The Silenced Languages of India

Have you ever experienced something so insatiable that you were unable to express it in words? Perhaps the kinesthetic and spiritual experience of watching a dancer transcend the limits of time and space? (Ihi, Maori) The warmth that burns within you when you hold your newborn child? (oo-kah-huh-sdee, Cherokee) Or, the desire to quench the thirst for something that remained unfulfilled? (Tishnagi, Urdu) These experiences remain inexpressible within the confines of the English language but can be expressed through the endangered languages of Maori, Cherokee, and the vulnerable Urdu. The loss of expression of such poignant feelings represents the history, knowledge and human experience lost when endangered languages are driven to extinction.

Whether it be colonization, globalization, or urbanization, rampant changes in the environment make people give up their traditional ways of life, abandon their vernacular, and pick up languages that they deem will provide them with social and economic mobility, and hence a better future. However, the speed at which people are shifting from their heritage language to a dominant language — a process termed language shift — is occurring at an unprecedented and rather alarming rate. It is estimated that half of the 7000 languages spoken across the globe will have fallen silent by the end of this century, and India is at the forefront of this decline. India is a land of immense cultural, geographic, and linguistic diversity, where after every 10 kilometers, one can witness a different language, a different set of beliefs, and a different way of life. The 1961 census in India recorded 1652 mother tongues, while the 1971 census recognized a sparing 808, followed by the 2010 People’s Linguistic Survey of India, which recorded 780 languages, 197 out of which are considered endangered (1). In this paper, with reference to innovative initiatives implemented worldwide in the pursuit of language preservation, I will argue that bottom-up solutions such as Language Nests, when adapted to fit the needs of the community and to address the root cause of language decline, should be prioritized over preservation oriented solutions such as documentation, and small-scale solutions such as translation of foreign content.

Historical factors such as colonialism have had a longstanding and detrimental impact on India’s indigenous languages, casting them as a barrier to colonial hegemony and Indian development. The British administration in India passed several discriminatory laws, one of which was the Criminal Tribes Act 1871, which “notified about 150 tribes around India as criminals.” Fearing reprisals from the imperialists, members of these groups turned wary of speaking their languages in an attempt to conceal their identity and avoid persecution. According to Professor of Law at Sai University, Abhishek Chakravarty, this “led to many of them losing their mother tongue” (1) as instead, they adopted the dominant language of their regions. Chakravarty explains that language endangerment is often the product of such power differentials and the discrimination that ensues. Members of these tribal communities abandoned their languages as a response to overt discrimination, and over time these communities have internalized the benefits of aligning with the dominant discourse. Not only did the British endanger tribal languages through adverse laws, but they also threatened dominant native tongues by the imposition of English as the language of education, commerce, and law, the effects of which are enhanced by 19th-century globalization. With the influx of western technology, web-based information, media, and popular culture, the English language is dominating the interest of the youth of India, as they deem it a way to connect with Western culture. Future aspirations of younger generations are tied intrinsically to the English language and the desire to develop a global understanding, detaching them from the linguistic wealth of their nation.

India is a country that has historically relied on oral tradition for the transmission of knowledge; hence the languages of several tribal communities which have not been written or recorded are vanishing before our eyes. According to new media specialist Osama Manzar, modern digitization must be harnessed for the effective preservation of Indian endangered languages. Manzar believes that culture, tradition, and history are embedded in language, and he argues that they can be preserved through “audio-visual formats” (2), eliminating the need for a language script. Linguists from National Geographic’s Enduring Voices project have already created talking dictionaries that contain “over 24,000 audio recordings of native speakers” — many of whom are the last speakers of their language — “pronouncing words and sentences” (2) to document their languages. Manzar suggests that such efforts should be replicated in India and asserts that the audio-visual format is particularly beneficial as it “allows researchers to understand a language even if they don’t know the script” (2). Digital documentation is particularly effective in preserving a language far beyond its speakers’ lives and allows people from all over the world to access the knowledge and history that it encompasses. While Manzar’s solution is relevant in an era of technology, it might not document languages at the pace that they are becoming extinct due to lack of resources and labor. British linguist David Crystal “proposes an estimate of $585 million ($65,000 per year for 3 years’ work to provide basic documentation for 3000 languages)” (3). Is this sum worth it? Is the documentation of language data a long-term solution? Does it contribute to the sustainability of language maintenance efforts? One might consider a parallel here — Does documenting the calls of an endangered bird or displaying a stuffed endangered animal in a museum allow it to reproduce, pass on its genetics, and escape extinction? Certainly not!

