sujay dynamics of language spread in multilingual societies final final final

7/21/2019 SUJAY Dynamics of Language Spread in Multilingual Societies FINAL FINAL FINAL

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Observations on language spread in

multi-lingual societies: Lessons learnt

from a study of Ancient and Modern

India

Sujay Rao Mandavilli

EL Asia !aci"c #ournal of Social Sciences $olume % Issue & '()%*+

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to formalize and document observations on

language spread in multi-lingual or polyglot societies as understood from a studyof spoken and written language in various phases in Indian history starting fromthe Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient India the mature phase of which began in!"## $C to modern %ost-independent India and formalize them into principleswherever possibleso that these can be used as a basis to make furtherobservations and draw further inferences from studies both in India andelsewhere the ultimate goal being toprepare a dictionary of the universalprinciples of language spread in multi-lingual or polyglot societies and thegeneral principles of language spread for ready use anywhere in the world& 'uchan e(ercise can be carried out by collating the basic observations and principlesas understood from this paper with observations culled from similar studies that

have already been carried or may be carried out both in India and elsewhere inthe world& 'uch a compendium would be a valuable heuristic tool for analysisand can be an indispensable tool for use by politicians educationalists andothers across the world for decision-making and policy-formulation and as a partof the emerging discipline of Applied )inguistics& It will also be useful to thecommon man to help him understand the various seemingly mysterious forcesthat greatly impact his daily life& *e also introduce several new concepts in thispaper such as the Theory of *in-*in %ropositions the +octrine ofInsubordination the Theory of )inguistic ,smosis Conte(t and ole-basedsuitability Conte(t and ole-based indispensability .oyo model of culturaldi/usion +ynamic stability of multi-lingual countries etc& Thus this paper

delineates much of the theoretical framework that can be used for a formal studyof the spread of languages in any multi-lingual society&

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Introduction

The key objective of this paper is to understand the dynamics of language spreadin multi-lingual and polyglot societies such as India and formalize and documentobservations on language spread and formalize them into principles whereverpossible& This is based on a study of spoken and written language in variousphases in Indian history starting from the Indus Valley Civilization of AncientIndia also popularly known as the IVC the mature phase of which began inabout !"## $C followed by a study of %ost-3arappan India or the cultures of the4angetic plains then post-$uddhist India 2ughal India 'outh India the $ritishera and 5nally modern %ost-independent India so that commonalities andpatterns observed across the aforesaid periods can be used as a basis to makefurther observations and draw further inferences from other similar studies that

have already been carried out or that may be carried out both in India andelsewhere the ultimate goal being to prepare a comprehensive dictionary of theuniversal principles of language spread for ready use anywhere in the world&'uch an e(ercise can be carried out by collating the basic principles asunderstood through this paper with observations culled from similar studies thathave been carried out or that may be carried out elsewhere in the world& 'uch acompendium would be a valuable heuristic tool for analysis and can be aninvaluable tool for use by politicians educationalists linguists sociolinguistslinguistic anthropologists arm-chair academiciansand others across the world fordecision-making and policy-formulation and would not only avoid erroneousdecision-making but would also greatly help in formulating language policies that

are in the greater interests of larger section of society& It will also be useful to thecommon man to help him understand various seemingly incomprehensible forcesthat greatly impact his daily life&This can also help in carrying out a root-causeanalysis for failed language policies and can also help in predictive analysis& *ealso introduce several new concepts in this paper such as the Theory of *in-*in%ropositions the +octrine of Insubordination the Theory of )inguistic ,smosisConte(t and ole-based suitability Conte(t and ole-based indispensability .oyomodel of cultural di/usion etc& This paper puts to use +%%6 or +ialogues betweenthe %ast the %resent and the future techni7ues that we proposed in a previousmonograph and combines this with +3A or +eep 3istorical analysis yet anotherconcept mooted in the same paper& 0

Although this paper delineates much of the theoretical framework for the formalstudy of the spread of languages in a multi-lingual societyand presents casesstudies from across the globe in support of principles enunciated in this paper itdoes not purport to be a comprehensive dictionary of the principles of languagespread in multi-lingual societies at this point& ather it is to be seen as a startingpoint which will allow other scholars to relate to their own conte(ts bring intheir points of view or synthesize with incremental data& )et us now begin ourstudy of various phases of Indian 3istory beginning with the Indus Valley

03istoriography by ,bjectives8 A new approach for the study of history within the

framework of the proposed Twenty-6irst Century 'chool of 3istoriography 'ujay ao2andavilli 9): ;ournal of 'ocial 'ciences 2arch !#0 1Copyright 'ujay ao 2andavilli
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G,nce 'anskrit emerged from the sacerdotal environment to which it wasoriginally con5ned it spread with breath-taking rapidity across 'outhern Asia&*ithin three centuries 'anskrit became the sole medium by which ruling elitese(pressed their power from as far *est as %urushapura in 4andhara to%anduranga in Champa in Central Vietnam& 'anskrit probably never functioned

as an everyday means of communication not in 'outh Asia itself nor was it everused e(cepting among the elites as a bridge L or link L or trade language& Thereis little evidence to show that it was ever used as the language of rule& Taskssuch as communication or revenue accounting appear to have beenaccomplished by informal use of the local language& The work 'anskrit did wasbeyond the 7uotidian and the instrumental& It was directed above all towardsarticulating a form of political consciousness and culture&G

Thus when such a lingua franca became available it began to be put toappropriate use and spread fairly rapidly over a large region within a span ofone or two centuries 5lling in a long-felt need or void&

,e linguistic scenario in !ost-.arappan India

In our paper we had e(plained how 'anskrit gradually became the language ofthe elites in %ost-3arappan India& It did however not do so in a linguisticvacuum& +escendants of the languages of the 3arappans became the languagesof the people in the 4angetic plains these later came to be known as %rakritsDalong with the other languages which pre-e(istedin the 4angetic plainse(amples of such languages being the 2unda family of languages& The 2undagroup of languages consists of languages such as 'ora 4orum 4ta 4utobemo :haria ;uang Asuro :orwa and :urku They are the least-known andmost poorly documented languages of the Indian subcontinent and the history

of the evolution of these languages in notoriously unreliable despite the fact thatsome work has been done by orman Mide 3einz ;urgen%innow %eter *'chmidt 2ichael C& 'hapiro 3arold 6& 'chi/man ;eremy 3& C& '& +avidson andmany othersD& 'cholars such as 6ranklin C& 'outhworth 2&$ 9meneau and AlfredC& *oolner also seem to imply that the %rakrits or some ancestors of %rakritse(isted as a parallel body of languages in ig Vedic times& The usage of 'anskritappears to have been chie?y liturgical& 'anskrit was never the language of themasses or a large section of the population in Ancient India&6rom our papers andthe principles of language spread enunciated in this paper it would appear that aderivatives of %rakrits from 'anskrit would be well-nigh impossible and both weredi/erent streams of languages& An ancestor or Vedic 'anskrit which had already

distanced itself from the %I9 or one of the constituents of the %I9 was howeverperhaps spoken in the Vedic homeland in the mid-3imalayan region much earlier&

The ruling classes may have abandoned 'anskrit as a native language fairlyearly in favour of the more widely-spoken languages of the 4angetic plains andit is highly doubtful if the priests even spoke 'anskrit as a native languagee(cept perhaps in rare or special occasions such as discourse or debate&3owever 'anskrit became the most obvious choice as a lingua franca of the eliteas no other language in the region could don this role and given its readyavailability it began to be used over a wide region for the aforesaid purposesfrom :asi or $enares to %urushapura in 4andhara in the orth-*est of India& Italso soon began to be viewed as a cultural symbol in much of ancient India in

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%ost-3arappan times& It is also unlikely that 'anskrit was even a written languagein pre-$uddhist times given the fact that literacy was limited in %ost-3arappantimes to small sections of society& *ritten records if any were perhaps in the%rakrits and written records may have been limited in %ost-3arappan India&3owever %rakrits may not have broken out into literary languages until after

emergence of $uddhism which also saw the wider dissemination of otheresoteric traditions and %rakrits such as Ardhamagadhi were early literary%rakrits& *e have discussed theseissues in great detail in our paper dealing withliteracy in %ost-3arappan India and in this paper we also showed how *est Asianand Indian alphabetic scripts may have separated from each other between 0J##and 0"## $C after the development of the %roto-'inaitic and the %roto-Canaanitescripts of *est Asia but before %hoenician&JThis later evolved into the $rahmi ofAncient India and is the mother of all modern alphabetic scripts&

