetophonie (p. 78). This refers to a global assemblage of Tibetan speakers facilitated by the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), or the Tibetan government in exile in India, and other Tibetan organizations in the West playing an important role in maintaining and promoting the Tibetan language. While their main goal is to resist the PRC, they have been successful in creating “a sense of national belonging among exiled Tibetans” (p. 82) primarily through the promotion of a shared linguistic identity. In advocating a “one nation one language” ideology, however, minoritized languages are erased and eventually extinguished. Roche invites readers to consider the relationship between global Tibetophonie and Manegacha speakers, showing how organized Tibetan resistance against the PRC paradoxically enables the erasure of unrecognized languages like Manegacha. The third part of the book, Elimination, begins with Chapter 5, which traces how the birth of a biopolitical state in 1958 marked the start of a system that enabled the erasure of Manegacha. Drawing on a case study of three generations of Manegacha speakers, Roche traces the progression of their linguistic contact with Tibetan—beginning with reciting letters, exposure to Tibetan media and songs, and later the presence of Tibetan peers and the pressure to speak “proper” Tibetan. This trajectory illustrates how the increasing incorporation of Tibetan contributed to the gradual disappearance of Manegacha in the wake of communalism, economic liberalization, and market developmentalism. Roche suggests that perhaps Manegacha could have been integrated into television, radio, and cassette culture; instead, Manegacha speakers received no structural support and were excluded from key institutions. Chapter 6 discusses how Manegacha speakers were humiliated, excluded and considered a threat by mainstream Tibetans in Rebgong. Manegacha speech was reduced to sound, ghost talk and what Jonathan Rosa calls “languagelessness” (p. 125). Speakers of this minority language underwent “linguistic surveillance” (p. 130) and were looked down upon on an everyday basis. The slurs and the abuses were internalized by Manegacha speakers as it affected them “emotionally, psychologically and ethically” (p. 132). This chapter provides the reader with Manegacha perspectives that are helpful but painful in understanding their experiences of being “dehumanized, demonized, and compared to animals” (p. 134). Unfortunately, their perpetrators, who are often their “friends, classmates, strangers on the street and even family members” (p. 142) go unpunished as Manegacha speakers are abandoned by the state, failing to intervene and protect them. The concluding chapter is radical. Roche reflects on his own role as an anthropologist and the ethical choices he has had to make regarding language oppression in Tibet. He begins by considering how language oppression can be resisted and proposes a “militant, decolonial anthropology” oriented toward “practical realities and dilemmas rather than theoretical conundrums” (p. 139). Roche links language oppression to broader structures of power. Informed by a Foucauldian approach, he argues that power operates across “multiple sites of resistance where power can be contested, blocked, and even co-opted for liberatory aims” (p. 148). Despite these subtle workings of power, we see how Manegacha speakers still find ways to maintain their language. Roche emphasizes community-based efforts at language reclamation that deserve recognition and solidarity from anthropologists. He urges readers to consider how solidarities might be built for unrecognized and minoritized languages, questioning what “thick solidarity” between Manegacha and Tibetan speakers could entail. In doing so, he asks how solidarity can be both effective and decolonial. Roche is clear in his stance against language oppression, highlighting how the world's language ecology is under threat as multilingual states practice language subjugation. Anthropologists, he argues, need to trace how these practices “emerge, consolidate, and shift over time” (p. 151). Our discipline, Roche suggests, should exist both “as a traditional, disciplinary field and a force field, a… site of struggle and resistance” (p. 139). Providing insight into processes of language oppression and promoting linguistic justice, Roche concludes that the “primary aim” (p. 6) of his book is not simply to advance anthropology but to contribute to a better world (p. 156). The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet ends on a revolutionary note, and inspires new ways of looking at, not just language oppression, but also anthropology as a discipline. Language experts, policy makers, and students of anthropology, linguistic anthropology, philosophy, and political science—from undergraduate to PhD level—may find this book helpful and encouraging in its discussion of the challenges and possible interventions to languages, such as Manegacha. Despite the grim realities of language oppression, Roche closes with an emphasis on the necessity of “hope.” In his Epilogue, he writes: “without hope, I find it hard to imagine how we will find the resolve and persistence to build the solidarity…” (p. 159). In many ways, this book is hopeful—hopeful of better language policies, better anthropology, and, ultimately, a better world.