Folk Languages in the Perspective of

Sociolinguistics

Udaya Narayana Singh

Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, India

Heritage, Language, Technology

5-DAY Workshop, Nov 11-15, 2003ASIATIC SOCIETY, KOLKATA

•Languages are disappearing at an alarming pace, so much so that in Pagel’s prediction only 10% of the current 6,000-7,000 world’s heritage languages will survive by 2050 A.D.

•When a language is lost because all speakers die, it is understandable. But wiping off of an entire community is painful.

THE

LEGEND

Disappearance, Death, Danger• Who mourns language loss in a folk language society?• Aboriginal elders who speak their languages do.• Also, the younger people mourn their loss.• Most indigenous people point to the connection of Aboriginal

languages with culture.• They talk about their roots and identity. • A Red Indian Secwepemc elder Nellie Taylor once noted that

"without your language you're nothing, you are like a white person, lost and without a home.“ How very true even in South Asian context?

... Even this vastly reduced reservoir of linguistic diversity … constitutes one of the great treasures of humanity, an enormous store-house of expressive power and profound understandings of the universe. The loss of the hundreds of languages that have already passed into history is an intellectual catastrophe in every way comparable in magnitude to the ecological catastrophe we face today as the earth's tropical forests are swept by fire. Each language still spoken is fundamental to the personal, social and - a key term in the discourse of indigenous peoples - spiritual identity of its speakers. They know that without these languages they would be less than they are, and they are engaged in the most urgent struggles to protect their linguistic heritage.

(Zepeda and Hill, 1991) 

Zepeda, O. and J.H. Hill, 1991. The Condition of Native American Languages in the United States. In R.H. Robins and E.M. Uhlenbeck, Robins (editors). Endangered Languages. Oxford: Berg Publishers

   

 

Moving away from South Asia,

let’s take up a concrete case of Canada

•Over 60 languages were originally spoken in Canada, according to Kinkade (1991:158);•At least 8 were extinct by 1990 (approx. 13%); •13 languages (21%) are judged 'near-extinct'

More about Canadian situation

23 languages in Canada are 'endangered' (38%) now, because they have few speakers under 50 years old and almost no children are learning them.

• Most of the remaining languages in Canada are seen as viable but having small populations - a risk in itself.

• Only 4 languages may survive in the long run.

• In a more recent study by Norris (1998) study using 1996 Census data, the estimate of Indigenous languages likely to survive in Canada is down to 3.

We can plot the decline in the percentage of speakers of Indigenous languages among the Indigenous populations of Canada in the following manner:

Table 1: Percentage of Indigenous population that speaks an Indigenous language, Canada

  1951 1961 1971 1981 1986 1991 1996

Canada 87.4 75.7 57.1 29.3 ? 32.7 26

Source: Burnaby and Beaujot 1986:36.

Plotting the Decline in Canada

Indigenous language speakers as percentage of Indigenous population, Canada

The North American Scenario• For North America as a

whole, any prediction is difficult;

• North America had had a turbulent early history of colonisation and massive mortality due to disease;

• Bright (1994) and Mithun (1999:1) put the number of Indigenous languages originally spoken at around 300.

• Chafe (1962) counted 211 languages as still living in the USA and Canada in 1960;

• Out of these only 89 (42%) had speakers of all ages;

• Therefore, 58% folk languages are 'endangered' or 'near-extinct'.

QUITE GRIM

Predictions

• Thirty years later Zepeda and Hill (1991:136) estimate that 51 (approx. 24%) of the 211 languages supposed to have been alive in 1960 have disappeared.

• Campbell (1997:16) predicts that 80% of the North American languages spoken at the turn of this century 'will die in this generation'.

• The prediction is for 20-30 Indigenous languages will survive in North America by 2040.

Krauss (1996) uses a four-fold classification based on which age groups speaking the language, could be placed in respect of the United States in this way:

• Category A, still being learned by children, 20 languages, 12%

• Category B, still spoken by the parental generation, 20 languages, 12%

• Category C, spoken by grandparents and up only, 70 languages, 40%

• Category D, spoken by only a few very oldest, 55 languages, 36%

Indigenous people now left in Eastern USA

Australia: Equally Disturbing Statistics

1. Out of about 300 in 1800, there has been a decrease of 90% in the number of such speakers of all age groups who can speak fluently.