Thus it is obvious to us that the annihilation of languages spoken by a largenumber of people is unlikely under ordinary circumstances even under political

duress or power& ,n the other hand 'anskrit appears to have been snu/ed outas a spoken language fairly easily given the fact that it was only spoken by asmall number of people and was deluged by the %rakrits easily& Another learningfrom this period is the speed at which 'anskrit spread in %ost-3arappan Indiaand this is perhaps similar to the spread of 9nglish in post-independent India&

The only interesting and fundamental di/erence between the two of coursebeing that there never appears to have been any political unity in early %ost-3arappan times or one that endured for signi5cant lengths of time until thedawn of the 2auryan empire&

,e linguistic scenario from 0)) 12 till te Mugal era

After the emergence of $uddhism %rakrits which had been supressed by'anskrit underwent a major revival as discussed in the previous section as alsodid %ali a language associated with $uddhism& )anguages such as %ali and%aisaci are normally considered to be distinct from %rakrits despite the largenumber of cognates with %rakrits& Another key event during this period was theemergence of Classical 'anskrit perhaps as a rival to the re-popularized %rakrits&Although'anskrit had ceased to be a lingua franca by 2auryan timeseitherbecause it was e(pressly discouraged in this regard or because it was seen asincompatible with popular symbols of 2auryan hegemony or because Vedicreligion itself began to be challenged at this time or because the geographicalvastness and the spatial spread of the 2auryan empire which at its zenith

stretched from %ersia or present-day Iran to the Cauvery delta in present-dayTamil adu precluded any one language from being adopted as the lingua franca&'anskrit remained the liturgical language of the $rahminical elite and was stillviewed in many circles as a cultural symbol of Ancient India& 2any new workswere also compiled in Classical 'anskrit during this era such as the works of the4rammarian %anini&%rakrits took on many in?uences over the ages andeventually evolved into the Indo-Aryan languages of modern times& ,nelatermanifestation of the %rakrits was the 'auraseni group of languages ordialects& It is believed that this language group was widely spoken from the = rdto

J Alphabetic scripts and other forms of literacy in %ost-3arappan India8 A logical

assessment and in7uiry as to the origin and e(tent of literacy in %ost-3arappanIndia 'ujay ao 2andavilli I;%'' !#0=

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the 0#thcenturies A+ and was also a literary language at this time& 'ome otherscholars opine that 'auraseni as a group of spoken dialects dates as far back as"## $C& If this is true 2agadhi 2aharashtri and 'auraseni%rakrits would be thethree major groups of %rakrits e(tant around or after the time of the $uddha andall of these played di/erent roles in the evolution of di/erent Indo-Aryan

languages& The term Apabhramsa referred to a loose group of dialects spokenfrom the 0#th to the 0"th centuries A+ and literally means corrupt orungrammatical language& $oth 'auraseni and Apabhramsa had a fairlyindependent literature and were literary languages in their own right& The term3indi or 3indavi may date to the 0#th century A+ and Amir :husrow wasperhaps an early 3indi poet& +ehlavi was also another name for this language&

The terms3industhani and Brdu perhaps began to be used early in the 2ughalera and %ersian words were also widely incorporated into variousIndo-Aryanlanguages& ,ther Indo-Aryan languages also evolved from various %rakrits andsome modern Indo-Aryan languages like 2arathi have literature dating to the 0# th

century A+& It is also clear that di/erent varieties of %rakrits evolved into

di/erent Indo-Aryan languages& 6or e(ample 2agadhi%rakrits were the ancestorsof languages such as Assamese $engali and ,dia while 2aharashtri%rakritsevolved into languages such as 2arathi&

,e linguistic scenario in early Sout India

+ravidian languages have probably e(isted in 'outh India and parts of 'outh-central India notably the Chattisgarh region since time immemorial and certainlywell-before the $uddhist era&,f these Tamil :annada Telugu and 2alayalam arethe major languages and also the major literary ones& Tamil 2alayalam:annada and Tulu are classi5ed as 'outhern +ravidian languages while Telugu isclassi5ed as a 'outh-central +ravidian language& aiki :olami ,llari and

+uruwa are the Central +ravidian languages while :urukh and 2alto are theorthern +ravidian languages& *e have discussed the origin of $rahui anotherEinterestingF +ravidian language found in %akistan in our previous papers andhave taken the views of many scholars in this regard& The major +ravidianlanguages were clearly in?uenced by both %rakrits and 'anskrit independentlyas was e(plained in our earlier papers& %rakrits were brought to 'outh India by$uddhist scholars and monks sometime after


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$rahmi& The Tamil Classic Thirukkural authored by the great poet Thiruvalluvar isdated to between =## $C and 0## $C is one of the earliest e(tent literature in

Tamil& 2animekalai and 'ilapattikaram are other great early Tamil classics datingto around the beginning of the Christian era or earlier& 2animekalai talks about$uddhism denoting cultural inputs from the orth& In the ancient Tamil treatise

on grammar the Tholkappiyam dating to around 0## $C word borrowings fromthe orth are referred to as Vadacol implying that they were brought from theorth& Thus a %an-Indian ideology clearly began to develop long before the dawnof the Christian era&

In the 'hatavahana dynasty which was centred on the :rishna-4odavari basin inpresent day Andhra %radesh and ?ourished between !## $C and !## A+ andwas nearly contemporaneous with the 'angam age of Tamilnadu the linguisticscenario is much more interesting& $uddhism was well-entrenched here at thetime more so than even the 'angam-age kingdoms to the 'outh& It is also likelyif one takes current evidence into consideration that Telugu did not break out into

a literary language until much later than Tamil and unlike Tamil which ?ourishedas a literary language some time before the Christian era Telugu perhaps did notbreak out into a literary language until around J## A+ even though there is ahint of older Telugu literature& In the 'hatavahana dynasty in present-day Andhra%radesh dating to between !## $C and !## A+ records were maintained in aform of %rakritknown as 2aharashtri%rakritwhich also appears to have been theoNcial language of the dynasty given its $uddhist in?uence and this languagewas clearly not native to the region& This language only interacted with the early+ravidian languages of the region and did not replace them as in the case of 'ri)anka& Therefore there is every reason to believe that either an early form of

Telugu or some ancestor of Telugu was native to the region as demonstrated by

words resembling Telugu found in the substratum of the local records and thewritten tradition of the 'hatavahana dynasty notably the 4aha'attasai dating tobetween !## $C and !## A+ and also some early $hattiprolu inscriptions datingto around =## $C and this native language was perhaps not evolved enough tobe used as a formal written language at the time& Thus the situation is reversedhere one of the %rakrits being a liturgical language in the region as opposed tothe general role of %rakritsin the north as languages of the masses&

$y some accounts :annada may have an older literary tradition than evenTelugu& The 3almidi inscription dated to >


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The term 3industhaniperhaps began to be widely used during early the 2ughalera even though 'u5s may have used the terms earlier and %ersian words werealso widely incorporated into the language due to the in?uences of the 2ughalrulers who were normally ?uent in a dialect of %ersian similar to the E+ariF dialectof Afghanistan& 3owever3industhani and Brdu languages were primarily

descendants of the earlier %rakrits spoken in the region and the use of the term3indi or 3indavi pre-dated this era and was already a literary language by 0!##A+& %ersian was chie?y a literary or a court language in 2ughal India and most2ughal emperors held the %ersian language in very high regard& There are alsocopious inscriptions in %ersian in many parts of India particularly orth Indiaand these can be found on tombs and monuments& $ooks in %ersian have alsoe(isted from early in the 2ughal era& %ersian also in?uenced other Indo-Aryanlanguages such as 'indhi and %unjabi very greatly and other languages such as$engali to a much smaller e(tent& %arsi migrants also believed to have 5rstlanded on Indian soil between K## A+ and 0### A+ eventually abandoning theirnative languages for the languages of India assimilating themselves completely

linguistically yet practising their original faith& After the decline of the 2ughal%ower and the rise of the $ritish aj %ersian was gradually replaced with 9nglishas the language of the elite and this shift appears to have happened primarily inthe 0K=#Fs and the 0K>#Fs&

,e linguistic scenario during te 1ritis Raj

The 9nglish language was 5rst perhaps taught to very small groups of Indians bymissionaries in the later 0"##Fs when the $ritish were establishing themselves astraders on Indian soil& 3owever at this time the use of the 9nglish language inIndia was perhaps insigni5cant& The importance of 9nglish in India began to growgradually throughout the 9ighteenth century as 2ughal power declined and

