India is a multilingual country; by a rough estimate more than two hundred languages are spoken here, not counting the dialects, which can be viewed as potential languages. These languages belong to a number of language families. Such linguistic diversity is not found elsewhere in the world. As for the people, quite a few are bilingual and some are multi-lingual, even when we fairly strongly define the concept of “knowing a language”: one can be credited with “knowing a certain language” when one demonstrates that one has the ability to use that language creatively in some domain of activity. People are multilingual in interesting ways; for one instance, one person from, say, Odisha, might know, in addition to his mother tongue, Odia, English, and Tamil, and another, from the same state, the first three languages and Manipuri. This is not an unusual phenomenon in the country. This, hopefully, is a fairly representative picture of the Indian multilingual scenario.
There is an aspect of our linguistic consciousness that deserves attention. Generally one asserts one’s linguistic identity in terms of a single language, although the person concerned may be a truly competent multilingual, being fluent in three or even four languages. It is always like, “I am a Bengali, but I can speak English, Hindi and French too”. A speaker of Marathi or Tamil might be using English in his professional life and also for creative purposes, but he would still identify himself (or herself) as a Marathi or a Tamilian, as the case may be. There would hardly be any who would declare their linguistic identity in terms of two or three languages.
Most states of India have only one official language: the language of the majority of that state. Some states, like Bihar and UP, do have a second language, but that does not seem to have altered the situation very much. Odisha (at that time, Orissa), during Mr. Biju Patnaik’s administration, had declared all the fourteen (at that time, fourteen) Scheduled languages as the official languages of Odisha (then Orissa), but such a decision had no real impact. It couldn’t have been intended to, in all probability. Governance in Odisha even now is carried out in English and Odia, although the official language is Odia. Use of English is considered to be undesirable and demands from various quarters, including the intellectuals, have been made from time to time to conduct administration in Odia alone. There seems to have been no demand in any state by any group for a certain state to use three or four (even two!) languages for purposes of administration, in the true spirit of multilingualism. In this scenario, what has been recognized, probably informally rather than formally, is that one has the right to reach the State or the Union government in any Indian language and has the right to receive the government’s response in the same language. This is arguably the only significant implementation of multilingualism at the level of law and administration.
No language movement in India has ever been organized to demand privilege for more than one language (currently in use): according official / second language status to a language, inclusion in the Eighth Schedule of the constitution, according the status of “language” to a “dialect”, according classical language status to a language, among others. There are linguistic minorities in every state, but how often have the linguistic majority in a state demanded that the same privileges that they enjoy in say, education, be accorded to the minority population in the state? How often have the speakers of a language (really the “standard dialect”) asked for similar linguistic privileges to be given to the speakers of a dialect (of that language)? In fact, the “linguistic” relation between the so-called dialect and language speakers is never very relaxed.
Despite our multilingual reality, are we then temperamentally monolinguals, irrespective of how many languages we know? It is reminiscent of the “‘us’ versus ‘them’” attitude. “Them” we can respect, and live comfortably with, but they are still “them”. Is multilingualism in harmony with this attitude?
There is an aspect of our linguistic consciousness that deserves attention. Generally one asserts one’s linguistic identity in terms of a single language, although the person concerned may be a truly competent multilingual, being fluent in three or even four languages. It is always like, “I am a Bengali, but I can speak English, Hindi and French too”. A speaker of Marathi or Tamil might be using English in his professional life and also for creative purposes, but he would still identify himself (or herself) as a Marathi or a Tamilian, as the case may be. There would hardly be any who would declare their linguistic identity in terms of two or three languages.
Most states of India have only one official language: the language of the majority of that state. Some states, like Bihar and UP, do have a second language, but that does not seem to have altered the situation very much. Odisha (at that time, Orissa), during Mr. Biju Patnaik’s administration, had declared all the fourteen (at that time, fourteen) Scheduled languages as the official languages of Odisha (then Orissa), but such a decision had no real impact. It couldn’t have been intended to, in all probability. Governance in Odisha even now is carried out in English and Odia, although the official language is Odia. Use of English is considered to be undesirable and demands from various quarters, including the intellectuals, have been made from time to time to conduct administration in Odia alone. There seems to have been no demand in any state by any group for a certain state to use three or four (even two!) languages for purposes of administration, in the true spirit of multilingualism. In this scenario, what has been recognized, probably informally rather than formally, is that one has the right to reach the State or the Union government in any Indian language and has the right to receive the government’s response in the same language. This is arguably the only significant implementation of multilingualism at the level of law and administration.