While salvaging endangered languages through digital documentation is a worthwhile endeavor and may be the only solution for languages on the brink of extinction, some might argue that it does not address the root cause of language erosion. There is a tendency to reify languages as artifacts in the linguistic domain, preserving them in the artificial environment of talking dictionaries, which capture only a part of their ever-evolving nature. As linguists, Nora and Richard Dauenhauer explain, “books and recordings can preserve languages, but only people and communities can keep them alive” (4). In other words, the preservation of language ultimately requires the preservation of language ecologies: the living communities who speak and transmit them. Linguists in India and worldwide could benefit from an approach taken by speakers of the Udmurt, a language native to eastern Russia. Udmurt has roughly “350,000” speakers, and similar to many Indian endangered languages is facing severe decline due to rampant language shift, from Udmurt to the global lingua franca, English (5). To combat this, Udmurt speaker Aleksey Shklyaev led an initiative, whereby the popular movie Apocalypto was translated into Udmurt, new words, such as those for “PR,” “retail,” and “crowdsourcing” were invented “to keep the tongue up to date,” and an online forum was established for “promoting and sharing Udmurt” (5). Shklyaev’s innovative approach harnesses the effects of globalization detrimental to local languages — the rampant influx of foreign movies, television, and media — and employs them in the very fight towards language revitalization.

Upon the popularity of his approach, Shklyaev furthered his translation efforts through an online platform, Viki, which licenses movies and television shows for crowdsourced translation. Along with his team, Shklyaev has successfully translated Udmurt into the Japanese film Jungle Emperor Leo and the Korean television show The Heirs. Partnered with the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, Viki now hosts a plethora of endangered languages, the most popular being Basque, a language spoken by “720,000” on the border of France and Spain (5). Another valuable aspect of Viki is that it provides data on which shows and translations are most popular amongst their “33 million monthly visitors”, (5) data that would prove helpful for translators to monitor their progress. For example, this data shows that Japanese shows are primarily consumed in the endangered Lithuanian and Korean dramas in Arabic and Hebrew. According to Razmig Hovaghimian, the CEO of Viki, “Not only the content travels, but the language, the nuance, the culture is suddenly crossing borders” (5). While employing Shklyaev’s solution and use of Viki might prove difficult with India’s unwritten languages due to impediments in subtitling, India can certainly employ this solution for its scripted languages. Furthermore, during the coronavirus lockdown in India, many gravitated towards Korean Dramas, to the extent that Crash Landing On You has now beat numerous domestic productions and “made it to Netflix’s top 10 in India” (6). However, there continues to be a language barrier, with many viewers relying on English subtitles. A study by YouGov assets that as a result of the onset of globalization and the growing digital content market in India (one that has been made available even in the remotest of areas through the Jio Network), “55%” of Indians “watch foreign-language content,” and there is a growing “interest in seeking [this] content in one’s native language.” Indian linguists can take advantage of this untapped market by translating Viki’s foreign content into endangered Indian languages. Although these languages might be unfamiliar to many Indians, linguist David Harrison claims that “seeing it on TV or on the Internet [would] help them see that it’s not backwards or obsolete, it’s suited for the modern world” (7). This would restore their pride in the language, a primary factor that drives languages to extinction in the first place. Translation of foreign content appears to be a sustainable and extremely applicable solution in the Indian context; however, we must delve further into local circumstances to ensure its feasibility and practicality.

India can take advantage of Shklyaev’s solution and the use of Viki to increase the accessibility of Indian endangered languages and promote global consciousness; however, large-scale implementation in India might be a challenge due to the lack of government funding and recognition of these languages. This is because the Government of India only recognizes 122 languages, a staggering 15% of the nation’s linguistic wealth, which leads to a lack of funding towards the preservation of the remaining 658. Indian laws and their practical implementation play a vital role in the preservation of India’s linguistic heritage. Although India’s constitution, specifically Article 29(1) “confers rights to protect one’s own language,” and Article 30 “confers rights to minorities to establish and administer educational institutions,” they fail to include linguistic minorities due to the non-recognition of languages with less than 10,000 speakers, and the exclusion of oral languages (1). Violation of linguistic rights in India has also been associated with the Hindutva movement, proponents of which are aggressively promoting Hindi as a single national language to reinforce sovereignty and national unity, leading to the decline of local languages, especially those spoken by the Muslim population. This is significant because the violation of the rights of national, ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities is a wide-scale global problem, one that undermines human rights and sustainable development and leads to insecurity and conflict.

The revival of New Zealand’s Mouri is a modeling example that proves languages can be regenerated through a bottom-up approach: empowerment via education. Many predicted that Maori would cease to exist, with only 3.7% of New Zealanders speaking it fluently in 2013; however, the government projects a boost in this percentage to 20% by 2040 and plans to implement “Maori language lessons in all schools by 2025” (8). The Maori language, once shunned, is having an unprecedented renaissance in the last 40 years. What is behind the revival of Maori? Confronted with a lack of government effort, the newly urbanized Mouri community sprang into action themselves, establishing several grass-roots movements such as the 1982 Kōhanga Reo (Language Nests) movement, which immersed infants in the Maori language and culture before their enrolment in regular schools at age five. These Language Nests are autonomously run by “a collective group of teachers, parents, local elders, and members of the Māori community,” (9) and was an effort that was “by and large, successful” (10) and “grew so rapidly that by 1992 its centers numbered 719” (11). This bottom-up approach was successful because it allowed the Mouri community to address “their own needs, their own language problems and their own requirements for language management” (12). The success of this project was then met with funding and support from the Department of Education and government recognition in the form of the Maori Language Act 1987, which granted Mouri official status, giving speakers the right to use it in courts. Given the lack of government support and funding in India as well, Indian minority groups need to adopt the Mouri mentality and strive for self-action using the concept of language nests as a primary solution, as if successful, New Zealand proves that such efforts can be met by government support in the future.

