Indian Languages, Literature and Culture in the Global Context Part-2

Dravidian Languages

1. The four Dravadan languages Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malyalam developed their own literature. Tamil being the oldest of these langauges began writing earlier and produced the Sangam literature.

2. The Vijayanagara period was the golden age of Telugu literature. Krishnadevaraya (1509-1529), the greatest of the Vijayanagara emperors, was a poet of great merit. His work Amukta Malyada is regarded as an excellent prabandha in Telugu literature.

3. Apart from Telugu, Vijayanagara rulers extended their patronage to Kannada and Sanskrit writers as well. Kannada language developed fully after the tenth century AD. The earliest known literary work in Kannada is Kavirajamarg by the Rashtrakuta King, Nripatunga Amoghavarsha I. Pampa, known as the father of Kannada wrote his great poetic works Adi Purana and Vïkramarjiva Vijaya in the tenth century AD. Kannada literature flourished considerably between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.

4. The language of Malayalam emerged around the eleventh century AD. By fifteenth century Malayalam was recognized as an independent language. Bhasa Kautilya, a commentary on Arthashastra and Kokasandisan are two great works.

  

The linguistic Diversity in India

No country in the world close to matching the Linguistic diversity In India. Just the number of ‘Mother Tongues in the country, as listed in the 1961 Census is 1652 The Constitution of India does not give any language the status of national language. The official language of the Union Government of the Republic of India is Hindi. 

In addition, the Government of India has awarded the distinction of classical language to Tamil, Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, and Odia due to their long history of 1500-2000 years. All Indian languages fall into one of these 4 groups: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Sino-Tibetan and Afro-Asiatic. The extinct and endangered languages of the Andaman islands form a fifth family.

Here are 10 facts about Indian languages that you may not know about:

1. Hindi is the 2nd most spoken language in the world (ahead of English and Spanish), Bengali the 7th most, and Punjabi the 10th most.

2. Over 970 million people in the world speak Hindi. Bengali and Punjabi have about 250 million and 120 million speakers respectively worldwide, ahead of popular languages like German and French.

3.Kalidas, a renowned Sanskrit scholar and literary playwright in ancient India, composed a romantic play titled Vikramorvashiyam in Apabhramsa in 400 AD.

4.Malayalam, the language spoken in the southern Indian state of Kerala, is the longest palindrome (a word that reads the same backwards and forwards).In Mattur village in Karnataka, people speak in Sanskrit to each other.

Here are 6 more amazing facts about Sanskrit, one of the oldest languages known to mankind:

• NASA scientist Rick Briggs once said that Sanskrit is the only unambiguous language in existence.
• Sanskrit is the most computer friendly language.
• 14 universities in Germany offer Sanskrit as a subject.
• Sanskrit uses many synonyms for each subject. For instance, there are 100 synonyms for the word ‘elephant.’
• Sanskrit is the state language of Uttarakhand
• Sanskrit is supposed to belong to the same family as Latin. That is why there are many words ending in ‘um’ in both languages.

5. Brahui is a Dravidian language, with its roots in India, spoken by approximately 1 million people in Pakistan and Afghanistan. 23 Dravidian languages are unrelated to any other known language family and are spoken mostly in South India.

6.  In 1999, UNESCO declared February 21 as International Mother Language Day to commemorate the Bengali Language Movement in 1952.

7.  Did you know around 99% of Urdu verbs have their roots in Sanskrit and Prakrit?

Although Urdu is the national language of Pakistan, it is also one of India’s official languages. Urdu, like Hindi, is a form of Hindustani.

8. George Bush, former President of the USA, had allocated a budget of $114 million for teaching Hindi in the US. Hindi was to be a part of the curriculum from kindergarten to the graduate level, considering the importance of Hindi as a common native language of Indian Americans. However, the plan was not carried through once Obama became President.

9.  All Indian scripts come from the same script – Brahmi. Writing came much later to India than to other parts of the world. Hence, both Tamil and Sanskrit have extremely strong oral traditions.

10. Kannada language has the second oldest written tradition of all vernacular languages of India.

More than a thousand notable writers have contributed to the wealth of the language

Current estimates of the total number of epigraphs written in Kannada range from 25,000 by the scholar Sheldon Pollock to over 30,000 by the Sahitya Akademi, making Karnataka state “one of the most densely inscribed pieces of real estate in the world.”

STATUS OF ENGLISH IN THE PRE-INDEPENDENCE ERA

Though a foreign language, English occupies a unique position in Indian educational system. Even after independence, it continues to be a major language having a prestigious position in our society.

Introduction of English language in India includes three phases. The first phase is the missionary phase, which includes the efforts of the Christian missionaries. In the second phase, the Indians themselves demanded instruction in English studies. Raja

Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) made efforts to persuade the officials of East India company for Western scientific education in part replacement of Sanskrit and Arabic. The third most important phase is that of bilingualism  which started with the implementation of educational policies for instruction in English based on Lord Macaulay's "Minute on Indian Education (1835)".

