Disappearing Languages

Humans have spent several millennia to acquire the ability to speak. The community has a non-negotiable right to its language. In spite of this, the information related to language data is kept away from the public. The language data of the 2011 has not been provided to the citizens.

From 1971 onwards, the Census has decided, to disclose names only of those languages which had more than 10,000 speakers. As a result, only 108 languages were disclosed, as against the 1,652 a decade ago.

Not knowing language data might have ill effects on the life of the citizens, if one belongs to the communities that are linguistically minority communities. When a community realises that its language has no future, it prepares for a language migration, leading to the demise of that language. The People’s Linguistic Survey of India shows that between 1961 and 2011, more than 250 Indian languages disappeared.

If out of the 800-odd languages which exist, 600 or 700 disappeared, it would mean heavy losses for the society:

• Out cities are already burdened of excess population and lack of a proportionate infrastructure. This could be resolved with linking livelihood opportunity with the language of the region.
• Imparting education to children through their native language is scientifically considered to aid full development of their faculties.

Trashing the languages of the minorities would be the violation of the UNESCO charter and deny citizens their linguistic citizenship.

When a state tries to suppress a culture, some unexpected events upset the equilibrium like the one for Gorkhaland in West Bengal.