2. Decline rate in Indigenous people speaking their own languages from 100% in 1800 to 13% in 1996.

• If these trends continue unchecked, by 2050 there will no longer be any Indigenous languages spoken in Australia.

In absolute terms, there may be actually only 55,000 speakers of Indigenous languages there.

Of the 20 languages categorised in 1990 as 'strong', 3 should already be regarded as 'endangered'.

ABS 1994 Survey of Aboriginal: Relative proportions of those who can speak an Indigenous language and those who speak an Indigenous language as the main language at home.

Proportion of Indigenous People speaking an Indigenous Language or

Creole, 1996

Spread of Speakers of Indigenous Languages by Absolute Numbers

Matter of RightsThe Preamble to the United Nations Charter says

"We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, and for these ends, to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another …"

• In December, 2002, at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland at the Eighth Session of the Working Group on the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (WGDD), the tussle between large nation states like US, Canada & Australia and the indigenous peoplebecame evident.

• The Draft includes a preamble as well as 45 Articles; e.g. Every indigenous individual has the right to a nationality.

• The Draft was adopted in 1994 by the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the UN Commission on Human Rights. It was then channeled to the WGDD where it has been kept in limbo by the larger States. The Draft is to be finalized by 2004.

Article 43 states: "All the rights and freedoms recognized herein are equally guaranteed to male and female indigenous individuals”

Disturbing debates

Charmaine White Face, a freelance writer, in www.dlncoalition.org

Let’s try to understand the Spread of the problem in India• The Scheduled Tribes account for 67.76 millions

representing 8.08% of our population – living mainly in the forest and hilly regions (1991 Census);

• More than 70% are in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Gujarat.

• We not only need special provisions for their protection from social injustices and all forms of exploitation, we also need concrete plans for development with safeguards including promotion of educational and economic interests;

• I think a concrete Language Development Plan is a need of the hour.

What could we do in India?• There is a general feeling among many that we

do not have a mechanism in place to protect and promote minor and minority languages.

• The trouble is that they often point to small countries like Nepal where both in Constitutional provisions and in Universal Education documents these issues are specifically mentioned.

• In case of India, the sheer size of the country and complexity of the administrative set up are such that it cannot be compared with other nation-states in this respect.

Responsibilities: Shared and Scattered• 5th & 6th Schedule of the

Constitution & Article 224: Under Home Ministry;

• Special representation for the STs in the Lok Sabha and Assemblies till 2010 (Arts, 330, 332 and 334);

• Under Articles 164 and 338, separate State-level and National Commission at the Centre with Dr. Bizay Sonkar Sastry in the Chair), Ven Lama Chosphel Zotpa (Vice-Chair): Under the Ministry of Tribal Welfare, 1999-.

• Commission for Linguistic Minorities (Allahabad) under the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment;

• Grant-in-Aid scheme under Article 275(1) was also created;

• Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989;

• Planning Commission’s landmark step: 43 Special Multi-purpose Tribal Blocks (SMPTBs) during 2nd Plan, later called Tribal Development Blocks (TDBs);

• Under 4th Plan, six major projects in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, and a separate Tribal Development Agency was established.

• The Fifth Five Year Plan marked a shift in the approach when the Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) for direct benefit of the STs was launched;

• In 1987, the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation (TRIFED) was set up for marketing help & remunerative prices to tribals;

• The GIA scheme covers 376 NGOs working in this area, each getting about 90% grant.

BUT ARE ALL THESE ENOUGH?

A lot more needs to be done with concerted focus, esp. in prevention of land alienation from tribal to no-tribal, review of National Forest Policy and Forest (Conservation) Act 1980, etc

Possible areas we could move in

Cultural documentation

Dictionaries (general purpose)

Thesauri

Specialized/Technical Glossary

Literacy books

Primers

Style Manuals

Initial Literary Attempts

EACH OF THESE RELATES TO TECHNOLOGY TODAY.

LINGUISTIC PLURALITY

Truly plural world– 1,576 rationalized mother-tongues;– 1,796 other mother-tongues;– 114 languages with 10,000+speakers;– According to Ethnologue, the figure is 401.– Tremendous variation: Hindi with 33.72 crores to

Maram with 10,144;– Large non-scheduled languages - Bhili 55.7 &

Santali with 52.2 lakh speakers;– 146 speech varieties used in radio– 69 languages in schools– 35 languages newspapers and periodicals.

