November 25-28, 2025
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Language as a symbolic system fails when it crosses the boundaries of a community using that language; the symbolic system of mathematics appears to be free from natural human languages and, it is claimed, it should be able to cross all linguistic boundaries making its pedagogy highly accessible. And, yet as we all know, it is the language of mathematics students find most difficult to acquire and use.
In post-colonial India, higher education in mathematics was generally offered only in English while a large majority of the students did their schooling in regional languages. We do not have any research literature that seeks to understand the challenges if any, that students, transitioning from regional languages to English faced in learning mathematics. Given that Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education was as low as 6% in 1990-91 and improved to a mere 11% in 2000-2001, it would be fair to assume that those who came to pursue higher education in India till recently, had some cultural capital which perhaps enabled them cope with the transition.
At the school level, we have at least a marginal acknowledgement of the language question in primary education. Eklavya, an NGO working in education since the early 1980s in its field surveys in Madhya Pradesh found that there was enormous linguistic and cultural heterogeneity in the state and the textbooks brought out by the state board were largely unreadable and the school children had major difficulty in understanding them (Agnihotri et al 1994). Farida Khan’s research demonstrated the difficulty children studying in Hindi as the medium of instruction faced in learning mathematics, drawing specific attention to the challenge children face owing to the difference between the order in which two-digit numbers are written in decimal place value notation and the order in which they are mentioned in the number words (Khan, 2008). Agnihotri and Khanna (1991) had earlier shown the lack of readability of Hindi social science textbooks. We have some understanding of how language negotiation and meaning making happen in multilingual classrooms (Achmat, 1992; Agnihotri, 2007, 2010; Bose & Choudhury, 2010; Chordia & Yadav 2018; Bose 2021) and how to validate learners’ informal mathematical discourse when engaging with ‘open problems’ and help them move towards formal discourse (Jayasree et al 2022). Vidya Bhawan Society, Udaipur held a landmark international seminar on ‘Language, Mathematics, Music and Society’ during Feb 26-28, 2010. The position paper of National Focus Group on Teaching Mathematics states ‘(F)or a vast majority of Indian children, the language of mathematics learnt in school is far removed from their everyday speech, and especially forbidding’ (NCF 2005, p. 5) and if we wish that children should study mathematics seriously, we must make an effort to take its language closer to the languages of children (NCF 2005, p. 12). However, such appeals are not always heeded for several reasons including the centrality of language to issues of polity and power, the obsession with language purity and lack of any research that would compel policy makers and textbook writers to even consider the languages of children as a reasonable option for academic discourse (Subramanian &Viswanathan, 2023).
In the international context, systematic research to study the role language plays in teaching and learning of mathematics is at least five decades old and it has resulted in understanding the centrality of language to teaching, learning and communication of mathematics. It recognizes the central role of natural language in the building and communication of mathematical concepts; it acknowledges that cognition in mathematics is dependent on competence in language among other things. The second International Congress of Mathematics Education (ICME-2) held in Exeter, U.K in 1972 already included a working group on language. ICME-2 also hosted an international symposium on ‘Interactions between Linguistics and Mathematical Education’ sponsored by UNESCO held at Nairobi in 1974, recognising the need for fundamental research that enquires into ‘the relationship between the learning of basic mathematical structures and the language through which they are learnt’ (Barwell et al, 2016). The first paper on language and mathematics education appeared in the leading journal Educational Studies in Mathematics (Austin & Howson 1979). Austin and Howson’s paper already recognised the political nature of bilingualism and anticipated policy changes as changes happened in the society.
The early studies on language and mathematics education focused on developing countries, where the language of teaching and learning is not the mother tongue, but soon it was recognised that the problem is not limited to developing countries, as several developed countries had linguistic minorities. Research over the years, found enough evidence to show that bilingual learners did not bring in deficit. On the contrary bilingual learners who were competent in their home language and the language of teaching outperformed others (Dawe 1983; Cummins 1984; Cummins and Swain 1986; Clarkson 1992). Moreover, while research further pointed to significant relationship between language development and achievement in mathematics, it also showed that the social dimension of language needs to be integrated in the theoretical framework to understand the differences in the achievement of students from different racial, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds (Secada, 1992).