$ritish power increased& In the late 0J##Fs it is even claimed that an Indian byname 'ake +ean 2ahomet wrote a travelogue in 9nglish becoming the 5rstIndian author in 9nglish& 3owever prior to the 0K=#Fs 9nglish was not widelyand formally taught to Indians in India although many oNcials used it widely andmany Indians learnt it& 9nglish language public instruction began in India in the0K=#s during the rule of the 9ast India Company& In 0K=J 9nglish replaced%ersian as the oNcial language of the administration and the courts& )ord2acaulayor Thomas $abbington 2acaulay played a major role in introducing9nglish and western education in India and helped transition the oNcial languagefrom %ersian to 9nglish& According to a proposal put forward to 4overnor 4eneral*illiam $entinck Ga class should be formed in India a group of people who wouldact as interpreters between the $ritish and Indians a class of persons Indians inblood and colour but 9nglish in taste in opinion in morals and in intellectO$ailey 0@@08 0=KD& In the subse7uent decades many 9nglish schools wereopened across $ritish India with some even adopting 9nglish as the e(clusivemedium of instruction& $y the 0K


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preferred medium of higher education administration trade orcommerce&9ducation in vernacular languages was usually only limited to theprimary level& In spite of all this the use of 9nglish was at best restricted to elitesand the educated classes and was seen as alien to the masses& 3industhani wasalso sometimes spoken outside orth India particularly parts of *estern India

but was not as commonly used as 9nglish as a written language outside itsheartland& Interestingly the widespread use of 9nglish in India is less than twocenturies old and in a very short period has managed to alter the linguisticlandscape signi5cantly and has greatly impacted local languages as well&3owever its usage is e(tremely limited in the religious or cultural spheres and itis unlikely that it can ever supplement or subordinateIndian languagescompletely&

,e linguistic scenario in !ost-independent India

After India won its independence from the $ritish in 0@>J after a long strugglethe leaders of the newly-born Indian nation felt a need to unite the manylinguistically-diverse regions of India with a common universal language&2ahatma 4andhi felt that a common language was one for the pre-re7uisites forthe emergence of India as a united nation& 3e laid out 5ve key re7uirements forany language to be accepted as the national language8

0& It should be easy to learn for government oNcials&

!& It should be capable of serving as a medium of religious economic andpolitical intercourse throughout India&

=& It should be the speech of the majority of the inhabitants of India&

>& It should be easy to learn for the whole of the country&


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limited use of 9nglish in 5elds such as scienti5c endeavour diplomacy andinternational trade and most certainly not at the e(pense of Indian languages&2ahatma 4andhi and other leaders of IndiaFs freedom movement were criticalabout the role of 9nglish in India claiming it lead to into(ication subordination ofnational interests distortion of cultural values denationalization a sti?ing of

innovative and creative thinking and a slavish mentality& 2ahatma 4andhi alsoblamed 9nglish for the lower level of competence achieved in other subjects& 3eclaimed for e(ample that had he been taught in 4ujarati he would have learnt9uclidFs theorems in half the time& 2ahatma 4andhi even opined that 3indu-2uslim unity was a pre-re7uisite for the marginalization of 9nglish& *hether thiswas a philosophical utterance or made in light-hearted badinage remainsunclear but with hindsight it can be asserted that ill-conceived paradigms weredoomed to fail from the very start&

After %artition the support for 3industhani declined drastically and there weremoves to purge 3indi of %ersian loan words and emphasize its 'anskrit

vocabulary& 3indi zealots also appear to have pro5ted immensely from 4andhiFsavowed preference for 3indi or 3industhani over 9nglish and 3indi nationalistssuch as %urushottam +as Tandon 'eth 4ovind +as V +hulekar $abunath4uptaand am 2anohar )ohiafought heroically in favour of 3indioften adoptingdogmatic positions over consensus-driven approaches and as American scholarand e(pert of the Indian constitution late 4ranville Austin observed at timescreating deep schisms in the parliament and even going to the e(tent ofimperilling IndiaFs national unity&

Among all the anecdotes that would serve to illustrate the above none hasperhaps become more 5rmly etched in the minds of people than this8 ,n the0#th of +ecember 0@>" & V& +hulekar of the Bnited %rovinces moved anamendment and began speaking in 3industani& The Chairman then remindedhim that many members did not know the language& This was +hulekarFs reply8G%eople who do not know 3industani have no right to stay in India& %eople whoare present in this 3ouse to fashion a Constitution for India and do not know3industani are not worthy to be members of this Assembly& They had betterleaveH& The remarks created a commotion in the 3ouse& G,rder orderPH yelledthe Chairman but +hulekar then moved that the %rocedure Committee shouldframe rules in 3industani and not in 9nglish& GAs an Indian I appeal that we whoare out to win freedom for our country and are 5ghting for it should think andspeak in our own language in singular formD& *e have all along been talking ofAmerica ;apan 4ermany 'witzerland and 3ouse of Commons& It has given me a

headache& I wonder why Indians do not speak in their own language again insingular formD& As an Indian I feel that the proceedings of the 3ouse should beconducted in 3industani& *e are not concerned with the history of the world& *ehave the history of our own country of millions of past years& I re7uest you toallow me to move my amendment&H

The Chairman8 ,rder orderP I do not permit you to proceed further& The 3ouse iswith me that you are out of order&F

After much deliberation and consternation in some circles the Indianconstitution in 0@


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to cease 0< years after the constitution came into e/ect i&e& on !" ;anuary0@"


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outdated colonial models also played a role in shaping +ravidian ideologyD itwas clear that IndiaFs proposed language policies would be highly discriminatoryagainst Tamils and other non-3indi speakers& 6irstly it would re7uire the studentsof some states to learn three languages while others could get away by learningtwo& 'econdly 3indi-speakers in the 3indi speaking states would learn it as their

native language while others would learn it as a foreign one& Thirdly 3indispeakers in 3indi-speaking states would learn 3indi as a 5rst language whileothers would learn it as a second language& *ithin a few years this kind of apolicy would enable the native speakers of one language to take over the jobmarket through unfair and unethical methods& 2oreover taking the language ofa region and spreading it using political force is symbolic of 2ar(ist failed orfailing states and with hindsight it can be stated that all such countries havedisintegrated in due course& 9ven ajagopalachari who had earlier espoused thecause of 3indi had changed his stand in due course and became an opponent ofthe language policy& In 0@"J the +2: wonthe election in Tamil adu on theplank of IndiaFs alleged discriminatory language policy& The Bnion 4overnment

was then left with no other option but to permit the use of 9nglish in theworkings of the central government and in inter-state communication inde5nitely&

This naturally dismayed 3indi zealots many of whom had worked hard fore(ample to ensure that e(aminations like All India Civil 'ervices 9(aminationswould not be conducted in any language other than 3indi and many of themsaw it as treachery and betrayal&

The Angrezi3ataoAndolan or the $anish 9nglish campaign was a very strong andemotive movement in the early years of independent IndiaRkey leaders of themovement were am 2anohar )ohia and Atal $ehari Vajpayee and cities likeAllahabad and )ucknow were eminent centres of the movement& As the country

had gained independence from the $ritish the 9nglish language was consideredpassS and a symbol of a bygone era and had to be phased out as 7uickly aspossible keeping in mind the provisions of the constitution which favouredphasing out of 9nglish by 0@"


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partly politically-induced cultural distance may 7ualify as an e(ample of what'ocial Anthropologists refer to as a cultural lag&

In late 0@K> Indira 4andhi was assassinated and the baton passed on to her sonajiv 4andhi& Although his tenure as %rime 2inister was short the changes hebrought in proved to be irrevocable and the reforms he ushered in werecontinued by his successors across political parties& The public sector whichhitherto was in principle at the commanding heights of the Indian economy hadto relin7uish its power to the rapidly e(panding private sector& Anotherinteresting observation is that IndiaFs opening up of the Indian economycoincided perfectly with 4lobalization liberalization and the rapid worldwidespread of 9nglish& 4lobalization and liberalisationand the ubi7uity andpervasiveness of 9nglish on cyberspace have made 9nglish a window to theworld and interest in 9nglish has since increased by leaps and bounds and hasentrenched itself more than ever before in IndiaFs history& This was perhaps alsoaided in no meagre measure by IndiaFs faulty language policies which may have

ensured the subservience of Indian languages to 9nglish&3owever IndiaFs language policy is still perceived to be illogical and di/erencesof opinion continue to surface from time to time between the central governmentand the states and between politicians belonging to various political parties& Aminor agitation also took place in Tamil adu in 0@K" against the opening ofavodaya schools in the state where 3indi would be mandatory and in !#0>minor protests erupted as a result of the 2odi governments 3indi push& Bsage of9nglish in Central 4overnment departments continues to be high and itsreplacement by 3indi is showing no signs of happening& In 6ebruary !#0 1Copyright 'ujay ao 2andavilli