Multilingualism: a burden or an asset?

• India has always had a large number of languages.

• There have also been many language families.

• Language distances are great in both structure and function, i.e. in both grammar and use.

• There is a necessity to bind us together.

• Each one of our national languages acts as binding forces.

There was No Breakdown in Communicationever in India

• During the several centuries, our writers were in the process of constructing India as a nation.

• But this construction was possible not because of any one language.

• Just as Sanskrit bound us together –because people from all corners contributed to enrich knowledge bases using Sanskrit as a medium, Prakrit gave us the much needed freedom to speak in people’s languages.

• Just as Sanskrit was important, so was Tamil literary tradition.

• There was freedom and joy all There was freedom and joy all around in the matter of around in the matter of languages & communi-cation languages & communi-cation options.options.

POOR LITERACY IN LARGE AREASMainly Problems

of TEACHING -• MODE: NON-

INTERACTIVE• MATERIALS:

CONVENTIONAL• METHOD:

UNINTERESTINGSOLUTION?USE LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY

PROMOTE ALL VARIETIES OF OUR LANGUAGES

• Each speech area has a rich variation, esp Hindi heartland.

• There is often a tendency to brush all varieties as if they do not exist.

• We do more harm to our major languages this way than help its cause.

• Encourage folklore, writing, plays and performances and cultural traits in each sub-community.

• Remember that English has grown as a world language not by strictly monopolized its style and standards but by liberalizing its use.

• Even while talking about ancient Indian literature – which many of us confuse with only history of Sanskrit literature we find scholars like Winternitz commenting thus: “The history of Indian literature…not only stretches across great periods of time and an enormous area, but is also one which is composed in many languages”.

Wide variation

• Although South Asian nations offer remarkable similarities in many respects that have to do with plurality of languages and cultures, they vary in a number of other ways.

• Take for instance, in density of population (and consequently, in Physical Quality of Life, I.e. PQLI ratings), in overall GNP, Per Capita Income, or in size.

• Since maps often do not tell us the complete story, let’s briefly compare them in terms of other features.

However, their standard of living differs, because of population density

Economic might depends on overall country-wide income. They differ on that count, too.

However, the common man in South Asia face more or less the same predicament

http://www.ifpri.org/themes/sai.htm

Patterns of Language Death• Finally, I would like you to look at the patterns

of language death, survival and revival in the South Asian context from a socio-linguistic angle.

• Interestingly, Sociolinguists show that the pattern of appearance & disappearance is related to the game of language names or ‘labels’ used.

• Language labels become important as there are different claimants of ‘language’ status among dialects, speech varieties and pidgins.

• With disappearance of languages, other sociolinguistic items like registers, speech communities, texts and traditions – may also disappear thru’ a set of complex processes.

Language Loss in developing nations

• In some nations, former languages of power have lost to others, and hence are facing some kind of endangerment;

• Manchu in China, Coptic in Egypt, Gaelic and Latin in the British Isles, Quechua in Peru, Arabic in Spain, German in Eastern Europe, & Urdu in India.

•Theodore Wright compares a number of cases across the globe and shows that contradictory forces are at work.

Cases where Colonial Languages won over

They all lost the link with power as dynastic states or colonial powers were overthrown.

But there are other cases where, even after political changes, former languages of power became even more successful.

For example, Spanish and Portuguese in Latin America, Afrikaans in South Africa, or French in Canada, or English in many countries.

The Politics of Language labels

• The predicament of the planner is that every decade, many new language labels come up.

• Angika, Bajjika, or Galong are labels which went out of use recently.

• On the other hand, we have no dearth of new labels - Rajbanshi, Kokborok or Gorkhali.

• They are also new voices of stridency.

• There are also instances like language revival, as it happened with Nepali.

• Or, campaign for rightful place for what was once a marginalized speech – like Konkani.

• There are also cases of survival of a transplanted language community, such as Saurashtri Tamil.

• Many generations of settlers in Andaman & Nicobar also retained their languages.