Furthermore, New Zealand’s solution is particularly applicable in India, as both countries have suffered language endangerment due to assimilation policies implemented under colonial rule and the imposition of English. In The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paul Friere stresses the importance of “empowerment via education” for marginalized groups and claims that it “can only happen from the bottom-up” (13). Micro-level efforts such as the Language Nests were able to change the youth’s perceptions and attitudes and transmit the language to younger generations, elevating the status of marginalized languages, and were hence “even more influential than the institutionalized and government-conducted activities.” (14) A popular teacher of Maori, Sylvia Ashton-Warner, attributes the success of Language Nests to the importance it gives to the voices of indigenous children. She argues that a child’s first words should be in Maouri because the first words have “intense meaning for a child,” as they become “part of his being” (15). Similarly, by immersing Indian children into minority languages when they begin to speak, these languages become a part of their identity, one that they are proud of, and one that they are free to express, breaking the cycle of previous generations, who were once chastised for speaking them.

Assuming that language nests are successfully implemented in India: How do we decide which of the hundreds of endangered languages children will be taught? In striking contrast to the seven endangered languages of New Zealand, India has 197, once again raising a question of feasibility. Perhaps a more viable solution would be to establish Language Nests in different languages, focusing on one endangered language for each Indian state. Infants can then be immersed in learning an endangered language of their region, one that they would better connect to due to similarities in the lexicon and grammar structure as well as cultural and religious aspects. But wait! — What happens to the language after children turn five and enroll in regular schools? According to the Irish writer, Muiris Ó Laoire, “the restoration and successful survival of a threatened language essentially require reinstating and relocating the language firmly in the home domain in parent-child transmission” (16). Similar to proto-lexicon, the process where infants learn words before they understand their meanings, many New Zealanders are incidentally exposed to many Mouri words in their daily lives due to its reasonably widespread use as well as embedment in culture. Contrastingly, the plethora of commonly used Indian languages does not allow for words and phrases from endangered languages to be latently acquired by non-speakers. Therefore, infants might learn an endangered language and form a connection to it, but the likelihood that they will continue to use it and help the language survive is relatively low.

Luckily, we have numerous global solutions proven to be effective in their own domains. Once children have been immersed in an endangered language program, they should be actively exposed to the language through Manzar’s solution of talking dictionaries, which document words and sentences in audio-visual formats. Intergenerational transmission might not be possible, but we can avail of external solutions. Once they are older, they can delve into the world of Viki, consuming foreign content translated in the endangered language that they were taught, as this would allow them to keep in touch with the language in a fun and engaging manner. In fact, this will instead help the endangered language delve outside of informal language domains such as the family and contest the broader linguistic hierarchies of prestige, finding a place for itself despite the dominance of English. Of course, a lack of legal rights, recognition, and government funding will continue to impede India’s battle against language extinction. Future policies must recognize oral languages and those with less than 10,000 speakers, as only then can these speakers establish Language Nests and other grass-root programs to transmit their languages amongst younger generations.

Bibliography

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(2) Manzar, Osama. “How Digital Tools Can Help in the Preservation of Our Languages.” Mint, Apr 26. 2018.

(3) Romaine, Suzanne. Preserving Endangered Languages. 2007. Merton College, University of Oxford.

(4) Lord, Nancy. 1996. Native tongues. Sierra Magazine 81.46–69.

(5) Eveleth, Rose. “Saving Languages Through Korean Soap Operas.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, Sept 29, 2014.

(6 )“From Translation to Dubbing, Survey Reveals Majority of Indians Watch Foreign and Regional Content with Subtitles — ETBrandEquity.” ETBrandEquity.com, Jul 5, 2019.

(7) Deutsche Welle. “Korean TV Dramas Find a Huge Audience in India: DW: 09.03.2021. DW.COM.

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(9) King, Jeanette. 2001. Te kōhanga Reo: Māori language revitalization. In The green book of language revitalization in practice, ed. Leanne Hinton and Ken Hale, 123. New York: Academic Press.

(10)Butterworth & Young, 1990; Paulston & McLaughlin, 1993–94)

(11) (Statistics, New Zealand, 1994, pg 24).

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(13) Anaru, Norman Albert. A Critical Analysis of Indigenous Maori Language Revitalization and the development of Ontological DataBase. 2017. Auckland University of Technology. Ph.D. Dissertation.

(14) Spolsky, B. (2009). Rescuing Maori: The last 40 years. Annual Public Lecture delivered at the University of London on Feb 26, 2009 (SOAS: The Endangered Language Academic Program)

(15) Ashton-Warner, S. (1963). Teacher. New York: Simon and Schuster.

(16) McCarty, T. (2008). Schools as strategic tools for indigenous language revitalization: Lessons from Native America. In N. Hornberger (Ed.), Can schools save indigenous languages? (pp. 161). Palgrave Macmillan.