Hindi prominence order: Why not an inclusive policy for our disappearing languages?

Anisha Sheth | The News Minute | June 20, 2014 | 5 pm ISTThe Indian Government’s recent order to various official bodies and organizations to give “prominence” to Hindi when using social media has triggered a debate. Not surprising in a country that speaks close to 800 languages. With 197 endangered languages, India tops the list of UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, the country has already lost about 250 languages in the last 50 years.Apart from the overt politics of giving “prominence” to one language over others, the government’s move prompts us to ask ourselves what languages mean for society, and how governments must learn that people relate to the larger world around them through language.In Werner Herzog’s film Where the Green Ants Dream, is a scene in a courtroom, in which an aborigine man is supposed to give testimony to a white judge. However, the man has been named “mute” by the other aborigines who bring him. He was called mute, because no one could understand the language he spoke. He was the last speaker.A similar situation was reported in India by the media when 85-year-old Boa Sr died on January 26, 2010. Boa was the last surviving member of the Bo tribe, one of the 10 Greater Andamanese tribes. With her, died the whole imagination of her people.There are languages which do not have words to distinguish between right and left. Others, in which numbers do not exceed 20.“Every language does not measure space in terms of a metre or foot,” explains Ganesh Devy, . Each language has its own way of looking at space and time, he says, therefore has its own worldview. In India, Devy said that people speak close to 800 living languages, some of which may have just 10 or 50 speakers.Devy says that he recognises that it is problematic for a government to protect hundreds of languages, some of which may barely have a handful of speakers. However, he says that the government must make efforts to protect languages which have, say over 1,000 speakers. If the Indian Constitution has only 22 languages listed in Schedule VIII, around 96 percent of the world views within the country’s political borders have been simply ignored, he says. Just for percent of these imaginations are represented in Parliament, he says. The consequence of having a language listed in the eighth Schedule of the Constitution is that “these languages get government protection, they are safeguarded”.Devy says that in the country around 35 languages get some kind of government protection, either state or central government policies of schooling etc. But the sheer majority of languages, and therefore “world views” are simply ignored. If the government is to “accommodate all these people” in its ideas of development, to make development truly “inclusive”, it cannot ignore the speakers of smaller languages, Devy says. Development needs to be language-sensitive, Devy says.Explaining that languages and economies are closely tied, he said that people will migrate to other languages for “better livelihood options”. Language identity becomes subordinate to survival.Devy says that through carefully planned policies for local economies and education, the government can ensure that languages survive.He said that it had happened in the cases of the Bhili (Gujarat), Chang , and Khezha (Nagaland) and Khandeshi (Maharashtra) languages, in which recorded greater speakers between two consecutive censes.Between 1991 and 2001 censes, the Bhili language saw a rise of 90 percent. Devy said that speakers of the language were “ashamed” to admit that they spoke Bhili. Through micro-economic policies of agriculture, and mother-tongue education, the government managed to create opportunities for the people to use their language for economic purposes as well.In the 1991 census, speakers of the Chang language were pegged at 33,000 but in the following census it rose to 61,000. The government managed this by creating education opportunities. Speakers of the Khezha language numbered 13,000 in the 1991 census, but rose to 40,000 people in the 2001 census because governments created opportunities for the people to pursue small scale manufacturing and other industrial enterprises, Devy said.Something similar happened with the Khandeshi language as well. By enabling people to add value to agricultural products, the government helped to increase the number of the people who spoke the language from 9,73,000 in 1991 to over 20 lakh in 2001.What does world view mean?Illustrating with an example, Devy said that there are six epics in the Bhili language, and none in Gujarati. (Gujarati is listed in the eighth Schedule of the Constitution). The creation of an epic requires tremendous “philosophical” inquiry, Devy says.Also, for instance, the language of the indigenous Koraga tribe in coastal Karnataka does not have a word for dowry. Devy says that it is because they do not practice dowry. Rather, they have the practice of bride-price, in which the man pays a customary amount upon marriage.