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%3 A4nity bet5een language and culture and language as a symbol of

etnic identity

The aNnity between language and culture and language as a symbol of ethnicidentity has pre-occupied many generations of scholars& This study has now beenformalized thanks to the emergence of a new 5eld of study called 'ociolinguisticsor the study of language in relation to society& 'uch studies have been throwingnew light not only on the nature of language but on the nature of society as well&)anguage which may be de5ned as GA purely human and non-instinctive methodof communicating ideas emotions and desires by means of voluntarily producedsymbols&H 'apir 0@!08KD According to $loch and Trager GA language is a systemof arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group co-operates&H0@>!8

abstractions from the same phenomena&H 9thnicity likewise refers to a sense ofidentity among a group based on a sense of common heritage languagereligion or any other aspect of culture& 9thnicity may manifest itself in a desireto lead oneFs lives according to oneFs traditions maintain status 7uo in the lightof changes to society or 5ghts for oneFs rights whenever oneFs way of life orcherished beliefs are threatened& The term EcultureF has many rami5cationsRmost anthropologists such as 2argaret 2ead ;ulian 'teward and Abraham:ardineracknowledge it impacts personality as well and group behaviour&Anthropologists such as 2arvin 3arris 0@K=D have introduced concepts such asnational character& )anguage and culture are likewise inter-related due to manyfactors such as semantic relativity and verbal intelligence and )inguistic

Anthropology is emerging as a major 5eld of study in its own right& There areseveral possible relationships between language and society& ,ne is that socialstructure may either in?uence or determine linguistic structure and behaviour& Asecond possible relationship is that linguistic structure andbehaviour may eitherin?uence or determine social structure and the speakersF worldview&A thirdpossible relationship is that the in?uence is bi-directional and that language andsociety may in?uence each other&A fourth view held by a small but slowlyincreasing number of scholars such as 'teven %inker is that the roots of languageare much deeper and that language and language structure may even have theirroots in genetics& 'uch relationships between language culture and society formthe bedrock of the emerging 5eld of sociolinguistics& K

K 'ociolinguistics &A&3udson Cambridge Bniversity %ress 0@K#

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The centrality of language to culture also varies widely from community tocommunity and this aspect may need to be understood by planners as well& otall traits e(hibited by various ethnic groups may be seen to desirable in a globalconte(t& 'ome may e(hibit a high degree of ethnocentrism consciously orunconsciously and may in part be even driven by inward-looking approaches

and a lack of awareness of other cultures& 9thnocentrism has being observed inmany cultures across the world cultural relativism being the e(act opposite pointof view& In any case Community sentiment which &2 2cIver and %age associatewith a Gwe-feelingH and a Grole-feelingH is common throughout the world& InIndia language is seen to be more central to culture in the 'outh and 9ast ofIndia than in the *est or the orth and linguistic pride is particularly highamong some groups such as the Tamils many of whom strive for linguisticpurism& +ei5cation of language is also common among the Tamils and the songGInvocation to the 4oddess TamilH is the oNcial song of the government of Tamiladu& 'uch a feeling can also be found among the Telugus though to a muchsmaller e(tent and the song GTo my 2other TeluguH is likewise the state

language of Andhra %radesh& esearch is ongoing into the e(tent of social andlinguistic accommodation of di/erent cultures variations of which includeassimilation and adjustment and all these factors should have a bearing onlanguage policies as well& These may vary widely from group to group and mustbe evaluated on a case to case basis&@

According to the 'apir-*horf hypothesis language is a major determinant notonly in shaping culture but also in determining attitudes and thinking patterns&'ome scholars also talk about Verbal intelligence and this would be greatlydetermined by language& Thus a speaker of a particular language whose usesmany variations for a technical term is able to mentally conjure up variations of

the same theme much more easily than a speaker of another language whosevocabulary may be limited in this regard& )anguages also have uni7ue words toe(press concepts that are speci5c to a particular culture& 6or e(ample even9nglish may lack some words which are found in 6rench ;apanese or Chinese&)ikewise each language is made up of linguistic items which may vary fromconte(t to conte(t& Thus it has been argued by some scholars that languageconstitutes a thought world and people who speak di/erent languages or thesame language to varying degrees of pro5ciency inhabit di/erent thoughtworlds& This may be described as some form of a linguistic determinism& As aresult of this analogy we can argue that while dialects may die out fairly orrelatively easily full-?edged languages representative of cultures may not&

Another key metric that may have a bearing on this is )inguistic distance whichis the measure of the dissimilarity of languages or how di/erent one language ordialect is from anotherin multiple dimensions such as vocabulary grammarpronunciation script and phonetic inventories and in the recent past manyformal approaches have been proposed to measure this distance such as)evenshtein distance )+D and the approach proposed by Chiswick and 2iller in0@@@& )inguistic ine7uality is another measure that may come into play here andthis hypothesis that that di/erent languages may be in di/erent states ofevolution& A dialect which includes both formal and written dialects or unwrittendialects must likewise be distinguished from a full-?edged language& Therefore

@ The )anguage Instinct 'teven %inker %enguin $ooks 0@@>

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speakers of di/erent languages have di/erent attitudes towards their ownlanguages or towards other languages which may be perceived as superior orinferior from their point of view& 'cholars such as 3ymes also talk about thehistorical character of a language which would be a function of its historicaltradition and contemporary usage status and prestige& 6or e(ample many Thais

consider the )ao language to be inferior while many )aos tacitly accept theEcultural superiorityF of the Thai )anguage& )ikewise Tamils are aware of thehoary literary traditions in their language and its uni7ue characteristics&0#2ostlinguists accept the theory of ine7uality of languages and the 6rench use theterm E)angue de CultureF to distinguish culturally evolved languages from lessevolved ones& Another related concept in 'ociolinguistics is the concept oflinguistic ideology& ;udith Irvine de5nes the concept as Gthe cultural system ofideas about social and linguistic relationships together with their loading ofmoral and political interests&H 2any new 5elds such as %sycholinguistics whichdeals with the mental processes associated with language and 9thnolinguisticswhich deals with social interactions and its relationship with language are

emerging as distinct 5elds of study& 'uch factors are also determinants of thee/ects of language in fostering cultural pride or a sense of ethnicity amongspeakers of di/erent languages&

All the factors described above would naturally create variations in perceptionand outlook between say a 3indi speaker a 2anipuri speaker and a Tamilspeaker which in turn would shape attitudes towards language and languagepolicy& )inguistic issues and in particular the treatment of minority languagesare have a high emotional appeal and have often resulted in e(plosive situationsin the past all over the world& As $retton 0@J" p& >>JD points out8 G)anguagemay be the most e(plosive issue universally and over time& This is mainly

because language alone unlike all other concerns associated with nationalismand ethnocentrism is so closely tied to the individual self& 6ear of beingdeprived of communicating skills seems to raise political passion to a feverpitch&H

Thus any language policy in a multi-lingual society must take into account theaNnity between language and culture for di/erent languages or ethnic groupsand the attitudes of various ethnic and linguistic groups towards variousproposals policies and paradigms and such studies must be carried out devoidof pre-conceived notions or biases& These of course would be only one of theconstituent factors responsible for the success or the failure of a language policyand the other factors discussed in this paper would come into play as well& 000!

