Monday, April 16, 2007

English kaleidoscope.

Language lobbyists fight back English language hegemony.
Recently in France some language lobbyists and traders have made a forum, and they are asking the government to ban English in France.
Is this the right way we should go about it?
Was this the last resort? Did we try other possible measures?
Sometimes it makes me think it’s possible, even easy,
May be it is! SRC, 2nd SRC, may be 3rd, and lot many nascent reorganizations round the corner.
But do we have any other option left?
Language is more liquid than we human are, but the catch is, you should know how to give it a shape. You cannot beat it; you cannot force it on anybody just like that. Say, if today some government cede to the pressure of language lobbyists, to an unwarranted plea of growth of their own regional language, to bar English, there is every possibility that after 5- 10 years you will find that region lagging behind in human race of development. This is what many states in India have realized. This is a bare truth. If you want to grow! Get out of the pigeonholes and learn to fly.
The best way to hedge against English language seemingly invincible hegemony would be to put a check on the Anglicization of words (sounds) from individual regions, than running away from reality by declaring a war against the English language dominance. Such an attempt would not be more than a lost cause.
The best approach would be of being an existentialist and start experimenting, discover new things that could help human kind, and then insist the dissemination in your own language or make your area the fulcrum of international trade. That’s the only possible way. No fuss, simple, most effective, but it also calls for determination.
Language is a help, to give form to what we want to say, what we want to talk about. Today, we want to talk about knowledge, technology, something new to talk about. Who would like to sing the same old song (same lyrics, same rhythm) over and over again?
Everybody wants to know something new, something we never heard before, never experienced, nobody want to be a lone wolf, mind you, lone wolves rarely talk.
Knowledge is what is appreciated, we want appreciation (definition varies); it is very human to expect appreciation. Almost everybody does.
So, nurture your need for appreciation. Stop being a dead beat, invent something good, we’ll talk about it, and there is every possibility we might learn your language by the course of time. That means, don’t just invent one thing, do as much as you can, we’ll appreciate the efforts, and seriously try to follow you, your work, and your language.
Why do we have to find the closest escape, swarming and crying wolf wolf?
If you cannot avoid being mushy-mushy, first kill the wolf with strong indigenous knowledge base, and justify crying.
Change the focus to what is more important for human kind: development of human kind, nothing else. Quest for knowledge will always take precedence. Make your language is a language of knowledge, so that everyone can follow it. Do it for the sake of the overall development, not just language.
Growth of our language is in our hands. Growth of a language is an obverse to the growth of knowledge. You can never move up the rung nor would the language ever have a foothold, if you choose to sing the same old song. Make sure that your language shows a wider picture, a promising one rather. Dearth of words of modern application creates gap. Fill the gap, make your own language kaleidoscope and show the world some real good pictures, and make them an addict.
Get your say edgewise, show that you are real good, and grow with that. Developing economies have a better chance to do that. Try to do something real good, invent something, if we want your language to grow and spoken worldwide.
Like the way we experienced, French monopoly, German monopoly (physics, chemistry), Greece (mathematics), et. al. That suggests either we take control by physical force or by intellectual force. Application of physical force; don’t even think about it. You try to drop one nuke; you will see 3-4 coming before you could actually hit the button. So, we are left only with the Hobson’s choice of doing it with the Intellectual Force. Use it and see the change.