Stories of Language Retention 1. South Asia is still unique in that languages are

ratherretained here than be allowed to die.  2. Just as languages go out of use, or try to re-group

and emerge as separate entities in their own right, there are also instances like the language revival, e.g. Gorkhali or Nepali.

3. This often happens after its neighbouring communities write them off as marginalised speech.

4. There are also instances of survival of a transplanted language community, such as Saurashtri Tamil, among the settlers from Gujarat in Tamil Nadu who retained their original linguistic patterns for 200 years.

5. Take the case of many generations of settlers in Andaman & Nicobar from the mainlands who have also retained their languages.

The Feature of Split & Merger• There are thus two opposite

patterns of convergence and divergence working in the field of languages here.

• Languages split and new speech forms emerge finally giving rise to new languages.

• Mergers of language structures is often known as linguistic ‘convergences’.

• Thru’ it, dissimilar & structurally divergent languages become more like one another.

• When it happens on social plane, unified varieties emerge – like Sadari in Jharkhand.

Asian Variation & Human Genetics

• Speech variation in South Asia is closely related to genetic variation. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, a geneticist from Stanford correlated archaeological evidence as well as DNA markers, including mtDNA and Y chromosome. She and her colleagues suggest the following:

• There are four major clusters in Asia: Southeast Asians, East Asians (including Mongols and Siberian Uralic speakers), Northeast Asians (showing the greatest similarity to American Natives, their genetic neighbors), and a heterogeneous group of extra-European Caucasoids.

• South Asians to Iranians, Arabs, and other Middle Eastern groups fall in this last group.

Ref: http://popgen.well.ox.ac.uk/eurasia/htdocs/cavalli.html

• The expansions of Indo-Europeans (Tocharians?) may have started around 3800 years ago.

• Perhaps 1000 years (or earlier), Indo-European speakers from the oases south of the Urals, north of the Black Sea and in western Kazakstan moved west-ward & east-ward.

• They moved to the south, mixing with (presumably) Dravidian speakers of the region including Iran, India and Pakistan.

THE SOUTH ASIAN STOCK: PATTERNS OF EXPANSION FROM THE WEST TO THE ORIENT

Defining South Asia as an entity

• Consider the genetic gradation of Asian people, and north-south division will become important.

Ref: History and Geography of Human Genes by Menozzi, Piazza and Cavalli-Sforza, Chapter 4

Socio- linguistically, South Asia is still strung together?

•Father was posted in the ‘true’ Telugu districts; it was but natural that we siblings spoke purest Telugu. Grandma, being a true Tamilian, made sure we also spoke Tamil, and tutors gave us the basics of English. Mother, being a very wise lady, engaged a Hindi tutor. To complicate matters, father went to Calicut and Mangalore, making us reasonably proficient in Kannada and Malayalam. This multi-lingual upbringing can be a boon and a curse.

•Speech variation is the order, and cultural habits, rituals, and belief-systems show an equal extent of plurality.

•In a Times of India’s web-portal, Sandy Sundaram (April 16, 2003) in her ‘Speaking Free’, recollected the peculiar predicament of many multilingual Indians like herself :

VARIATION IS NOT A NEW PHENOMENON

• Speech Variation in early surveys makes the picture of changing space of Indian languages clearer.

• The older demographic records like census returns of Bombay (1864), Madras Presidency (1871) and Bengal (1872) or Grierson’s LSI (1886-27) tell the same story.

• 179 languages and 544 dialects at the turn of 20th century.

• After Independence: 1961 and 1971 figures show193 classified languages out of a total of 1,652 mother tongue labels.

• 1961 and 1971 census figures of raw labels numbered 3,000.

• This jumped in 1981 to around 7,000

• It finally touched an all-time high of 10,000 in 1991.

• Rationalization thus became a big challenge.