(3 ,e nature of te society and te e6tent of diversity can play a role

in determining dynamics of language spread in a multi-lingual

society

0#3ymes& + 0@J>D 6oundations in 'ociolinguistics& %hiladelphia8 Bniversity of%ennsylvania %ress

00 )inguistic imperialism obert %hillipson Indian edition ,(ford Bniversity %ress

0! A Course in )inguistics Tarni %rasad %3I learning %vt )td !#0> +elhi

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In this section we seek to drive home the point that while ethnic rivalries andthe desire to maintain and foster ethnic and linguistic identity have manifestedthemselves time and again in almost all parts of the world their conte(ts theirform and their degree may vary from scenario to scenario and there have beenmany cases where such tendencies have scarcely been observed& Therefore our

key observation and conclusion is that a one-size-5ts-all approach can never beadopted here and it would be necessary to study each case separately usingsome of the principles proposed in this paper& The anti-3indi agitations of Tamiladu in response to the ational language policy of the Indian centralgovernment are well-documented and took place several times both before andafter IndiaFs independence& These had the political backing of almost all theparties in the state and had wide public support as well& Contrary to publicperception anti-3indi agitations took place in other non-3indi states althoughtheir intensity was much less severe& )inguistic pride has manifested itself inmany other forms as well since IndiaFs independence and this includes thedemand for the creation of the linguistic states which 5rst began in the Andhra

region in the 0@


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and boast a large overseas population as well& *ith the e(ception of :onkani theothers are barely written languages despite some sporadic initiatives to developthem into written languages& Therefore speakers of these languages have moreor less accepted bilingualism and have accepted the hegemony of :annada inthe state with written instruction in schools being received in :annada or

9nglish& They have also no signi5cant track record of 5ghting for their linguisticrights or for the creation of linguistic states based on their languages and haveallowed their languages to be subordinated by :annada& There is however avarious obvious reason for this8 widespread literacy in the region may have beenrelatively recent and may date back to a couple of centuries at the most& It waslikely that :annada was the vehicle in which wide-spread literacy spread as Tulu$eary and :odava were never written languages& Thus no change of status 7uowas involved& The same can also be said of ajasthan a state justi5ably proud ofits culture and ethos& ajasthani which is viewed by many linguistics as a dialectof 3indi is barely a language of instruction in schools in the state and hasallowed itself to become subservient to 3indi& $hojpuri which some linguistics

accept as an independent language and has a ?ourishing entertainmentindustry and over a hundred million native speakers much higher than any ofthe +ravidian languages is a case in point and has allowed itself to becomesubservient to 3indi& ,nly is recent times is there awareness of linguistic rights inthe region and speakers or languages or dialects such as $undhelkhandi$hojpuri and 2ythili a language older than even 3indiD have made feebleattempts to demand linguistic states as well& An approach of speakers of theselanguages may have been to evaluate the 3indi vs 9nglish debate from theirown standpoint and take a stand that would favour their own communityFsinterests& 3owever in the post-globalized era the scales are ine(orably tilting infavour of 9nglish and the 9nglish juggernaut has become unstoppable&

Tamil speakers for e(ample may also e(hibit a greater desire to assimilate intothe local populations in speci5c conte(ts e(amples being Tamil speakers inCanada or 6rance or even 2aharashtra and the native vs immigrant 7uestionmay also play a role in determining the dynamics of language spread& This mayhave been one of the factors that lead to the suzerainty of the 9nglish languagein the Bnited 'tates in the early years of the e(istence of that nation inconjunction with its diachronic rise elsewhere and the slow and natural death ofCajun 6rench in )ouisiana in more recent times& ,n the other hand Uuebecerswho were immigrants from 6rance have fought bitterly for their linguistic rightsand have attempted to severely curtail the use of 9nglish in daily life& 6rench in

Uuebec has provided a kind of a bulwark against the languages steep andseemingly irreversible decline in other parts of Canada& 2any immigrants into2umbai have also adopted 3indi in lieu of 2arathi as some kind of a nativelanguage as also migrants in many parts of orth India leading to some kind oflinguistic homogeneity but this has thus far not been able to override all theother factors working against 3indi& The 9nglish speaking elites in India were alsoknown to have encouraged the use of 9nglish even in informal situations tocreate a social distance between themselves and other less-privileged individualsespecially in the early years of independence and often treating Indianlanguages demeaningly and with contempt& 'ociologists believe this was one ofthe factors that led to the continuation of 9nglish in India as an icon of elitist

power until the onslaught of globalization& *e may therefore introduce a newterm here EChange of status 7uoF which involves a change in functions or the

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role played by a language in society in a manner that a/ects a large number ofits speakers& 'uch changes do not come often but they are an inevitable jackpotfor any linguist in that they provide a rare opportunity to understand theprinciples of language spread&

Thus it must be emphasized here that no one-size-5ts-all approach is possible inthis regard and each case must be evaluated separately& Approaches followedby speakers of di/erent languages may also change over a period in time& ,n theother hand one can try to gauge the reaction of speakers of di/erent languagesif a language other than 3indi had been adopted as the oNcial language of theCentral government& 'imilar inferences can be drawn from a study of linguisticgroups outside India as well and the 6rench have proven to be the most vigorousdefenders of their language against the onslaught of 9nglish both in Uuebec and9urope& In a country like India which is clearly multi-ethnic unlike China and isonly a loose confederation of nations with many regions claiming trade andcultural contacts with other parts of the world more than even the 3indi

heartland even a super5cial study should have convinced policy-makers of thefutility of pushing the ajbhasha despite opposition but alas that did nothappen& The key determinants that would in?uence the spread of languages inmulti-lingual societies are the e(tent and innate nature of linguistic and culturaldiversity Inherent strength of minority languages Awareness and educationamong minorities $argaining power of parties ative vs immigrant nature ofspeakers 9thnic composition Change of status 7uo etc&0=0>0


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consider )inguistic +istances the state of evolution of languages politicalboundaries and other political and cultural factors& *e propose the following

Twelve measures to determine if a country is truly polyglot or not and the resultwould be deemed to be positive if the answer to even one of the 7uestions is inthe aNrmative&

aD +oes the country have one or more than one fully independent languagesspoken by signi5cant segments of the population which are not for thepurpose of our study deemed to be dialects of the other language orlanguages spoken in the country

bD Is the linguistic distance between the most-unrelated but widely spokenlanguages in the country large

cD +oes the country comprise of speakers belonging to more than onelanguage group Are the speakers of languages belonging to at least twolanguage groups signi5cant

dD +o the speakers of more than one language adopt a semblance of political

power or are demanding political autonomy with the chief objective ofmaintaining linguistic status 7uo or linguistic hegemonyeD +oes the country have a history of discord in protesting the linguistic

power structure or the dominance of one linguistic group and have such5ssures led into demands for signi5cant changes in power structure orautonomy

fD Is the power structure of the country suNciently decentralized to allowspeakers of linguistic groups to e(ercise some autonomy or have a say inpolicy-making

gD +o the speakers of the most widely spoken language in the countryaccount for less than si(ty percent of the population

hD Is the total number of languages and dialects in the country including lessdeveloped languages or dialects and variants of major languages large

iD +o regions of the country share close economic cultural or linguistic tieswith other country often in precedence to economic cultural or linguisticties with other parts of the same country

jD *hat is the )east Common +enominator of all the major linguistic groupsin the country in terms of linguistic structure shared cultural elementsetc& Is the range of the )C+ insigni5cant to moderate

kD *hat is the )east Common +enominator of all the linguistic groups in thecountry including the outlying or the less important or the insigni5cantones in terms of linguistic structure shared cultural elements etc& Is therange of the )C+ very insigni5cant to moderate

lD Is the Chief integrating factor in the country something other thanlanguage or is the role of language in this regard limited

If the answer to one or more of the above 7uestions is in the aNrmative thecountry by our reckoning is deemed to be polyglot& In the case of India theanswers to all the 7uestions would be a resounding yes and in such a case fewwould deny that some form of enforced multi-lingualism would be conducive tonational integration& India may be thus considered truly polyglot compared toChina8 In China for e(ample speakers of Cantonese and 2andarin may at timeseven claim that they speak the same language& 3owever speakers of variousdialects of Chinesemay not be able to converse with each other easily or at all8

from a linguistsF point of view they may actually speak di/erent languages andthe distance between the various dialects of Chinese is large&3owever they will

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be able to communicate with each other much more e/ectively through theirshared writing system& *hile India has undoubtedly had had periods of politicalunity since ancient times and pan-Indian cultures have e(hibited a fairly highdegree of underlying cultural or religious unity IndiaFs common bonds are morecultural than linguisticR this is despite that fact that various Indian languages and

language groups have in?uenced each other and the fact that some ancestor of$rahmi morphed into all modern day alphabetic scripts orth and 'outh Indian&6or the Chinese on the other hand a shared writing system and a sharedlinguistic inheritance along a strong tradition of political social and cultural unityconstitute their identity& India is truly multi-lingual from a linguistFs point of viewwhile China is not&

