BY K.M. VENKAT NARAYAN

Dominant languages will thrive, but that need not mean the elimination of minority languages and cultures. Preserving our linguistic and cultural diversity is essential, in order to pass on to posterity the vast cultural riches of our shared humanity...

"What language do you speak with your seven year old daughter?” my friend Andy asked me some weeks ago during a social conversation. "English", I replied, "although, my mother, who lives with us, tries to speak to my daughter in our mother tongue - one of India's many languages - Tamil, my daughter increasingly only replies in English." Another friend, David, jumped in and added, "it is difficult to get children in America to speak in a language other than English because the peer pressure and dominant culture to speak English is too strong."

The January 1-7, 2005 issue of "The Economist" says that the world's languages are disappearing at the rate of one a fortnight! At present, the world has about 6,800 distinct languages, and many more dialects. Temperate zones have relatively few languages, whereas hot, wet zones have many. Europe has only around 200 languages; the Americas about 1,000; Africa 2,400; and Asia perhaps 3,200. Already well over 400 of the total of 6,800 languages are close to extinction, and worse, probably 3,000 or so others are also endangered. The pessimists think that in 100 years' time 90% of the world's languages will be gone, and that a couple of centuries from now the world may be left with only 200 tongues.

There are several reasons for languages to disappear. “However, most languages disappear because their speakers voluntarily abandon them", says noted linguist Matthias Brenzinger. When a dominant language is associated with progress and economic success, speakers of minority languages come under pressure to learn it in order to get on. Today, a small number of languages already dominate the globe. The language spoken by most numbers of people, as first or second language, is Mandarin Chinese, with close to a billion speakers; followed by English (0.5 billion); Spanish (0.4 billion); Hindi (0.4 billion); Russian (0.3 billion); Arabic, Bengali, French, Portuguese (about 0.2 billion each); and Japanese and German (about 0.12 billion each). As the big languages advance, the minority ones retreat. They come to be seen as backward and embarrassing. As children stop learning them, they become ever less useful. In the end, the languages die.
Is this fate inevitable?

I reflect on my own personal situation. I was born in multilingual India, and lived there till I was 23 years old. I am fluent in my mother tongue, Tamil, and am also fluent in English and Kannada, and can speak some Hindi, Malayalam, and a small smattering of Arabic and Sanskrit.

The modern Republic of India was formed in 1947 from 575 erstwhile kingdoms, and it brought together 34 major linguistic groups and several hundred dialects. Since its inception, India consciously embarked on a policy to integrate the vastly diverse country, but also believed strongly that it was important to preserve its linguistic diversity in order to harmoniously achieve this integration. While it is tempting to believe that a single language may make life simpler, there is little evidence that monolingualism promotes peace. Monolingualism did not prevent internal conflicts in Northern Ireland, Vietnam, Somalia, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere.

The Indian Constitution recognizes 17 major languages, and as a statement of inclusivity, each of these languages is listed in the country's currency and is officially recognized in the Parliament. Hindi, a language spoken as first language by 22% of Indians in 1947 was in the majority and was chosen as one of two national languages, the other being English, which was retained on pragmatic grounds.

Each state in the country follows a three language policy: Hindi, English, and the dominant local language. The first language of instruction is usually either English or the dominant local language, but two other languages are taught compulsorily. For example, my primary medium of instruction was English, but I also learned Hindi and Kannada, the local language of the state of Karnataka. This explains my fluency in English, Hindi, and Kannada. But how did I get to speak my mother tongue, Tamil?

Our family had migrated to Karnataka from the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu, and we spoke Tamil at home although we lived in the state of Karnataka, where Kannada was the local language. Various people in Karnataka from several other parts of India spoke their own mother tongue (Bengali, Urdu, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Telugu, etc.) at home. There was never social pressure on the children against speaking their mother tongues, and children spoke their mother tongue at home and in public without any feeling of awkwardness. Most children were also fluent in English, Hindi, and the local language, and in fact, children taught each other their mother tongues in gamely challenge. In social lives, children and adults integrated well across linguistic groups, mixing and matching all their language skills, often switching from one tongue to another, often within the same sentence, as if it did not matter. The environment positively supported multilingualism. Not only was multilingualism acceptable, it was actually the way of life.

I have a message from my childhood experience growing up in multilingual India: embrace and celebrate linguistic diversity and it will create a natural kind of integration. Children can pick up multiple languages if they are exposed to them early, and there is evidence that people who speak more than one language are mentally more flexible and more creative. Dominant languages will still thrive, but that need not mean the elimination of minority languages and cultures. Nature deemed us humans to be 99% alike, but the remaining difference is what makes life intriguing and interesting.
Preserving our linguistic and cultural diversity may not just be a nice thing to do. It may well be the essential thing to do to pass on to posterity the vast cultural riches of our shared humanity. Accepting and celebrating linguistic diversity as a way of life may also help most humans to live in cultural harmony with themselves and with all others.

My seven year old daughter, Sarayu, speaks fluent English (her native tongue), and some Spanish. She understands our mother tongue, Tamil, and could even uninhibitedly speak it until she was three years old. She is often shy to speak Tamil now. I plan to gently help her overcome that socially-induced shyness.

(K.M.Venkat Narayan is a physician & scientist, and also does free-lance writing.)

 

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