Aug 06 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)
Like it or not, you just can't do without English
Subodh.Varma@timesgroup.com
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The CSAT imbroglio has willy-nilly stirred up divisive language passions, and political brinkmanship.Some argue for more importance to Indian languages, others for embracing English, seeing it as a global lingua franca.
India isn’t unique in having many languages. Indonesia has 706 compared to India’s 406. China has 298, Russia has 105. Tiny Cameroon has 280.
What makes India unique is the number of people speaking different languages within the country. In most other countries, one language dominates. In China, nearly 93% of its 1.3 billion speak Chinese, in one of its variants. Same is the case with German, French, or Japanese — they’re spoken by a majority of the population.
Most of the Third World has local languages, and often, a national language borrowed from colonial times.
India has large numbers of people with diverse first languages. Hindi is spoken by over 420 mn making it the country’s largest language, not the majority one. Some languages spoken by large numbers include Bangla by over 80 mn, Telugu by 74 mn, Tamil by over 60 mn. These figures, from Census 2001, (the 2011 figures haven’t been released) give an idea of the complex language issues.
What does this imply for governance? The local administration must be well versed in the local language so there’s a bridge between people and those administering. It means all languages need the opportunity to flourish through state encouragement, and promoting regional language speakers into administration.This must be balanced with the reality of contemporary times — increasingly, English has become the language of choice for international business. This is because of history and the economic power that resides in AngloSaxon countries. English is the world’s third most-spoken language with 335 mn primary speakers in 99 countries. Chinese is the most spoken with 1,197 mn speakers in 33 countries, followed by Spanish by
414 mn in 31 countries.But English is now the second language for 505 mn more people, apart from the 335 mn primary speakers. The IT revolution has boosted the status of English. A reported 45% of web-pages are in English. Finnish telecom major Nokia and German softwarecompany SAP use English as official language. English learning is seen as a way of moving up. A British Council study estimates that by 2020, 2 billion people will study English. Even in China, with a highly-developed language, more people are studying English than in any country, and 100,000 native English speakers are teaching there.
While some solution will be found for CSAT, more important is to improve language teaching in schools.
India isn’t unique in having many languages. Indonesia has 706 compared to India’s 406. China has 298, Russia has 105. Tiny Cameroon has 280.
What makes India unique is the number of people speaking different languages within the country. In most other countries, one language dominates. In China, nearly 93% of its 1.3 billion speak Chinese, in one of its variants. Same is the case with German, French, or Japanese — they’re spoken by a majority of the population.
Most of the Third World has local languages, and often, a national language borrowed from colonial times.
India has large numbers of people with diverse first languages. Hindi is spoken by over 420 mn making it the country’s largest language, not the majority one. Some languages spoken by large numbers include Bangla by over 80 mn, Telugu by 74 mn, Tamil by over 60 mn. These figures, from Census 2001, (the 2011 figures haven’t been released) give an idea of the complex language issues.
What does this imply for governance? The local administration must be well versed in the local language so there’s a bridge between people and those administering. It means all languages need the opportunity to flourish through state encouragement, and promoting regional language speakers into administration.This must be balanced with the reality of contemporary times — increasingly, English has become the language of choice for international business. This is because of history and the economic power that resides in AngloSaxon countries. English is the world’s third most-spoken language with 335 mn primary speakers in 99 countries. Chinese is the most spoken with 1,197 mn speakers in 33 countries, followed by Spanish by
414 mn in 31 countries.But English is now the second language for 505 mn more people, apart from the 335 mn primary speakers. The IT revolution has boosted the status of English. A reported 45% of web-pages are in English. Finnish telecom major Nokia and German softwarecompany SAP use English as official language. English learning is seen as a way of moving up. A British Council study estimates that by 2020, 2 billion people will study English. Even in China, with a highly-developed language, more people are studying English than in any country, and 100,000 native English speakers are teaching there.
While some solution will be found for CSAT, more important is to improve language teaching in schools.
