COMMUNICATION | LANGUAGE CONFLICTS
Crossing The Language Barrier
Building the bridges that unite humanity
‘This is mine, that is his, say the small minded,
The wise believe that the entire world is a family.’
— Verse from the ancient Sanskrit text, the Maha Upanishad, 6.71–75
I am trying to learn German, and if I miss a day’s lessons, the green Duo Lingo owl on the language learning app, looks unhappy. ‘Die Eule’ has breached my phone and my email. I cannot open either without her looking like she is about to burst into tears.
Why German? Someone told me it is easy to learn.
And because we go back a long way, German and Malayalam, my mother tongue. From 1836 to 1859, Hermann Gundert, lived in Kerala. He was a missionary, a linguist, educationist, writer and publisher. He established schools.
And, most importantly for the Malayalam language, he compiled the first Malayalam dictionary. Today, more than a century later, that tome is spoken of, with reverence. I remember the respect in my parents’ voices, when they spoke about it.
The German-born British philologist, orientalist and Indologist, Max Mueller, committed his whole life to the study of Indian languages with a focus on Sanskrit literature. He translated the Rigveda Samhita from Sanskrit to English.
The trouble with Hindi
Languages are strange entities. We seem to forget that they were born to facilitate communication, not divide people. Yet everywhere I look, people who speak a certain language seem to wall themselves up, and in. There is also a fierce desire to exclude, not only all people who don’t speak the language, but all people who don’t speak it like they do.
Where does that leave humanity?
I don’t have to go very far for examples of this deliberate division of people.
According to The People’s Linguistic Survey of India, India has the second highest number of languages (780), after Papua New Guinea (840). Out of these 780, there are 23 official languages. The rest are spoken by different groups and sects of people. They have written scripts, and literature, too.
The Indian Constitution has never declared Hindi as the national language. In 1959, it accorded Hindi, in Devanagari script, the honor of being the official language of the union, along with English, under Article 343.
According to The People’s Linguistic Survey of India, India has the second highest number of languages (780), after Papua New Guinea (840). Out of these 780, there are 23 official languages.
My parents taught themselves Hindi because they liked learning languages. They already knew Tamil, Malayalam, English and Sanskrit.
But later, when government leaders sought to impose Hindi on all the States of India, there was rebellion. Open, in your face, and violent. Things got so bad that fights erupted on the streets and in august government institutions.
The language of instruction was sought to be changed from English to Hindi, even in stellar institutions like the IIMs (Indian Institute of Management)and the IITs (Indian Institute of Technology).
When everyday household items like yogurt, for instance, began to be sold with Hindi names on them, things came to a head. People who were educated in the vernacular languages could not read, or understand Hindi.
Tamil is the world’s longest-surviving language
The Tamil language is one of the world’s longest-surviving classical languages, with over 2000 years of Tamil literature, including the Sangam poems, composed between 300 BCE and 300 CE. It is the language of Tamil Nadu, and the union territory of Puducherry. (In Puducherry, which was the capital of French India, one of the official languages is French! But that’s another story.)
Yet, Hindi was sought to be imposed on them, too.
It is another story that EVERYONE who sought to impose the Hindi language on people had their own children being educated only in English Medium schools!
Shashi Tharoor — author of ten best selling books, politician, Member of Parliament, and erudite and vocal champion of ALL languages — spoke against the imposition of Hindi on people whose vernaculars were other languages. It was he who clarified that both English and Hindi are official languages of the Constitution of India.
There is now an uneasy truce between the different warring factions . . . until the next eruption!
Languages divide — humanity unites
Now that we have established the fact that languages divide, let us consider the fact that humanity unites.
At the Australian National Maritime Museum, in Sydney’s Darling Harbour, we were exploring one of the exhibits, the HMB Endeavour. And suddenly, someone spoke to us, in Malayalam. We spun round, and gazed wide-eyed, at the only person in our vicinity, an Australian. He grinned at our astonished faces.
And he told us a story. Of his father.
The Malayalam equivalent of ‘Where there’s a will, there’s always a way’, is ‘If needed, a jackfruit can grow even on the roots (of the tree)’
His father had been a Principal of a University College in Kerala. I think it was the Malabar Christian College. At the time the freedom struggle was going on, and Mahatma Gandhi had given a call for all College and University students to join in.
The Principal of this particular College refused permission to his students. He wrote a letter to Gandhiji, explaining that the primary duty of students was to study, and educate themselves, and he requested him to spare his students. Gandhiji, always courteous, replied to his letter, saying that he understood his sense of values.
This letter was handed over to the Indian Government, by the Principal’s son, whom we were speaking to, after India gained Independence, on August 15, 1947. It is doubtless enshrined in a museum.
Different tongues, same heart-beat
In the babel of tongues that our civilization has necessarily become, all that is required, to live harmoniously, is the realisation that our lives, dreams, desires and passions are the same. That whatever language we speak, our blood is the same, our hearts beat in the same manner, and that the wonders of Nature awe us all, in equal measure.
‘Is it necessary, that streaming blood
Be evidence of your superiority?
To dispel the darkness of your own home
Is it necessary to incinerate someone else’s city?’— Sahir Ludhianvi wrote this in another context, but asked about a universal truth in this rhetorical question
Here’s a language in its own right:
‘Seek, and thou shall find!’
The Malayalam equivalent of ‘Where there’s a will, there’s always a way’, is ‘If needed, a jackfruit can grow even on the roots (of the tree).’
If we seek divisions and dissonance, we will always find them. But if we wish to live in harmony, despite our differences, we can find that, too. All it takes, to achieve harmony, is to consciously build bridges over our barriers.
Building Bridges
Words can be the bridges that bind us. So can music. Whichever part of the world I go to, I make sure to buy a sample of the music of the people living in it. I can’t always understand a word: but I find that the sounds of elation and the sounds of misery are the same throughout the world. Festivals, food, and family bring us together, as they bring people in any part of the world.
When we consciously set out to learn a language, we are also aware that we are trying to learn about another culture, different from our own in many ways, but similar in many others. The more we are willing up to open up to beliefs, customs, and traditions not our own, the closer we get to each othera . . . and the less suspicious we become of someone who does not look, or speak, like we do.
The Hindu text the ‘Maha Upanishad’ contains a phrase ‘Vasudeiva Kutumbakam’. Loosely translated, it means, ‘the world is one family.’ ‘Vasudeva’, in ancient Sanskrit means the Eternal Reality, and ‘kutumbaka’ is ‘family.’ In an alternate spelling, ‘vasudha’ means the Earth. The phrase means that all of the world, universe, or reality, is one.
The actual Sanskrit verse, from the Maha Upanishad, 6. 71–75 reads:
अयं निजः परो वेति गणना लघुचेतसाम्।
उदारचरितानां तु वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम्॥
Transliteration:
ayaṃ nijaḥ paro veti gaṇanā laghucetasām।
udāracaritānāṃ tu vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam॥
English translation:
This is mine, that is his, say the small minded,
The wise believe that the entire world is a family.
I rest my case.
ⓒ 2024 Suma Narayan. All Rights Reserved.
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