Disappearing Languages

The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

The Bible tells us of the Tower of Babel, which was built to reach the heavens by a united humanity, all speaking a single language. When God saw that humans would be able to do whatever they set their minds to, so he confused their unified language and scattered them.

Fascinating as the myth is, it is unlikely that at one point of time all human beings communicated in a universal language. From the dawn of history, variety has been the characteristic of a culture, and different languages have acted as the backbones of different civilizations. Long term geographical isolation has facilitated the development of new languages, while increasing interaction among groups at a later stage in history has helped enrich these languages. Media that emerged from the necessity of communication and an urge for expression of the wandering food gatherer have gone on to grow into rich languages and dialects, and have nourished different cultures to grow upon them. All that has played a significant role in the journey of humanity from the ice age caves to to the skyscraper --- literature, history, philosophy, religion, and science --- all need language for support.

Languages are not constant. Neither are they eternal. They are born, they grow and they die as well. With interaction among cultures and with decline and growth of different civilizations, languages of the past have altered significantly. New languages have often flourished and old dialects have faded away into oblivion. In many cases, driven by hatred and prejudice, man has often deliberately eradicated certain cultures, along with the languages spoken by those people. Several South and Central American languages are worthy of mention in this context, the dooms of which were brought about by the Spanish and Portugese invaders. Those which had stood through the winds of change have modified and reshaped themselves with time, refreshing their vocabularies and restructuring their grammars often incorporating elements from other languages. Such variations occur at a very slow rate and are only observable after a considerable time has elapsed.

At present however, languages of the world face a new challenge. With the tides of Westernisation flowing stronger than ever (which we often confuse as Globalsation), less well represented languages are disappearing at a rate faster than ever. According to a recent study, the rate of extinction of language far exceeds those of the most endangered species of birds and animals. Dialects spoken by indigenous people, tribal languages in particular face the greatest danger, for they usually have very few speakers, they seldom have a script and rarely do they have any use as a means of official or academic communication. There are certain aboriginal languages in Australia that are literally left with but a handful of speakers. Many tribal languages in India, too, face a similar threat. Judging by the trends one may sadly conclude that within a few hundred years, all such languages would cease to exist.

Many of the mainstream regional languages in India, too, are facing threats of a similar kind, though not of the same intensity. English has found its way deep into the tongue of the city-dweller, much deeper than it ever did when India was under the British Crown. This spread of English, which is commendable, has been unfortunately accompanied by an apathy towards the vernacular, and comunication in English between native speakers of a regional language has become a common phenomenon in India. Unlike the Far East, South Asia has not been able to find a way to incorporate regional languages as modes of expressing scienctific ideas, and the existance of 22 'national languages' (apart from more than a hundred tribal languages) have rendered impossible the use of regional languages in administration. The bulk of the younger generation of today, especially those hailing from the major cities communicate in a confused conglomerate of languages that consist of elements from English, Hindi and the regional language. Vernacular literature of the last century, despite their great literary value are being neglected. This situation is further exacerbated by a draught in quality literature in regional languages in more recent times. More and more able writers from the subcontinent are finding it easier to express their imagination and ideas in English compared to Bengali or Malayalam. An analogous trend is also reflected in popular entertainment. Bollywood movie songs these days have chunks of lyrics in Desi English, something almost unimaginable a decade or two ago, when a fiery 'Shut Up!' from the heroine or a shy 'I love you' from the hero would suffize to bring out the 'Bilayti' aura required for the movie, coupled with settings in a European landscape.

The current trends depict a very grim picture of an urban society in the not so distant future, where everyone belongs to a grossly homogeneous 'global' culture and speaks a single language, and where all other languages are studied only by linguists and historians. Some of the local languages may still exist as dialect of the poor and the rural masses, but deprived of their previous glory and in a state of severe negligence. Such a linguistic rift would add up to other socio-economic and cultural factors and magnify the gaping divide of mankind which appears to be imminent some time in the future. One can only hope that such a nightmare would not become reality.