Research from South Africa, where classrooms were multilingual and teachers and learners may not share a home language, shifted the focus from bilingual classrooms to multilingual classrooms (Achmat, 1992). The folklore and professional deficit theorizing about marginalised communities often blame learners’ family background, inadequate language proficiency and lack of motivation for their underachievement in schools (Bishop, 2001; Irvine & York, 1993; Moll et al., 1992). We now witness a moment when a community’s Funds of Knowledge (Gonzalez et al 2005; Hedges et al, 2011; Civil, 2016) can constitute the foundations of curricular interventions.
Adler’s work, considered as groundbreaking, drew attention to the interrelated dilemmas of code-switching, mediation and transparency in teaching mathematics in multilingual classrooms (Adler, 2001). These works also pointed to the importance of addressing the language question in mathematics in teacher education programmes (Adler, 1995; Planas & Civil, 2009; Essien 2010). Similarly, research focusing on the challenges involved in teaching mathematics for indigenous populations in Latin American countries, Australia and New Zealand engaged with issues of developing a mathematical register in indigenous languages and incorporating ethnomathematical Funds of Knowledge available in minoritized languages into curriculum (Meany, Trinick & Fairhall,2012; Parra, 2013).
Studies across the countries also foreground the fact that choices of about medium of instruction are deeply political and parental choices about medium of instruction depend on their beliefs about which language is seen as a language of power, allows for mobility, enhances social status and not necessarily on its pedagogical value.
The 21st ICMI Study on mathematics education and language diversity draws on ideas from recent research by socio linguists and argues that ‘languages should not be understood as monolithic, static, rule-governed forms of communication; in the same way that languages are not monolithic, so language speakers are not monolithic either; the nature of communication itself has been increasingly rethought as speakers draw on multiple semiotic means in order to communicate and in mathematics they include gesture, diagrams, and symbols’ (Barwell et al, 2016); it brought together 91 scholars from 27 countries for a study conference in 2011 with the following themes:
- Theme 1: Teaching mathematics in diverse language contexts
- Theme 2: Teacher education for diverse language contexts
- Theme 3: Researching mathematics teaching and learning in multilingual contexts
- Theme 4: Mathematics, language diversity and society
- Theme 5: Student mathematics learning and experiences in multilingual classrooms
The literature on language and mathematics education and the issues addressed are too vast for a comprehensive review. It suffices to say that research in the field has directly or indirectly influenced classroom practices and policy development as some researchers point out ‘developments in classroom practice, professional discourse, and policy have increasingly recognised the important role of language-rich activity in the classroom, often using the terms “conversation”, “discussion” or “discourse” to describe such activity’ (Morgan et al, 2014).
India is a multilingual country with as many as 780 languages according to People’s Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) lead by Prof Ganesh Devy. With a negligible exception, these languages belong to one of the six language families: Sino -Tibetan, Indo-European, Dravidian, Austroasiatic, Andamanese, Kra-Dai. Also, of the 780 languages, 480 are spoken by tribal and nomadic tribal people and 80 are coastal languages. Grierson published his landmark Linguistic Survey of India (1903-1928) identifying 179 languages and 544 dialects; his work has remained a reference point not only for the Census Office but also for scholars. The 1961 Census of India recognized 1652 mother tongues. The 2011 Census of India, however, recognises only 122 of the 780 as languages of India (with the restriction that they are spoken by more than 10,000 people) while it recognises 1956 mother tongues. Of these 122 languages, 22 are listed as official languages and function as the state language for at least one state in India with English and Hindi as link languages. Each language exhibits variations across the geographical region in which it is spoken. Varying number of languages and their varieties starkly demonstrate the network of relationship that obtains between language and power. Linguistic reorganisation of the states (in 1956), construction of a version of the language as the state language, using it as a purer, standardized version of the language, deeming it a higher status among all other dialects are recent phenomena. Mohanty (2006) argues that Indians are largely multilinguals, and Indian children learn to differentiate between the languages they know and how and where to use them by the time they are nine years old. At a more general level, Agnihotri (2007, 2009, 2010, 2021) conceptualizes language as Multilinguality in a three-dimensional space of Universal Grammar, linguistic fluidity and social justice demonstrating how languages learners bring to the school can be used as a resource for cognitive growth and rational inquiry.
