Language and identity in Bhutan

In 1812, the famous linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote that the difference between nations is most clearly manifest in their languages. In 1856, August Pott wrote that language is the key trait defining nationhood. In 1987, Emil Cioran wrote that we do not really reside in a country, but in our language. Our true fatherland, he said, was nothing else than our mother tongue. Most of our thoughts and much of our identity are language-mediated and depend directly on our language. Our native language is where we grew up and how we came to know and understand the world. Our mother tongue is our mind's conceptual homeland. All of us are familiar with the example of the grandchildren of immigrants in Australia or America who effectively speak only English. Their grandparents never really mastered the language and are fast forgetting what they did once manage to learn. The nationality gap between grandparents and grandchildren becomes painfully apparent. The grandparents cannot share their thoughts in the exact way that they think them because their grandchildren inhabit a different linguistic and mental world. What about our national language? Are some of us not speaking more English than Dzongkha nowadays? What if our native language happens to be a Bhutanese language other than Dzongkha? How is our language a defining feature of Bhutanese national identity? Is our national language not an important part of what it means to be Bhutanese? Is Dzongkha an essential part of our culture? Why can't we just translate everything into English or Mandarin Chinese? There are real answers to these questions, but it requires some reflection to appreciate the significance of these answers. (The author uses first person in his capacity as an advisor to the Dzongkha Development Commission)