In the early 20th century, English was formally established as the official and academic language of India. English became the prestige language, completely replacing Persian and the other Indian languages. "By 1928 English has been accepted as the language of the elite, of the administration, and of the pan Indian press. In addition, another phenomenon with a far reaching consequences was that of developing Indian literature in English".

ENGLISH IN POST INDEPENDENCE ERA

The constitution of India which was adopted in 1950 had envisaged Hindi as the only official language of the Union of India. However, English has been allowed to continue for 15 years from the date of adoption of the constitution and then to be replaced by Hindi. It is impossible to think that we can educate millions in a totally foreign tongue. To quote Pandit Nehru, "English will inevitably remain an important language because of our past association and because of its present importance in the world".

STUDIES ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE SITUATION AND STATUS

To assess the overall language question of India, the Government has taken various steps like appointing study committees and commissions. The official language commission was appointed in June 1955 under the chairmanship of B.G Khertomake to make recommendations about the progressive use of Hindi for all official purposes. In the report of University Education Commission headed by Dr.S. Radhakrishnan, it was stated that English should be studied in schools and universities so as to keep ourselves in touch with the stream of ever growing knowledge. "Kunzru Committee of 1957 supported a general proposal to consolidate Bnglish, for the foreseeable future, as a major university and pre-university subject. This committee proposed two major changes in approaches to English : 1) linking of the study of English literature to the study of Indian literature and 2) major expansion at all appropriate levels of linguistics.

  

In 1960 the Banerjee Committee emphasized the usefulness of English as an instrument in scientific learning. The Kothari Commission of 1964 asserted that "As English will, for a long time to come, continue to be needed as a Library language in the fields of higher education, a strong foundation in the language will have to be laid at the school stage can be best achieved from the books published in English on these subjects. So long as we don't develop such skill and prepare books in our national language or regional languages, we are obliged to continue the study of English language. The 'Three language formula' has been proposed as a solution to India's language problem. "English should be one of the three compulsory languages for students at the secondary stage, the other two being Hindi and the mother tongue or the regional language.”

  

English in Education

In spite of the stated goals of the official language policy English continues to enjoy a pride of place in our educational setup. It continues to be a school subject throughout the country with certain differences in the number of years English is taught at school. "The teaching of English holds an important position in university teaching programmes in national institutions, administration, social circles, creative writing, the mass media, both print and electronic, and publication of books. It has acquired a complementary function in the Indian society along with other indigenous languages".  Expressing the view regarding the teaching of English, former Education Minister, Maulana Azad said "In addition, English has today become one of the major languages of the world, and Indians can neglect its study at the risk of loss to themselves. I am convinced that in the future as well the standard of teaching English should be maintained at as high a level as possible".

English v/s Indian Languages

The impact of English literature on. pre- and post- independence Indian literature. is immense. Indians have experimented with the English language, if only to filter/express the Indian culture and experience. While the English language underwent a process of acculturation, it began to take in many features of the Indian languages. In turn, the language has been used to construct the Indian ethos. This has been done by borrowing certain words from the Indian languages and using them in English, by forming hybrid constructions having items from both English and any Indian language, by extending and restricting the original meaning of words in English and so on. These lexical and semantic changes have resulted in a unique variety of English; the product now reveals a combination of both English features as well as those of the languages it came into contact with in the country. The Indianness that comes across through such linguistic devices. is, in fact, a reflection of the way of life of people here and of the social reality. The context is different and the speakers are not  users of the language.

It may not be a matter of simple translation since factors such as cultural and class differences also affect the interpretation of the message. So when Raja Rao in the Preface to Kanthapura stated that “One has to convey in a language that is not one’s own the spirit that is one’s own.”

While talking about the English language, one must consider the status of English in India and the attitudes of the speakers towards it. One must also examine the role English plays in the lives of the people here in India, mainly the educated section. Earlier, English learning had created a group of elite; this segregation had alienated the masses.

At present, the language is not unfamiliar to the masses who use English to intersperse their language with a lot of words borrowed from English without any hesitation. English has been Indianised by being borrowed, transcreated, recreated, stretched, extended, contorted perhaps.

INDIAN ENGLISH

As we have seen, English in India has the status of an “associate' official language. English performs yet another role in India of being the language used by people who do not share a common tongue. So it is the language of inter-ethnic communication and provides a lingua franca for communication among a multilingual people. Apart from this, people of one linguistic group read English literary translations of books written in another language. Most language groups also bring out their own publications in English. Through a period of use in a non-native environment and its related growth, the language is now capable of serving many national as well as international communicative needs.