&3 ,e role of a Lingua 7ranca in Multi-lingual societies

*hen people speaking di/erent languages come into contact with which eachother they must 5nd some way of communicating and this normally happens

through a lingua franca& In a publication dating to 0@


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such cases a lingua franca is dispensed with because of the bi-lingualism ormulti-lingualism of a majority of its citizens& 9(amples of nations that may haveactually used multi-linguicism to foster national integration in modern times areCanada and 'witzerland where a common language spoken by all the populationhas so far proven elusive despite the rapid spread of 9nglish in the case of the

latter& 3owever a common language or any other cultural icon in the absence ofsuch a spoken or written language can greatly foster integrity and communalharmony in a multi-ethnic societies if used properly and in a manner that is notinconsistent with the dynamics of language spread in multi-lingual societies andcommon e(perience has shown that whenever such a lingua franca is availableit usually spreads or is used in a manner that would be determined by the otherprinciples of language spread in such societies as described in this paper&9(amples of this are 'anskrit in %ost-3arappan India and 9nglish in %ost-independent India& Alternatively other cultural icons can be readily used tofoster integration and in we consider the case of the Indus Valley Civilizationthe Indus script appears to have played a role in providing a modicum of ethnic

harmony in addition to the possible multi-lingualism of many of its citizens&

The ready availability of a lingua franca would be a determinant and should sucha language be readily available it may be brought in fairly 7uickly into thelinguistic e7uation and often without any intervention& In 3arappan timesclearly no such language was immediately available at hand and thereforesociety made do without it and other cultural symbols de5ned the pan Indusideology& A )ingua franca may either be internal to the region or may beimported& In the present post-globalized scenario a global and ubi7uitous linguafranca like 9nglish could easily be imported to ful5l speci5c needs pertaining toglobal communication and may be readily used by society to 5ll in such a void&

The usage of 9nglish in any multi-lingual society such as India would therefore bethe sum total of the role played by such a language in scienti5c pursuits andinternational communication given that languages importance in that regardand the role played by such a language in the societyFs internal communicationgiven its multi-lingual nature& In many post-colonial societies that were polyglotcolonial languages such as 9nglish or 6rench have 5rmly entrenched itself giventhe inability of such societies to provide any other lingua franca that wasacceptable to all or majority of internal stakeholders or that could ful5l all ormajority or roles&$rutt-4riWer for e(ample suggests that e(ternal factors alonedo not contribute to the spread of a language and that various internalsituations in a country may encourage such a spread& This would involve some

degree of pain and as 6ishman Conrad and ubal-)opez have pointed outac7uiring a new language re7uires changes in language behaviour of speakers&According to Cooper a new language re7uires awareness evaluation awarenessand use and the rapid spread of 9nglish in post-independent India is in large partan indicator of the failure of the nationFs language policy& ,ne interestinge(ample to illustrate multi-linguicism is the case of the Tucano tribe who livealong the Vaupes iver in Columbia and smaller parts of $razil in 'outh Americaand practice linguistic e(ogamy normally marrying outside their linguistic group&It is not therefore uncommon for a member of a tribe to speak severallanguages& 3owever Tucano is used as some kind of a lingua franca in theregion owing to its ability to ful5l a need that other languages of the tribe

cannot&

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*e can also make another key observation here& The demand for a lingua francanormally tends to increase as the level of social cohesion and the interactionbetween various linguistic groups increases& In other words where there is verylittle or no social or economic interaction between the speakers of di/erentlanguages a multi-lingual society the demand for a lingua franca is lower and

internal communication in such cases may be served by multi-lingualism& Thesocial or economic interactionshere can be either driven by trade or economicfactors or can be politically-driven as in the case of an over-arching politicalframework demanding a high degree of interaction between ethnic groups&9(amples of these include the 9uropean Bnion& It may also be observed that inan era characterized by the rapid spread of science and technology andimprovement of transportation technology the level of social cohesion tends toincrease even if not warranted or necessitated by political forces and thereforethe demand for a lingua franca is likely to increase& Thus modern multi-lingualsocieties are likely to be characterized by the presence or availability of a linguafranca which may or may not be oNcially sanctioned for the purpose& Countries

like Uatar and ,man for e(ample have adopted 9nglish very widely in recenttimes without direct contact with any colonizer or without major governmentinitiatives for the teaching of 9nglish and these are clear e(amples of languagespread through the power of modern technology&

9(perience in India and other parts of the world has borne out the fact that aneutral language or a language that is not native to any ethnic group within thesociety is ideally-suited to become the lingua franca of that society& 'anskrit%ersian and 9nglish have played these roles in di/erent periods in Indian historywith varying degrees of success& $ut there may be e(ceptions& Although 3indihas clearly failed to displace 9nglish in post-independent India 3indi has spread

at certain level in post-independent India compensating only for the two chiefweaknesses of 9nglish as a link language8 *hile no one denies its importance of9nglish in post-globalized India and its ability to open up any vistas and windowsof opportunity to the common man it is still viewed as alien language and asymbol of slavery in many circles& 9nglish may also never ?ourish as a streetlanguage in this part of the world given its innate di/erences with the languagesof the region and the fact that a certain degree of formal training may bere7uired to master the language& 3indi on the other hand has not only become apopular bazaari lingo throughout the sub-continent aided in no small part to itssimilarity to Brdu but a pidginized version of 3indi admi(ed with 9nglish hassuccessfully established itself as an entry-level link languages in regions far-away

from the 3indi heartland& *hile written usage of 3indi is dead outside the 3indibelt it has come to be viewed a super5cial cultural symbol of unity acrossswathes of India& Thus 3indi and 9nglish are seen as mutually complementary&*hile 3indi has undoubtedly stepped in to 5ll a void 3indi cannot replace9nglish in India under ordinary circumstances and attempting to change thedynamics of language spread using political methods or trying to force 9nglishout of the e7uation can prove disastrous for IndiaFs national unity& *hile 9nglishwas undoubtedly brought from outside India in colonial times few will deny thefact that it has never been imposed on anybody in post-independent times andmay have partly spread as a reaction to IndiaFs anachronistic ajbhasha policywhich envisaged a di/erent role for 3indi than the one it inevitably came to play&

Thus it is also important to understand the di/erent roles played by di/erentlanguages in polyglot societies&

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Thus in this case 3indi has undoubtedly played a role in national integrationand has become a super5cial symbol of national integration or a pan-Indianethos given the inability of 9nglish to function to this e/ect and in ways thatwould not have been envisaged or understood at the time of IndiaFsindependence and this despite its undoubted failure and a 7uiet death as a

ajbhasha& It may have also provided a much-needed feel-good factor to createa psychological feeling of unity in IndiaFs early years of independence and at atime when few politician were willing or able to see Eunity in diversityF as a tool ofnational integration and at a time when India was in no position to adopt aposition of enforced multi-linguicism or be seen as a nation of linguistic states& A7uestion should also arise in the minds of most individuals of the role played bythe government in this regard& *hile the three-language formula that wasadopted by most states e(cept the likes of Tamil adu and *est $engal was avehicle atop which 3indi undoubtedly spread and allowed itself to be propagatedother factors such as the spread of $ollywood and internal migrations withinIndia may have played a much greater role in promoting the language and

connecting it with the masses than the Central governmentFs e/orts to develop atechnical vocabulary in the language to comic and ludicrous e/ect or its usagein other arcane ajbhasha conte(ts& 2uch more interestingly the spread of acertain kind of pidgin 3indi or 3inglish after the introduction of economic reformsin 0@@0 as an entry level link language is more of a manifestation of itssuitability in this regard and the popularity of this language increased manifoldafter liberalization even as its swansong as a ajbhasha was being sung&

Therefore costly ajbhasha policies actually failed and the role played by 3indias a lingua franca in modern India is completely di/erent from the role envisagedfor 3indi at the time of independence& Thus the ajbhashapolicy per se hasbecome highly anachronisticR not only are funds allotted for the development of

Indian languages skewed the Central 4overnment has failed to make use of newtechnologies such as the internet to promote knowledge in any Indian languageor languages to the masses allowing even multinational companies to leap-frogit in this respect&

In recent years private sector companies have clearly shown that they cannotsupport the language of a community in a multi-lingual country& %rivate sectorcompanies opt for neutral languages like 9nglish or always and withoute(ception start their services in multiple Indian languages simultaneously&

3owever spreading the language of one region through arti5cial means may bea very dangerous long-term strategy& It can perhaps even promote fanaticismand hatred in the long run by allowing the people of a particular region to thinkthemselves as superior to others& 3indi may have even spread because of theassured presence of 9nglish as a bu/er vindicating our stand that the two aremutually complementary&

