P Kharel

Although the International Mother Language Day is observed in eight weeks’ time, on February 21, ex-colonial languages pervade most African countries today. Existing conditions, however, suggest strong chances of the rich treasure trove depleting at brisk pace.

In a bid to stem the trend of local languages disappearing, the government of India last summer directed universities to draw up plans for translating all literature into Indian languages. The measure is a part of celebrations of 75 years of India’s independence in 2022. Some undergraduate courses in nearly two dozen engineering colleges in ten states have been approved for being conducted in six regional languages.
To what extent that policy succeeds should be interesting for many a country facing acute paucity people speaking languages other than own. Policy is one thing; translating it into action and achieving the declared goals quite another — a fact reiterated relentlessly for ages in especially least developed and developing countries.

Fast vanishing
Home to more than 2,100 languages, representing one-third of all languages circulating in the world, ex-colonial or Arabic are the official languages on much of the African continent. The continent saw the disappearance of thousands of languages, dialects and cultural practices due to aggressive pressures from colonial rulers down the ages to adopt the language spoken, and the norms conforming to the prescription, made by of the overlords bent on converting and “civilising the barbarians”.

The malign campaign robbed a large number of indigenous communities of their deep-rooted identities. In the process, their budding literature got rude shrift — a general trend that gripped not just Africa but most parts of the world under the weight of imperialism and colonialism. The result: cultural genocide at the fastest and ruthless pace almost everywhere. Language is about relationships as well as acquiring and sharing knowledge catering to the brain what nutrients do to the body.

Vedic knowledge rarely figures in discussions at regional and international forums sponsored and dominated by participants from other cultures. Sanskrit stands as a living witness to human civilisations since many millennia. Evolving as a rich and refined language, it developed own grammar at great length along with a comprehensive arrangement of alphabets. It influenced many other languages to grow, expand and influence yet more languages far and wide.

Some Western scholars estimate 1,500 BCE as the time period when the Rig Veda was committed to a written form. Much of the earliest compositions passed on orally to keen adherents through many centuries until the age of writing began to take over. The oral composition of Veda’s time frame should be of significantly earlier period. There is little dispute over its existence into a remote past beyond the mere 3,500 years allowed for the written narratives of the Vedas.

Sanskrit is described by many, especially in the earlier centuries, as a “perfected language” representing a fount of knowledge. By the time Gautam Buddha was born in Nepal and blossomed to attain enlightenment 2,600 years ago, Sanskrit and the literature it inspired had taken deep roots in Himwatkhand that covered large parts of present-day South Asia and its neighbourhood.
Far from being just an abstract and barren subject, communication theories constitute concretised concept for practical use. It concerns with human beings of every social station, power hierarchy and economic status. Philosophies and prescriptions enunciated by Himwatkhand region’s scholars like Bharat Muni and Kautilya seem to be slowly getting revived. The rise in European adventures and colonial conquests since the 17th century marked Sanskrit’s decline, as colonisation blunted indigenous tastes, habits and practices. Colonisers looked down upon indigenous values and ways of living, whereas adoption of the ruling class’s norms and practices are not only encouraged but rewarded as well.

Captain James Cook (1728–1779), a British explorer and navigator, was noted for his voyages in the Pacific Ocean and to Australia in the second half of the 18th century. As soon as he landed in New Zealand in 1769, he and botanist Joseph Banks got busy giving names to local landmarks that caught the duo’s fancy.
At first through persuasion and later by forceful methods, the Maori, in many manners, got to be assimilated into the colonisers’ culture. Today, barely a fifth of the Maori population can converse in its ancestral language. It fears that the fast falling number of Maori speaking people could lead to the eventual disappearance of their language. Be it in New Zealand, Australia, Canada or the United States, Anglophones have emerged as the largest groups.

Driving desire
The desire to not only promote, protect and preserve their language domestically but expand it for presence elsewhere is overpowering to the former colonial powers with traditionally dominant cultural agendas. Five countries, where people of Anglo-Saxon descent dominate, have banded themselves together as “Five Eyes”, bonded as they are by the English language.

The French and the Spanish, among other colonists, are eager to angle for their own languages to expand in other societies. In a latest move, France is pressing for making French the sole working language for the 27-member European Union. Its bid to do away with English in the EU official transactions is seen by the Five Eyes as a blatant display of “arrogance”.

Now that Britain has exited the economic grouping, many member states appreciate the idea of scrapping English as one of the official languages of the organisation. Ireland is the lone member country whose first language is English. Some scribes in the Five Eyes have commented on the French being “at it again, plotting the demise of the English language in the EU”. When independence finally came in many foreign ruled regions, the colonists, faced with the task of uniting different peoples inside the inherited colonial borders, adopted a colonial language — French, English or Portuguese — for purposes of unity.

Representing hallmark human behaviours and communication culture, language highlights a powerful aspect of evolving individual identity. Unfortunately, of the near 4,000 languages spoken across the world today, half of them are most likely to vanish in the thin air before this century ends. Death of a language is an irreparable loss to the literary and cultural heritage of society as a whole.

Multilingual teaching is the new thrust UNESCO gives. Why not begin from the best of the best educational institutions in the West and promote truly global inclusion? Initiatives with commitment should steer the campaign course of the task on an even keel for remarkable demonstration effects in contributing to checking the threat to the tapestry of humanity’s rich cultural diversity.

(Former chief editor of The Rising Nepal, P. Kharel has been writing for this daily since 1973)