English in India has developed or, in other words, been nativised by the very people who use it. This has been regarded as an attempt to create a new identity in terms of language. An entire body of literature exists in these varieties of English. With reference to IE, in the 1950.s, Dustoor wrote that: there will always be a more or less indigenous flavor about our English. In our imagery, in our choice of words, in the nuances of meaning we put into our words, we must be expected to be different from Englishmen and Americans alike. Our mental climate will always foster plants that do not flourish in England or America.

Indian writers in English have also moulded the language and the Indianisms they use in their work reflect Indian thought and express the way social reality is ‹constructed by its new users. These writers feel that their choice to write in English is partly their individual choice and partly inspired by their desire to reach an international audience.

         I am an Indian, very brown, born in

Malabar, I speak three languages, write in

Two dream in one. Don’t write in English,         

they said English is not your mother-tongue.    

Why not leave Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins

       

These lines of Kamala Das have relevance even today.

The growth of non-native varieties of English has its accompanying set of problems. Use of a non-native language to serve communication requirements in a particular socio-cultural and linguistic context may be laced with difficulties. In India, people who use English are bilingual or multilingual second language users. In such a situation, a child may not get adequate exposure to develop linguistic competence akin to that of a native speaker of English.

INDIAN ENGLISH: FEATURES

The semantic and lexical distinctive features are assumed to be variations of similar structures in the native varieties of English. Present continuous tense. repetition, absence of articles and prepositions and so on are some of these features. Repetition of various elements of structure such as child after child, bridegroom after bridegroom, rain pouring on and on, ages after ages are certain sp'liStic devices used in IE. In tone, cadence and choice of diction, there is a distinct Indianness. New words have been created through borrowing, semantic change, innovation, translation and hybridization.

R K Narayan echoes the feeling of most IE writers by reiterating that there is need for a “Bharat brand of English” which will have a “Swadeshi stamp.

        There has been an assimilation of certain Indian words into English vocabulary alongside the processes of Indianisation of the English language. Most of these words have lost the tag of being Indian in origin. Certain other words, however, belong to the list of Indian words in English and have not been assimilated into the English language. Notably, the processes of Indianisation have been necessitated primarily because certain words used in the Indian context have no English equivalents.

THE NEED FOR NATIVISATION

“People eager to support their one particular brand of English seem to be gratified at the idea that, while able to retain some kind of English, they do not have to compete any more against the perpetual native-speaker one-upmanship.” This is one of the many reasons for nativisation of a language.

More importantly, nativisation of a non-native language is necessary because of difference in culture and the related socio-cultural factors. Words may not carry the same meaning in two cultures. Hence, mere translation may not be the key to an understanding of the lexical items. To suit requirements of communication, linguistic devices have to be invented and integrated in the language.

Extension of meaning of lexical items of a non-native language when used in a native situation is of significance in that such processes help nativise the language. They reflect the non-native contexts which may be unintelligible to a native speaker. The process of ‘nativisation’ of English in second language contexts is not only due to ‘transfer’ from local languages, but also due to the pressures of a new cultural environment and fresh communicative needs.

As mentioned before, new words have to be coined to express meanings in a new context. In addition, there may be semantic shifts involved. This is especially true of kinship terms in IE where the need for nativisation is greatly felt.

In IE. kinship terms can be used differently Kinship terms take on additional meanings in the Indian setting and one must be aware of this to understand the use of such terms.

In such a situation, individuals learning English in a non-native environment must not be judged on the basis of their competence in acquiring standard BE or AE but on their proficiency in communicating the typical characteristics of an alien setting in a language which is not their mother tongue.

Semantic shifts in IE help reflect the Indian life in its various aspects — political, economic, religious and social. The English language thus becomes a mirror to Indian sentiments and sensibilities„ The lexical items used in BE may also be used in IE so that their structures are similar but their interpretation in both the variety  may be a lot. if not altogether, different.

  

CONCLUSION

Nativisation of English through such linguistic strategies shows the Indianness. Such processes may not bring about any structural or semantic change. The preference of any linguistic device shown by IE users is also reflective of the general feature of IE. An analysis of the features of IE would “ show how creativity, more than ‘deviance’ distinguishes the lexical strictures of Indian English.

ಶೃತಿ-ಸ್ಮೃತಿ ಪುರಾಣಾನಾಂ, ಆಲಯಂ ಕರುಣಾಲಯಂ

            ನಮಾಮಿ ಭಗವತ್ ಪಾದಂ, ಶಂಕರಂ ಲೋಕ ಶಂಕರಂ

According to the interpretations of certain historians, the period of Shankaracharya is traced even before Buddhist period. Shankaracharya’s experiments in the field of Indian spiritual literature has established him as an inseparable character. The above mentioned Shloka is written glorifying his importance. The greatest contribution of Shankaracharya is the protection of Indian Vedas through which he became unique and universal. By establishing four Shakti Peethas in four directions of India, he protected the legacy of Indian languages. Through writing `Bhashyas’ on the four Vedas, he preserved both the Vedas and Indian Languages.