3ence after providing a super5cial level of unity just enough to compensate forthe weaknesses of 9nglish as a link language the language of one particularcommunity may actually begin to divide beyond a certain point and as a resultencourage 9nglish even more& 3indi may not provide a win-win proposition atany other level either& 3ence as a written language or as a language usede(clusively in formal communication it is well and truly defunct outside the 3indi

belt&

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It may be e(tremely dangerous and suicidal to attempt to revive it througharti5cial means and such e/orts would only be synonymous with words such asenforcement and imposition terms not associated even with the spread of9nglish in India either during the $ritish aj or after and if pushed through usingpolitical methods may lower the nations dynamic stability and destabilize the

nation&*e may de5ne the dynamic stability of a multi-lingual nation for ourpurpose as the inde( of its innate and inherent stability and adaptability to ever-changing scenarios arising due to the constantly changing nature of interactionsbetween di/erent linguistic groups and would result when languages are allowedto spread naturally or if linguistic scenarios are changed or in?uenced throughpolitical or other e(traneous means do not violate the principles or dynamics oflanguage spread in multi-lingual societies&

IndiaFs policies may have had other anomalies& *hile India was in most casesgenuinely secular it may not have been able to create a framework whichcreated a mutual respect for other peopleFs languages in India throwing up other

counter-reactions as a result&'uch policies may have thrown up other interesting results& This is a policywhich encourages 2umbaikars to speak in 3indi and write in 9nglish but not theother way round even in their own state for e(ample although their mothertongue is 2arathi& ,ne is reminded of an interesting advertisement for entry-level sta/ in a bank in 2umbai where a pre-re7uisite for employment was theability to speak in 3indi and write in 9nglish but not the other way around&

A policy which despite the inevitable spread of 3indi outside its heartland mayhave ensured that some educated 'outh Indians did not speak to educated orthIndians in 3indi to protest against discrimination and show that they respect

their minority rights but later encouraged them to use it sparingly and ininformal situations once they realized that 3indi was losing the battle& 'peak in3indi and they reply back in 9nglish& :eep speaking in 9nglish and they mayspeak in 3indi but only very sparingly if they know it perhaps just to show thatthey have nothing against 3indi as a language&

The practicality and characteristics of a language along with its suitability for aspeci5c role can play a major role in determining the spread of languages andthis has allowed 3indi and 9nglish to play complementary roles since IndiaFsindependence&9nglish has therefore entrenched itself as the language of tradecommerce and business and a lingua franca of the elite in 2odern India while

3indi has come to be viewed as a super5cial symbol of IndiaFs unity and mayhave had merits as a short-term national integration tool& The practicality andcharacteristics of a language along with other factors such as its prestige andthe availability of alternatives the role played or the importance of such alanguage outside the area in 7uestion can therefore also have a bearing on therole played by a language as a lingua franca in a region and such considerationshave played a key role in India as well& 9nglish for e(ample lacks thecharacteristics that would make it a representative symbol of Indian culture&3owever it has a certain prestige to it and any speaker of 9nglish would haveno hesitation of demonstrating his knowledge of the language& This may alsoe(plain the 7uotidian use of a large number of 9nglish words in Indian languages

despite the e(istence of perfectly suitable Indian alternatives& ,n the other hand6rench is seen to be a far more comple( language than 9nglish with a far more

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comple( grammar comple( conjugations and tenses absence of a neutergender dichotomy between spoken and written languages the use ofsubjunctives and mandatory elisions and diacritics& In India 6rench like%ortuguese disappeared after 6rench colonies won their independence and weremerged into the Indian Bnion& The reasons for this would be not too far to seek8

6rench colonies in India were small and far apart like 6rench colonies in Asia anddid not have the bene5t of being able to interact with each other& eaders mayrefer the section on linguistic osmosis in this regard& The availability of morepractical alternatives like 9nglish proved to be the 5nal nail in the coNn for6rench in India& ,ne can research the reasons for the decline of )atin if he likes&An ancient script in the 2iddle 9ast the Cuneiform script was intentionallydesigned to be as comple( as possible to preclude its usage outside a smallgroup of highly privileged elites and scribes& This undoubtedly pre-empted itsdemise& In the case of the 9uropean Bnion the usage of 9nglish is far greaterthan 6rench and 9nglish undoubtedly established itself as the 9BFs mostimportant language far ahead of both 6rench and 4erman& In 'candinavian

countries and 3olland for e(ample the use of 9nglish is well-entrenched and iswidely seen to be a second language& 3owever in the 9B the widespread usageof 9nglish does not appear to have been associated with the domination of onegroup as the usage of 9nglish as a useful lingua franca has currency outside the9B as well& The political independence of constituent nations may have served toallay fears of the linguistic domination of one group&

6rench has been far luckier in Africa but much of its luck here can be said to befortuitous& 6rench colonies here are found closer together with allows for tradeand cultural contacts between those regions& In addition a costly and acontroversial 6rancophonie program run by 6rance may have propped up the

importance of the 6rench language somewhat& The availability of a large numberof native tongues within each of the 6rancophonie countries besides the factthat most are not written languages have helped the cause of 6rench in theregion& The absence of any other lingua franca the low levels of literacy whichmay have actually been a blessing in disguise as it empowered a small group ofelitesD the absence of a political will to enforce major changes to the languagepolicies have also undoubtedly helped the cause of 6rench in the region and therapid population growth in the region is perhaps the only icing on the cake for alanguage that is seen to be steep and terminal decline around the globe& Thishas not prevented the pidginisation and creolisation of 6rench into mutuallyunintelligible forms even though a substantial proportion of the population of

some 6rancophone countries claim a working knowledge of 6rench and this maybe an interesting manifestation of policies involving the import of a languagethat may not be the best-suited for the region& In addition the region has notbeen immune to wider global forces and 9nglish is making slow inroads into theregion as well& In wanda 9nglish has almost replaced 6rench& This has impactedneighbouring $urundi as well& ,f late countries such as 4abon 2orocco andMaire have made progress in introducing 9nglish& In Algeria 9nglish is alreadybeginning to take over from 6rench& In 'enegal a bastion of 6rench culture inAfrica *olof is gnawing away at the hegemony of 6rench despite alarm in somecircles and there are even indications that that country wants to swap 6rench for9nglish in the longer term& In former 6rench colonies in Asia such as Vietnam

)aos Cambodia and )ebanon 9nglish is now much more popular than 6renchand readers may refer to the section on linguistic osmosis& Thus a trend that may

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have been nothing more than an imperceptible trickle a decade ago is now morepronounced and palpable and this is not in good augury for a language that wasonce a contender for the worldFs lingua franca& 9nglish also may have made agreater progress in recent times than 6rench in disassociating itself fromperceived cultural and economic imperialism and 9nglish is rarely seen as

representative of a single culture or an economic driving force and is much morepoly-centric than 6rench despite sporadic protests from 6rance and othercountries about the growing domain and suzerainty of the 9nglish language&

$y this reckoning the 6uture of 3indi as an oNcial language of the Centralgovernment of India does not appear to be very bright& 3owever it is likely toremain one of the more commonly spoken languages of the world at least interms of number of native speakers and its in?uence overseas may continue toincrease& Its role as an internal lingua franca in the subcontinent hasstrengthened and its future in this regard at least in the short term appears tobe assured& 2uch will also depend on IndiaFs long-term language policy and the

attitude of statesR most now o/er 3indi only as a third language and only a fewwant to scrap 3indi altogether& The role and importance of 9nglish not only inIndia but also beyond will play a role here and it would be ideal to wait patientlyfor clearly discernible trends to demonstrate themselves&

The unparalleled success of the 9nglish language this far can be attributed to thecombination of the following factors aD Colonialization of all the ErightF places bD

The rise of the B'A as a superpower cD Its presence in other important countriessuch as 'outh Africa and Australia dD The absence of any other viablealternatives and the demand for a global lingua franca& eD The spread of theinternet and information technology industry fD the onslaught of globalizationand the collapse of the B'' gD the timing and the order of all the above events

which played a key role in its success gD Its relative practicality vis-X-vis 6renchand other languages hD its large technical repertoire of words and the de5ciencyof many other languages in this regard& Its future is hard to predict but the rapidspread of 9nglish may eventually stop and may level o/ by around !#


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human history is to demonstrate a lack of knowledge of human history& +i/erenttrends have undoubtedly been observed over the ages *illiam ;ones fore(ample made a remarkable discovery when he discovered that 'anskrit wasclosely related to 9uropean languages triggering o/ a series of reactions both inIndia and elsewhere in the world& 3e also heaped encomiums upon it singing

praises about its structure& This was a most remarkable 5nd at that time andmost scholars now believe that the %I9 or the hypothetical ancestor oflanguages from 9nglish to $engali which as suggested in our papers may havebeen more than one languageD was spoken in Central Asia in the steppes eferthe :urgan hypothesis which tallies with our theories to the T& ,n the other hand

