[lg policy] A speaking tree — of languages

Thu Jan 18 16:01:07 UTC 2018

 A speaking tree — of languages
<http://www.thehindu.com/profile/author/Suganthy-Krishnamachari-523/> Suganthy
Krishnamachari
<http://www.thehindu.com/profile/author/Suganthy-Krishnamachari-523/>
January 18, 2018 16:09 IST
Updated: January 18, 2018 16:10 IST

   Share Article
   -
   -
   -
   -
   <?subject=%20A%20speaking%20tree%20%3F%20of%20languages%20&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thehindu.com%2Fsociety%2Fdr-devy-speaks-on-dialects-and-the-importance-of-mother-tongue%2Farticle22464313.ece>
   -
   <http://www.thehindu.com/society/dr-devy-speaks-on-dialects-and-the-importance-of-mother-tongue/article22464313.ece#comments>
   - PRINT
   - A A A

02bg- Dr G.N. Devy, Chairperson, PLSI   | Photo Credit: mail
<http://www.thehindu.com/profile/photographers/mail/>
Ganesh N. Devy provides insights into different dialects, his linguistic
survey and how his team wrote grammar for different visual-gestural
communications

Although Sahitya Akademi Awardee Dr. Ganesh N. Devy’s interest is language,
he clarifies that he is not a linguist. “I am a literary critic and a
cultural activist,” he says. Devy gave up his job as Professor of English
and began working with tribals, and his friendship with Mahasweta Devi made
him a committed crusader for tribal causes. Devy was in Chennai to deliver
the G.S. Srinivasan Memorial Lecture at C.P.R. Foundation.

The culture, the rights of tribes and their languages have been major
concerns for Devy, who founded the Adivasi Academy, in Tejgadh, and also
the Bhasha centre. In 1996, he came up with a magazine for tribal languages
called ‘Dhol.’ Tribals rallied round the magazine, although they could not
read. A language not having its own script is no big deal, says Devy.
English, after all, uses the Roman script, and Sanskrit has gone through
several scripts. He points out that Malayalam, Kannada, etc., were used to
write Sanskrit as Sanskrit.

Devy says Panini was the originator of the Indian tradition of linguistic
survey. “Panini studied different languages and came up with a shared
grammar for all of them. His work is a grammar of grammars.” Panini
standardised different varieties of Sanskrit that were in vogue, and gave
Sanskrit a theoretical construct. He adds that Matanga’s Brihaddesi was a
survey of Indian languages in their musical aspect. In British times, there
was Grierson’s Survey. In the 11th Five-Year Plan — 2007 to 2012 — the
Government of India allocated funds for a new linguistic survey. But
language often being a bone of contention, the Government was afraid that
the survey might trigger linguistic dissensions in the country. So, it did
not take off.

Devy then decided that a linguistic survey did not have to depend on
government initiatives, but could be done by the people themselves. And
thus was born the PLSI — People’s Linguistic Survey of India — the
operative word being ‘people,’ because the entire effort was driven by the
voluntary spirit of people. Three thousand people were involved, and they
included labourers, shopkeepers, etc. A driver of a civil servant used to
note down words and their meanings in his interactions with different
people, just out of sheer interest. He and others like him were roped in.
The survey began in 2010 and the first compilation with 450 languages was
ready in about 20 months.

Tribal languages

In 2012, the Tata trust offered ₹80 lakhs for further work. Different
volumes were compiled for scheduled and unscheduled languages. For the
unscheduled languages, like tribal languages, details included history of
the language, its grammar, a song or story popular in that society,
proverbs, and words relating to nature. “Words relating to kinship are many
in some tribal languages,” says Devy. The Gonds, for example, have seven
words for different maternal aunts.

There are volumes for different States too, which also have details about
the scripts prevailing in the state. In West Bengal, there are 11 scripts
in all, for languages like Nepali, Santali, Urdu, besides Bengali. Twenty
national volumes have also been brought out. One of them is about the
different sign languages used in different States. “We even wrote the
grammar for these sign languages,” says Devy. One volume was about shared
Indian languages. For instance, Karen, a language spoken in the Andamans,
is also spoken in Myanmar.

Three national volumes are devoted to English, German, French, Portuguese,
etc. Why did Dr. Devy have to cover foreign languages? “Because there are
people in India whose mother tongues are foreign languages. In 1961, more
than 100 foreign languages served as the mother tongue of Indians.”

One volume is for Sanskrit and Hindi; one is about language census and
language policy, and there is also one on the future of Indian languages.
“In all, we have 92 books, 50 volumes, roughly 35,000 printed pages. The
raw manuscripts were placed at the spot where Gandhi was assassinated,
symbolically presenting the work to the nation.”

Can Indian languages withstand the English onslaught? “My guess is that
maybe a hundred years from now, English will have a place as a scheduled
language, but Indian languages will have a way of negotiating with English
at par. Indian languages are catching up in the cyberspace. Besides, no
language can completely wipe out other languages. Every language, including
English, has a carrying power, beyond which it will crack. There was a time
when it seemed that Sanskrit would dominate the other Prakrits. But the
other Prakrits survived and Sanskrit is not spoken.”

But Sanskrit survives in a different way. It may no longer be spoken, but
it lives on in many Indian languages, I point out. “I agree. My great
grandfather may be dead, but I carry his genes, and so does Sanskrit
continue to live. Which is why I say that you should never try to learn
Sanskrit. Just pick it up. If you know any Indian language, it’s easy to
pick up Sanskrit. You just have to get the knack of splitting the Sanskrit
words.”

Devy believes that Indians are essentially multi-lingual. “In Europe,
people are self-conscious when they hear languages they can’t understand.
But we don’t react that way.”

Devy says that his image of India is like artist Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh’s
speaking tree. “In my tree, the minor tribal languages are the roots. They
are not visible, but nourish the tree. The majestic branches are the
scheduled languages. The sky is the English language, and the sky is not
going to fall on the tree.”

*Knew 14 languages*
Dr. Devy delivered the G.S. Srinivasan memorial lecture at C.P.R.
foundation. Dancer Padma Subrahmanyam said that civil servant G.S.
Srinivasan was proficient in 14 languages, and books filled every inch of
space in his house. Srinivasan, a self-effacing scholar, was working
towards a Ph.D. in Sanskrit when he passed away

-- 
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

-------------------------------------------------
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lgpolicy-list/attachments/20180118/af439dd5/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list