Language Extinction and its consequences on us

According to UNESCO, a language is lost every two weeks. Cultural and linguistic diversity is of the utmost importance to build sustainable societies. Every country realizes how preserving and nurturing the mother language of their people is vital to their holistic psycho intellectual development. In fact, it’s the most important cultural asset around which the identity and salience of a community are built.

Since 2000, UNESCO has been celebrating International Mother Language Day every year on February 21. It serves to remind us of the importance of language as a cultural asset. This date was not chosen at random though. It was a tribute to the Bangladeshis' (former East Pakistan) battle and the sacrifices made for their mother tongue in 1952 when Pakistan imposed their language of Urdu on them as the official language of the country.

Ms. Audrey Azoulay, the UNESCO Director-General, highlighted how four out of 10 children worldwide do not have access to education in the language they speak or understand best, meaning the foundation for their learning is more fragile. "Using technology for multilingual learning: Challenges and opportunities" is the theme for this year 2022. This year's theme focus is to advance multilingual education based on the potential role of technology and support the development of quality teaching and learning for all.

The language we see today is the language that has evolved from the past. It's a product of development and cross-pollination from its lateral languages through voluntary or involuntary infusions. Languages like so many things have their typical life cycle. They evolve, develop, stagnate, and die. Many languages in the past had reached their peak and they are not in use now. Rich language like Sanskrit which has influenced so many others is now in the archives. That shows that languages evolve and get enriched when used by the masses across their various layers of application and it dies when not used or it becomes the preserve of the privileged few.

Language Extinction is real and the consequences of it befall the society which is responsible for its extinction.

Is our language endangered? Are we aware of it? Are we allowing the demise of our mother language in our complacency, or we are doing it out of callousness that looks almost as if by design? Let us see the state of our language in comparison to the global and national trends and evaluate what, where, when, and how we need to intervene to stop its extinction and lead it to an enriching evolution.

Globally seen, of the world's 6,000 languages, 2580 (43%) are estimated as endangered. On the other hand, just 10 languages account for over 4.8 billion (60%) speakers of the world population of 7.9 billion. If the top 3 languages are analyzed; English 1.13 billion (Native 379, Non-Native 753); Mandarin 1.11 billion (Native 918, Non-Native 199); Hindi 0.61 billion (Native 341, Non-Native 274). That shows that few languages are growing at an exponential rate over the demise of many. Let us see our national trend. From 1991 to 2011 Hindi spoken as a percentage of the Indian population has grown from 39.29% to 43.63% whereas from Bengali to all other languages it has remained flat. The percentage of Odia has dropped from 3.35% to 3.10%. What are the factors behind this trend of the rising popularity of English and Hindi which is being adopted by the non-natives with such ease?

Globally English language has positioned itself as the bridge language for most non-natives. For the last few centuries has been the language that gave people access to higher economic opportunities. Electronic communication which shrunk the world into a global village with only the different time zones rode on the internet which was in English. Various language contents were made available in different languages on the web, but the highways, lanes, road signs, and driving rules are in English. IT has reduced personal communication to structured and mechanical business languages for easy processing and unambiguous facilitation by the service providers. The need for creating subtle expressions has been shunted out and the participants are encouraged to choose keywords that allow easy numerical evaluation at the processing level. Spellcheck, Grammarchecker, Predictive texting, Autofill, Emoticon, and GIFs are helping people not to go through the grind of mastering this language of opportunity and start using it and get the bulk of their needs met. In ease of adoption lies its popularity.

Coming to the rise of Hindi at the national level, the IT industry since 1990 has fuelled massive migration both at the national and international levels. English has always been practiced by the privileged few and has remained aspirational for many. The later cohort who was not very comfortable with English because of their medium of education and exposure adopted it with glee as the bridge language with their adoptive state. The soft power of Hindi movies and easy availability of entertainment content familiarized itself to the new generation from their time of birth. The kids of the current generation are as much at ease with Hindi as with their mother language. Hindi now enjoys the same fashion quotient which English enjoyed 4/5 decades back. This multilingual trend has a negative side too. This has given rise to a hybrid language which is a mix of Odia sentences peppered with subaltern Hindi expressions which is a pain to the ears of practitioners of classic forms of our mother language.

Despite the depressing trends of most languages, multilingualism does exist and is thriving. Prof. Jatin Nayak says that there hardly is a profession or sector in which one can survive with proficiency over only one language. He rues that education is the only sector that has callously neglected our mother language from primary through post-graduation. Be it in terms of improving the quality of language teachers, empowering them with newer tools to encourage students for creative expression both in its spoken or written form; the downward slide has been worryingly steady.

The discussion above is more on the spoken form of the languages.

But is the role of a language limited to communication between two entities or it's a tool of learning of the evolutionary past of the society?

Anil Dhir one of the leading conservationists of the state feels that invaluable knowledge exists at the community level which verbally gets passed from generation to generation. It has stood the test of time. But the recent trend of migration and remaining detached from their social context is doing irreversible damage to the knowledge base as these pieces of knowledge are not documented anywhere. It will die with the death of those persons. As migration for economic prosperity is unstoppable; he strongly advocates that many tribal dialects need help to develop their alphabets and lexicons. And with the advancement of AI technology that is very much possible. But it requires support from a compassionate state and sponsor. That will help them document those pieces of knowledge for future generations. The loss of this knowledge is a loss of humanity.

Let’s think of a scenario where the rock edicts of Ashoka had not been deciphered because the person who could read them was not available at that time. The world would have been so poor without knowing anything about Ashoka and the political life of that time. The same is going to happen soon here when the contribution and sacrifice made by our forefathers who could carve out a state based on the languages we speak will be lost in oblivion because the texts which have documented the past will be incomprehensible to most of the current generation. Who will be the loser? Not them but we as the society for sure.

Study shows that usage of mother language for reading, and writing is now limited to senior citizens who are well past 65 years of age. Most of the groups between 14 to 64 have no practicing contact with the language. Many of them can speak and not write well. Most of them don't read anything beyond the local newspapers. While the practicing population is 5.3%, 63.6% practice this haphazardly. The ones below 14 years which are 28.6% stand to see no better scene. Imagine a society where 92% of its population are disconnected from its heritage literature as there is no need for this either in their daily life or profession. It is not fashionable, nor does it assure any reward or career advancement.

We connect with our past from our heritage literature and the only way to get it is through our mastery over our mother language.

By not familiarizing themselves with the heritage literature of their language, we don't acquire a sense of the socio-political identity of the society we belong to; no knowledge of the major milestones in the past as no history book talks about the history of our state. We don't know about the evolutionary cultural processes our ancestors have gone through. What do you call such an ignoramus community and what would keep them bound together in the future?

It's said, never erase your past. It shapes who you are today and will help you to be the person you'll be tomorrow. We learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

Preservation of mother language should be as important as our instinct for self-preservation. Where have we lost our humanity? That leaves everyone in some position of privilege with a set of very uncomfortable questions to answer on this International Mother Language Day.

How safe is our future in the hands of such people?

Is economic development the only sign of sustainable development of a society?

Can we risk such a scenario in the future?

What are we doing about it to prevent it?

How big should be the efforts?

What is going to be the roles of the state, society, and individuals?