The Anatolian model does not make sense from the point of view of India at allD&Ideological perceptions on the role and importance of language likewise varymore so in a comple( nation such as India and some 3indu nationalists not onlyinsist on an indigenous EAryanF hypothesis but also locate an urheimat in IndiasicPD postulating an outward e(pansion from thereR some others claim that'anskrit is the ancestor of every living language in the world& +alit nationalists

on the other hand take a radically di/erent view and consider it a language ofaliens and interlopers&

In spite of the dogged persistence of varying viewpoints there is undoubtedly awide variation in the nature and state of development of languages and theirsuitability for di/erent roles and a few languages may even have a less than afew thousand words each& Thus some languages may have a rich repertoire insome 5elds no virtually no vocabulary in others& This is known as E'trictlylinguistic ine7ualityF& These aspects need to be assessed against the backdrop ofa societyFs culture and such factors would determine the role of a language insociety& *e may refer to this as EConte(tual suitabilityF& 6or e(ample a language

like 2izo though une7ual with 9nglish in some respects may have its own roleto play in speci5c conte(ts as it may be associated with self-identi5cation andidenti5cation by other cultural or linguistic groups& )ikewise 'wahili symbolizeslocal ethnicity in 9ast Africa in a way 9nglish simply cannot& 'cotton8 0@K!D

In India for e(ample both the language policy and the attitudes of speakers arelikewise conducive for bi-lingualism or multi-lingualism despite linguisticencroachment by 9nglish and 3indi& In most societies knowledge of the locallanguage is a pre-re7uisite for low-level employment as there is too wide adistance between the masses and 9nglish& Thus the EConte(tual suitabilityF mayvary not only from region to region as this would depend on the aggregatedpreferences of the speakers of a language but also based on the di/erent rolesor the functionsD a language may play in a given region or society& *e may referto this as Eole-based suitabilityF or E6unction-based suitabilityF& The Conte(tualsuitability of a language would be the aggregate of the suitability of thelanguage for di/erent roles& The suitability of a language for di/erent roles wouldbe an aggregate of all the principles in this paper which include aspects bothintrinsic and e(trinsic to the language such as characteristics of a language itsrelationship with the other languages of the region its relationship with aculturespeaker preferences loyalties and attitudes as well as availability ofalternatives and these would play a critical and a crucial role in determining thesuccess of language policies& *e may also propose the terms EConte(tualindispensabilityF and Eole-based indispensabilityF and the indispensability of alanguage either in a geographical conte(t or for a speci5c role would depend on

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a comprehensive assessment of whether any other language can play that roleof not& Thus most Indian languages cannot perhaps be replaced by 9nglish oreven other alien language as easy as 9speranto even after an inordinate timespan& ,n the other hand a dialect of Chenchu may disappear from Andhra%radesh altogether particularly if it has too few speakers& They can also be used

to predict the dynamics of language spread and the death and e(tinction oflanguages&

Another interesting fallout of this discussion is that arti5cial methods to insulatea language or drive the development of languages in a manner that wouldrestrict their access make them less user-friendly to target audiences or makethem less suitable for various functions would naturally reduce their utility andlower their chances of success& 9(amples of such movements have been theham-handed attempts to regulate the development of the 6rench languagethough the EAcademienationale de la langue francaiseF the contriveddevelopment of the 3indi language in the early %ost-ajbhasha era to ludicrous

e/ectand the (enophobic Thani Tamil Iyakkam or the %ure Tamil 2ovement ofTamil adu which sought to e(punge words which were integral to the Tamillanguage for over two millennia& All three have ended in dismal and un7uali5edfailure and the success of 9nglish despite the absence of a governing body ofany kind should be an eye-opener& 9nglish unlike 6rench has also been more?e(ible in borrowing new words from other languages and this may have playeda role in its success& 2ore comple( or rigid languages like )atin or 6rench will notnaturally be able to discharge all their functions e/ectively and a systematic anda scienti5c study of spread and decline of languages in relation to theirorthographic or semantic comple(ity or their linguistic distance with otherlanguages and in various situations including those where such languages are

alien to a given region may throw up interesting results&The ready availability of alternatives would also play a role in determining thesuccess of a link language and if better alternatives are readily available in aregion can be put to use within a generation& Thus one may argue that 9nglishmay vie with 6rench in 6rancophonie *est Africa as a lingua franca of eliteswithin just a few generations from now& 'anskrit if used a replacement for 3indias a link language for India may not entirely succeed as discussed in an earlierpaper not only because of its characteristics and its likely unsuitability as adaily language of mass communication and opposition in some circles but alsobecause it has to reckon with 9nglishFs power not only within but also outsideIndia& Attempts to resurrect languages from the dead have met with partial orlimited success at best and one may refer to the e(ample of 3ebrew& Thereforeany 3indi vs 'anskrit debate would be far from simple and one of the %rakritswould theoretically stand on a marginally better footing than 'anskrit& As ane(ample it must be noted that Brdu has failed to displace 9nglish in post-partitioned %akistan and this is chie?y due to the latterFs importance outsidethat country& The only option in such a case would be perhaps to make theselanguages suitable for daily discourse introduce them as optional subjects andthen wait for the dynamics of language spread to take hold& This will of coursetake time given the current power and prestige of 9nglish and it is highlyunlikely that such shifts will even be remotely perceptible within most of ourlifetimes&

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,ne is reminded of the following controversial 7uote of a former editor of The,(ford 9nglish +ictionary& *hile this statement has a highly patronizing and anarrogant tone it is interesting because many individuals in on-9nglish speakingcountries could relate to it G9nglish has also become a lingua franca to the pointthat any literate educated person is in a very real sense deprived if he does not

know 9nglish& %overty famine and disease are instantly recognized as thecruellest and least e(cusable forms of deprivation& )inguistic deprivation is a lesseasily noticed condition but one nevertheless of great signi5cance&H $urch5eld0@K


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*3 ,e role played by !olitical factors in in9uencing te dynamics of

language spreadin multi-lingual societies

*e can see from the earlier e(amples in this paper that political factors can playa role in altering the dynamics of language spread but they can never workagainst the basic principles of language spread in multilingual societies and willat best meet with limited success& If e(amined more critically these approacheswill only work to the e(tent they ful5l some other principle& This will hold gooddespite the fact that all forms of imperialism have been associated with someform of an unnatural control of one ethnic group over another and ourobservation that some form of political inducement may have been at the core ofsuccessful paradigms& 6or e(ample both %ersian and 9nglish were brought toIndia from outside as also was some ancestor of Vedic 'anskrit known as the %I9or one of the constituents of the %I9 in much more ancient times but they allstepped in to 5ll linguistic voids in their respective times only and of the three%ersian was easily supplanted in a short span of time& )ikewise we had observed

in a previous paper that the spread of Aryan culture without accompanyingmigrations however small may have been unlikely& *e may also note that thelanguage of a region or a lingua franca cannot replace the language of anotherregion in a multilingual society under ordinary circumstances& 3owever thelanguage of a region can dominate the language of another region in amultilingual society under speci5c circumstances see section on the Theory ofwin-win propositionsD3 If changes are wrought using arti5cial methods and in amanner that defeat other well-de5ned principles it is bound to throw up counter-reactions3Thus costly ajabhasha policies have not only failed but may haveeven encouraged 9nglish even more&This should be a salutary lesson to mostthat sophistry and polemics cannot substitute well-established principles of

language spread and most certainly not so in the longer run& All ballyhooed andhighly-touted bene5ts of various policies at all ends of the spectrum thereforewill come to naught if they do not satisfy the principles enunciated in this paper&,ne successful e(ample of a politically-driven change in recent times hashowever been the shift in wanda from 6rench to 9nglish and the main driver ofthis change was 6ranceFs role in the wandan genocide& 3owever the relativepracticality and the importance of 9nglish at a global level were other reasonsgiven for the change apart from the fact that both 6rench and 9nglish being bothalien languages in the nation were to play the same role&

03 Spread of languages troug political force vs mar;et< demand and

force of argument3 ,e ,eory of ?in-5in propositions and e6ceptions to te ,eory of

?in-5in propositions

The Theory of *in-win propositionsas opposed to the principle of BnnaturalControl states that within a given set of circumstances languages spread in sucha way that they provide as far as possible a win-win proposition to allstakeholders and any paradigm which results in a win-lose proposition wouldeither fail or throw up a counter-reaction& An e(ample to this in the ajabhashapolicy which would have led to a win-lose propos

sujay dynamics of language spread in multilingual societies final final final

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