No language movement in India has ever been organized to demand privilege for more than one language (currently in use): according official / second language status to a language, inclusion in the Eighth Schedule of the constitution, according the status of “language” to a “dialect”, according classical language status to a language, among others. There are linguistic minorities in every state, but how often have the linguistic majority in a state demanded that the same privileges that they enjoy in say, education, be accorded to the minority population in the state? How often have the speakers of a language (really the “standard dialect”) asked for similar linguistic privileges to be given to the speakers of a dialect (of that language)? In fact, the “linguistic” relation between the so-called dialect and language speakers is never very relaxed.
Despite our multilingual reality, are we then temperamentally monolinguals, irrespective of how many languages we know? It is reminiscent of the “‘us’ versus ‘them’” attitude. “Them” we can respect, and live comfortably with, but they are still “them”. Is multilingualism in harmony with this attitude?
3 comments:
Indian multilingualism as a concept is as old as the Rigveda.The seer-thinker while extolling our national character as multi-ethnic,multi-lingual and multi-religious,speaks in favour of our unity in final count,an idea which now we phrase as unity in diversity.
Linguistic minorities need to be treated with just sympathy and all languages must be allowed to flourish and contribute to human progress.
I remember an incident when in a seminar at the Delhi Assembly annexie hall where I was to speak on the influence of Odia on Sanskrit literature,one lady was to present her paper on the contacts between Sindhi and Sanskrit.She while delivering the ideas broke into tears as Sindhi as a language was not cared for in the divided Pakistan.She so fervently pleaded her heart how Sindh could stay on as an integral part of political India.Now the central govt has provision to award Sindhi writings at the Sahitya Akademy.
We are monolingual if both our parents or those with whom we initially grow up speak the same language or dialect otherwise we are different.
Multilingualism is an asset as it helps India in thinking so richly and diversely.With the coming and getting almost naturalized in many respects,English has not diminished the glitter of our vigorous mother tongues - our spontaneous regional languages and dialects.Best regards.S M Mishra
Indian multilingualism as a concept is as old as the Rigveda.The seer-thinker while extolling our national character as multi-ethnic,multi-lingual and multi-religious,speaks in favour of our unity in final count,an idea which now we phrase as unity in diversity.
Linguistic minorities need to be treated with just sympathy and all languages must be allowed to flourish and contribute to human progress.
I remember an incident when in a seminar at the Delhi Assembly annexie hall where I was to speak on the influence of Odia on Sanskrit literature,one lady was to present her paper on the contacts between Sindhi and Sanskrit.She while delivering the ideas broke into tears as Sindhi as a language was not cared for in the divided Pakistan.She so fervently pleaded her heart how Sindh could stay on as an integral part of political India.Now the central govt has provision to award Sindhi writings at the Sahitya Akademy.
We are monolingual if both our parents or those with whom we initially grow up speak the same language or dialect otherwise we are different.
Multilingualism is an asset as it helps India in thinking so richly and diversely.With the coming and getting almost naturalized in many respects,English has not diminished the glitter of our vigorous mother tongues - our spontaneous regional languages and dialects.Best regards.S M Mishra
You are absolutely right, Prof Patnaik: language is the handmaiden of power. For instance, rarely in Telugu cinema do the hero or heroine speak Telangana Telugu; they speak the Telugu of coastal Andhra. Telanaga Telugu is left to comedians and villains!
Education of linguistic minorities and indigenous peoples the world over happens in the dominant languages. This is one of the biggest factors in loss of linguistic diversity.
India's National Commissioner Linguistic Minorities lists several "safeguards". My 2010 paper "Linguistic Human Rights in India: Policy and Practice" discusses some aspects of the problem: http://tinyurl.com/35ywy64
Thank you for a thought-provoking post.
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