In spite of this linguistic diversity in India, English increasingly continues to enable an entry into corridors of power of judiciary, executive, corporate jobs and academia. According to the 2011 Census of India, only 0.02 % Indians claim English as their mother tongue and only about 11 % claim to have some proficiency in English. How will India ever negotiate this conundrum in favour of the languages of learners?
The political dimension of language and the medium of instruction comes through clearly from the writings and speeches of Dalit Bahujan scholars like Kancha Ilaiah Shepard. A strong voice speaking for the marginalized castes, he argues that the state language (Telugu) is not the language of their community, their own language has been ignored, they have a right to learn English which is the language of power and the language that has the potential to get the marginalised to communicate across the world. It is to be noted that in the state of Andhra Pradesh, in the state run schools English is the only medium of instruction. Many southern states have accommodated English as the medium of instruction alongside regional language education in public funded schools (government schools) to attract children, going against the recommendation by the National Education Policy 2020 that children be offered primary school education in their mother tongue.
The challenge of providing education with English as the medium of instruction is formidable in a country where only a tiny minority speak English. But a silent but increasing rejection of regional language as the medium of instruction should be read as a statement against standardized state language which is heavily sanskritized or as in the case of Tamil Nadu, it is too committed to linguistic purism to keep accessibility to the learners in focus. Moreover, nearly all the states have several linguistic minorities including tribal people for whom the state language is not the mother tongue. In short, the ‘medium of instruction’ question is more complex than the binary of mother tongue versus English.
It is in these extremely complex linguistic and political contexts, alongside socio-economic, cultural and regional divides that mathematics education takes place in India and is crying for systematic attention from researchers. Given that mathematics and English are seen as two main gate keepers in India, the urgency of having to address the language question in mathematics education cannot be more emphasized.
This raises several questions for systematic study:
- Do the education departments of state and central governments acknowledge language as an issue to engage with in mathematics curriculum design and textbook development? If yes, what kind of linguistic concerns inform mathematics curriculum design and textbook development at the primary, middle and secondary grades in regional languages and in English?
- Following NCF 2005 that calls for constructive approaches to teaching and learning, if and how does language play a role in the choices made about building algorithmic competence and conceptual understanding? More specifically, is algorithmic competence privileged over conceptual understanding?
- What policy decisions at the state level inform how technical terms in mathematics would be dealt with in regional languages?
- Is it possible to privilege community’s Funds of Knowledge and the linguistic resources it brings along in the classroom, in particular, in the teaching of mathematics?/li>
- Can we use the languages learners bring to the classroom to play a constructive role in the teaching of mathematics?
- What are the specific ways in which teachers confront and negotiate language issues in teaching mathematics in regional languages? Given that those who study in a reginal language as the medium of instruction are largely economically marginalised students from the SC, ST and OBC categories whose mother tongue or home language is somewhat different from the standardized regional language, do teachers acknowledge the linguistic challenge these learners might face and enable them?
- How does mathematics education happen in different kinds of English medium schools catering to different socio-economic classes? If the classes are done in bilingual or multilingual mode, how do students hold on to the explanations given in a reginal language?
- Are teacher education programs sensitive to the language issues in teaching and learning of mathematics? How do they enable the teachers to deal with linguistic diversity in their classrooms?
- How do students experience learning of mathematics- meaning making, conceptual understanding- in a language that is not their home language, but is a majority language?
- How do students experience learning of mathematics- meaning making, conceptual understanding- in English?
The conference hope to engage with some of these questions with the hope of encouraging more research that focuses on the language question in mathematics education.
• We acknowledge Prof. Rama Kant Agnihotri’s contribution in bringing clarity to some of the linguistic concerns raised in this concept note.