Listen to the language of reason
By Kiran Soni Gupta

THE longest and the most serious controversy has been the use and abuse of the languages. This phenomenon is no longer confined to India but has infested the world scenario. In the western world, the Germans are miffed that their language is suppressed in favour of English and French as one of the official working languages of the European community. They think that the mounting wealth and power of the country merits wider use of German.

This is understandable but misguided as the Japanese have shown, the French are learning and the British and the Americans are yet to realise. To boast of a international language is like having a reserve currency; it brings a country short-term ease but long-term grief. In the colonial days it was a bonus to have a language on which the sun never set.

It strengthened the grip of the coloniser on the colonist helping him to sell his unloverly goods with unchanged instruction books in his domain. What he said loudly in English mattered. What they replied softly in Hindi did not. But in these days of frightful commercial rivalry it is what the customer says that counts.

A language is a system of symbols developed by conventions whether written or spoken, by means of which members of a particular society share the common culture moorings and their ideas and their beliefs. Language is a peculiar possession of human being and the ability of an individual to learn the language and to pass it on to posterity is the basis of emergence of cultural complex of any group or society.

One learns the experience of others only through language which reflects the basis relationships between human-beings. Of all the three modes of communication — vocalisation, kinesics and language, it is the language alone which determines and reflects the progress of civilisation and human culutre.

The prime purpose of any language is communication and there is no language that can be called primitive. In fact all of them have expanded and modified to meet the changing circumstances. There are about 3,000 known languages in the world.

The first known writing systems (Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley) go back no further than 6000 B.C. The writing in China is somewhat later. In middle America writing development dates back to as early as beginning of the Christian Era.

Multiplicity of languages has both enriched culture as well as retarded the processes of cultural change. In our pluralistic society, the use and development of languages is riddled with complexities. The magnitude of the problem is self-evident from the census data. There are 1652 mother tongues in language. There are over 100 spoken languages in India.

The languages belong to four principal families namely the Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Astro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman. These languages having close contact for centuries have come to develop and share certain analogies and idioms, metaphors, images and semantic constructions.

The complexities of these languages have been further multiplied by the myopic visionaries who have been propagating the use of regional languages without understanding the basic function and purpose of a language. It is a fact that each state has become more language conscious and seeks the label of promotion irrespective of whether it is official dictate or the gunpoint of fanatics.

In our free country, a person moving from North to South or East to West and vice-versa bears the brunt of this problem. Never before had the promotion of languages been a handicap to others where tolerance ruled and the knowledge of a foreign language was considered to be an asset. Now one feels alien not only in one’s own country but also in one’s own state. There is a dire need to discover ourselves and to draw a clear-cut distinction between the love for one’s language and for fanaticism — whether it is abetted by government thinking or individual efforts

Ethnocetrism should not be confused with fanaticism. No language can be classified as good or bad but should be taken to be good if it fulfils its basic purpose of communication. This language controversy had dotted the years before Independence and even now there is no love lost over the issue. Addicts of the regional languages ought to realise that in this 20th century with increasing specialisation, interaction and dependency both in terms of social and economic factors, the garb of over-protectionism should be discarded soon and the promotion and development of languages is more intermingling rather than confining it to one’s own geographical counters. Language is both an integrative and disintegrative factor. Therefore, a watertight stipulation is not appropriate.

What is important is appreciation of language is means of an end, namely imparting of communication competency.

The energetic development of Indian languages and literature is sina-qua-non for the educational and cultural development. Unless this is done, the creative energies of the people will not be realised, standards of education will not improve and the energy will not spread to the people. The gulf between the intelligentsia and the masses will remain, it does not widen further.

The entire educational process is dependent upon the use of languages. Education also should, therefore, spell out in clear terms the manner of use and development. Though there has been a broad consensus in the country for the acceptance of the three-language formula but there is inconsistency in its implementation. All languages are not being taught compulsorily at the primary stage. Classical language has been substituted for the modern language in some states.

No provision exists for teaching of a South Indian language for which the formula indicated preference for Hindi-speaking states. Though the regional languages are already in use as a media of education at the primary and the secondary stages, urgent steps should now be taken to adopt them as a media of education at the university stage. At the secondary stage, the state government should adopt and vigorously implement the three-language formula which includes the study of modern Indian language and one of the South Indian languages apart from Hindi and English.

Suitable courses in Hindi or English should also be available in universities and colleges with a view to improving the proficiency of students in these languages up to prescribed university standards. The education policy also should, therefore, spell out in clear terms the manner of use and the development of language which is imperative against the backdrop of these complexities.

Although English has not been a native language it proved to be a unifying factor during the British period. This has been a vehicle of thought and expression and united Indians politically, socially, culturally during the last 150 years. It was through this medium that the democratic thought and literature of the world writers and news of the world events started circulating in this country. The hearts of the people living in various regions started pulsating with common political ideas and political thought. A strong sense of patriotism was created in the youth who fought the battle of freedom.

The demand for carving out states on a linguistic basis was made for the purpose of carrying on agitations in different regions against the British effectively and this was no weapon to beat the British with and to decry the administration. Today it no longer holds good. Regional fanaticism has gone to the extent that the persons other than those who speak the regional language are being attacked from all sides and no safeguards or guarantees can protest them against this fanaticism. With these attitudes a new form of slavery is bound to emerge as it did in feudal times.

Therefore, in the interest of the country it is essential that when world knowledge is growing at the tremendous pace especially in the science and technology, India must not only keep up this growth but should also make her own significant contribution to it. The study of English deserves to be specially strengthened.

The high ground in the modern world is held by people who speak an international language perfectly and have an impenetrable language of their own. Success is not persuading someone to speak your language, it is persuading him that it is quite unnecessary to try. The modern solution lies within — Welsh for Welsh and indecipherable gaelic for the Scots. As for English, language schools find that mounting number of pupils insist on learning American and not English. Even the BBC is now coming to face up this growing divide. Unless the love for one’s language is prevented from degenerating into fanaticism, it is bound to arrest the progress and development of men and nations.