Promoting and Preventing the Tamil Language From Extinction
The Chennai Corporation has started enforcing the rule that shops in the city should display name boards in Tamil. According to the corporation the names and details in Tamil should occupy at least 50% of the total space. Such laws have been in the books in Chennai and most other parts of Tamil Nadu for decades but very few business owners comply (about 50% of businesses in Chennai are in violation of this law). The corporation has informed the owners that the city would remove their signs if they are not compliant by June 1st.
Tamil is a classical language and it is very likely the oldest language spoken in India (there are some “languages” spoken by remote communities in India which are less advanced but probably are as old as any language spoken by mankind). Tamil is the language that gave birth to Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Although a Malayalee I can speak, write and read Tamil fairly well. Learning Tamil opened a whole new world to me.
Every culture wants to protect its language and traditions. Tamil Nadu is no exception. Like their rivals, the Hindi speaking people of North India, Tamilians are also very passionate about their language. But I am wondering whether rules like making shop signs mandatory in Tamil is going to make any difference to what will happen to Tamil in the future. It is an unfortunate reality that a vast majority of languages in the world just like plants and animals are already extinct. Most of these extinct languages cannot be recreated because they became extinct before writing and grammar evolved.
Tamil is well documented and still spoken by millions of people not just in India but in countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius and Sri Lanka. But does this mean that Tamil will be able to avoid the almost inevitable extinction that almost all languages face? It is estimated that 96% of the world’s languages will be dead by 2100. This means that about 5500 languages that are currently live languages will no longer be spoken in about 90 years!!
If we think that languages like Tamil can escape this extinction event think again. There are still Tamil speakers and speakers of languages very closely related to Tamil in parts of North India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. How did this Dravidian language speakers end up in North India and in places as far as Afghanistan? Did the Dravidian speakers migrate from South India to Northwest India?
Actually what has happened to the Dravidian languages is a good example of how languages become extinct over a period of time. The Indo European language speakers slowly incorporated the Dravidians into their society as they kept migrating from parts of Central Asia into North India. What remains are small pockets which were never fully integrated into the Indo European language group.
One of the ways in which languages die these days is government policy. India linguistically is a very diverse country. But the government of India promotes Hindi although Hindi and its dialects are only spoken by 41% of India’s population. This policy reached its peak in the 80’s when most of India could only watch television programs in Hindi. India is not alone. China promotes Mandarin over other dialects and languages.
Another key reason for the fall of a language is that other languages are associated with progress, modernity, and better opportunities. Slowly speakers of the “backward” language will start learning the language of better opportunities and the “backward” language over a period of time will become extinct.
This is happening to many languages in India including Tamil and Hindi. The beneficiary is English. Many Indians want to learn English. Middle class Indians send their kids to English medium schools. They watch television programs in English and read the news in English. As a result most Indian kids today are bilingual (mother tongue and English). This is unfortunately the first step in the extinction process of the mother tongue.
I do not see English as a “foreign” language as some Indians do. English has a long history in India and English itself is an Indo European language (so in a sense we are picking one Indo European language over the other). The only way to make sure that languages like Tamil continue as viable languages is to make sure that kids learn that language. Once kids stop learning a language then the writing on the wall for that language is clear.
So instead of wasting time and other resources on policies that force business owners to put up signs in Tamil, the Tamil Nadu government should enact a clear cut education policy that puts an emphasis on teaching Tamil. A good economic policy that focuses on job growth is also important. The reason why I was able to learn Tamil was because my father found a job in Tamil Nadu. That is the key to success.
Related posts:
- Tamil is Part of Indian Heritage
- History of India: The First Indians
- New Brahmins of Tamil Nadu
- Manipulating Census Data: From British Raj to Hindi Raj
- Should Hindi Be Taught In All Indian Schools?
Category: Culture & Religion