totway - Tumblr blog

[totway]

Language and Knowledge: A debate on their co-existence

India is a country where most of the states are divided on linguistic basis. India does not have a national language but 22 official languages across the nation. I don't know the exact number of languages and dialects being spoken but there are more that 500 of them, and to make it clear languages have a script to write i.e they can be written as well as spoken whereas dialects are only spoken.  According to Wikipedia languages that are being spoken in the northern and central belt of India are Indo-Aryan language, that of North eastern states is Sino-Tibetian and southern regions speak Dravidian languages. Each language has its own identity, beauty and significance. 

Being a southern region person living in the central part of India since childhood who also knows Hindi well, I have observed here that people who have migrated from different states have started to lose grip over their language and roots.  People who study in English medium schools may or may not speak fluent English. I agree that learning English as a language is necessary, especially those who want to work abroad or join MNCs, but people who were born approximately after 1990 (when globalization has started) have started to sacrifice their mother tongue to learn English. One of the facts, I am sure everybody will agree is that English was introduced to India when Britishers came over here to rule us, i.e some 200-250 years back, and we have a strong history of our languages be it Tamizh, Sanskrit or Hindi. Amid all this, human psychology urges them to interpret a person based on their English speaking skills. If he is a fluent speaker he is knowledgeable otherwise he is not. This inculcates a sense of inferiority among the people who have studied in another medium (I don't know about every state but this is what I have observed around me).  

As per census 2011 India had a literacy rate of 74.07% which rose upto 77.70% in 2021 (according to NSO) which is a good sign as population has also increased exponentially. But India stands far back in the list of literacy across the world. According to 'our world data Org.' literacy is measured : on the basis of literacy test, self reported (either family head or individual) or an indirect estimation. The methodology is different for different places, which in my opinion can't be fair enough. This data about India is available on internet one, but have you wondered what was the literacy of our ancestors? Even Zero was invented by Aryabhatta in kalyuga. We are in 2022 according to the Gregorian calendar but we have a history of more than 15,000 years ago. How do they calculate days, how did they know that Lord Rama has completed 14 years of exile and he has returned on exactly the day of the new moon (Amavasya) . They might not know English but they were knowledgeable. It is our history. They might have been learning in their own language till the era, before invasions of Mughals and then Britishers who tried to create a new history by erasing the existing one, which gave us one of the  languages, English.  

For people who were still continuing their practices and learnings in their own language, when suddenly told to adapt a very new language, would make them look less knowledgeable when judged on the basis of language. Let us understand it with an example. Telugu script has 16 vowels and 35 consonants (excluding the mixed consonant) whereas Hindi (which uses Devnagari script) has 13 vowels (excluding lri which isn't used in Hindi) and 33 consonants (excluding mixed consonants).  It is obvious that there will be some Telugu words which won't have Hindi translation and there will be some words which will be very tough to pronounce (for non Dravidian native speakers). If suddenly someone says that everybody has to learn Telugu as it will be the only official language, what will be the literacy rate then. Nobody will be able to qualify an exam written in Telugu except for the Telugu people. Then should we say that Teluguites are more knowledgeable than others? NO! Language has nothing to do with knowledge. 

Now, people would say let's boycott English, but that won't make anything better. It is an era of globalization and English is an internationally accepted language, learning of which is going to be an asset any day.  But all I am saying is learning any language for necessity is acceptable but sacrificing your own language, your mother tongue is not.  A tree stands tall when it has strong roots. In my opinion people should feel proud of their mother tongues and should be welcoming to other languages. I am concluding by my quote which goes as 'language is just a way to communicate with humans, it is neither a measure of knowledge nor a symbol of status.'