Language wars

Image via Wikipedia

One of my favorite lines from the movie Pulp Fiction:

Vincent: All right. Well, you can walk into a movie theater in Amsterdam and buy a beer. And I don’t mean just like in no paper cup, I’m talking about a glass of beer. And in Paris, you can buy a beer at McDonald’s. And you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?

Jules: They don’t call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?

Vincent: Nah, man, they got the metric system, they wouldn’t know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.

Jules: What do they call it?

Vincent: They call it a “Royale with Cheese“.

Jules: “Royale with Cheese”.

Vincent: That’s right.

The French get all rosy cheeked and defensive when it comes to their language. The “French Way” is a, well, national treasure that needs to be protected from the invasion of the English speaking hordes. In fact, most Europeans are very sensitive about the language issue. English might very well be the language of commerce, but the language of art is French/Italian/etc…

When you come to think of it, India is a bit like the Europe when it comes to language sensitivity. We are a country of languages: over 1600 according to the 1961 census. And we have fought between ourselves and destroyed property because of it. Regional chauvinism has also spread into the realm of public education with states insisting that primary education up to the 10th grade be taught in the “local” tongue instead of English.

Every policy has winners and losers.

The Winners are:

• the politicians – divide and conquer always works
• regional text-book publishers and authors – who benefit from the absence of centralized procurement
• english teaching schools
• local language newspapers

The Losers:

• students – there are no regional language equivalents to most technical jargon (how do you say “solar water heater” in kannada again?)
• students – most find it very tough to transition from a local-language high-school teaching medium to college where science is taught in english
• labour – reduced mobility due to the language barrier prevents movement of labour toward high-paying regions
• allocation of resources – instead of creating new ideas, talent is wasted on translating existing ones

We all talk about the importance of the knowledge economy, how ideas are important and education dictates future earning potential. How do we progress if we keep erecting barriers to communication at a very basic level: language?

How does a resource starved country like ours justify the huge costs involved in sponsoring the local language?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Karnataka’s Shocking Learning Numbers (klp.org.in)
• English vs the Mother Tongue (prathambooks.org)

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