Heads B’desh Bhutan India Maldive Nepal Pakistan Srilanka Since 1971 1907/

1949 1947 1968 1816/

1951 1947 1948

Capital Dhaka Thimpu N.Delhi Male Kathmandu Islamabad Colombo Area (skm)

144,000 47,000 3287,590 300 136,800 803,940 65,610

Water skm

131.26m 0 314,400 0 4,000 25,220 870

People 131.26m 2.049 m 1029.9 0. 31m 25.28 m 144.62m 19.41m Religion M-83%

H-16% Oth-1%

B lama-75%

H-25%

H 81% M12% Ch2%

Sikh2% Oth3%

M (Sunni) H 86% B 8% M 4% O 2%

M 97% Rest –

Christians Hindu

Sikh,etc

B 70% H 15% Ch 8% M 7%

Main Lang- uages

Bangla 98%

Dzonkha, Bhote,

Tibetan, Nepali

Hindi & 17 maj

lgs + Engl & 96 lgs

Dhivehi, Engl,

Sinhala, Arab

Nepali, 12 other

lgs, 30 dialects, English

Punj 48% Sind 12%

Siraiki 10%

Pashtu8% Urdu 8%

Sinh 74% Tam 18% Moor

7%

Purch power

$203 b $2.3 b $2.2 trill $594 m $33.7 b $282 b $62.7b

GDP-per capita

$1570 $1,100 $2,200 $2,000 $1,360 $2,000 $3,250

Gr rate 5.3% 6% 6% 7.6% 3.7% 4.8% 5.6%

SOUTH ASIA : A COMPARATIVE CHART

Standardization as a goal for Folk Languages

• Vernaculars require to get “a uniform and consistent norm of writing that is widely accepted by its speakers” (Haugen 1994: 4340) for them to achieve standardization.

• They must also be “legitimized” as State languages (Williams 1992:24).

• They must provide planners with “motivation for literacy” as well as “computerization” (Le Page 1992: 120-38). That provides the connection with language technology.

• Such languages also need to be “intellectualized” (Garvin 1955).

• A combination of all these or some of these will provide occasion for others to admit these languages in the ‘privileged club’, as it were.

Model of Secondary Standardization for Folk Languages

• All developing countries have to resolve the problem of finding the appropriate model of folk language development.

• In Meta, 1994, I had proposed a dichotomy of Primary vs. Secondary Standardization applicable to developing countries.

» The point made there was that » although primarily standardized» languages usually had no model

before» them to imbibe, languages of  today» have  a number of models of primary» development before them.

• These latter languages are described as having adopted a ‘Secondary Standardization’ strategy.

• Obviously, when languages develop naturally, they take longer time to develop because of lack of planned interventions.

• Depending on degree of intervention by the planners, the secondarily standardized languages show a kind of cline or gradation.

Types of Multilingual Societies & Indigenous Language Communities

• I would argue that the typology of multilingual contexts be viewed as a cline.

• At one extreme lies Type A-societies where 'language' is almost anthromorphized.

• In some, language is a revered entity and is regarded almost like an object of worship.

• Here, language becomes a matter of passion – for which the community is ready to make bigger sacrifices.

• The history of nation-building is often written after such sacrifices. Bangladesh is an ideal example of this type.

• However, since Bangla is spoken by 98% people there, the fate of 44 other folk languages are not known, nor documented. BRAC efforts are only begun now.

The Other Extreme• At the other extreme lie Type-Z

communities that view 'language' as a tool.

• Some of them view it as a skill to perform some action the nature of which depend on exigencies such as (i) doing business,(ii) establishment of links,(iii) use of it as a medium of mass communication,(iv) for spending leisure-time, or(v) to use it as a utility like a library language, or language of religion, etc.

• No doubt - this is also an equally common and capable way of handling societal multilingualism.

• Such communities often use different 'tools' (or languages) for different purposes,

• They are often (but not necessarily so) unable to be charged enough to use language as an instrument of nation-building.

• Singapore with its four national language communities offer a picture that comes closer to this kind of postulation.

• Here we find a number of interesting strategies being used, including cultivation of new country-internal norms like Singlish, for instance.

More about the Cline: A Little about the Development

Model• Surely, one could point out a number of situations from multilingual

communities around the world to push the point further and plot them on a cline to show that this typology does not offer all-or-none mutually exclusive baskets as was often assumed in earlier typologies.

• I would suggest that many of these possible types show an overlap of features from neighboring types.

• Thus, they together present a cascade that poses an interesting challenge for language planning agencies.

• I would like to argue that language planning models have to eclectic and pluralistic to accommodate these differences. To the extent this is needed, it draws from the pluralistic paradigm as presented in Singh (1992 Language Development and Planning: A Pluralistic Para digm. Shimla: IIAS).