The saddening rate at which languages, especially those spoken by various tribes, have been disappearing in India is concerning. While efforts have been made to help some, many are still facing extinction: a problem I would like to talk about, oh-so-well, and will do later in this blog.
A multitude of issues have caused the decline of certain language world over. While in India, the issue is less about cultural assimilation… At least, in practice, there is an attempt to avoid this. There is a bigger issue at hand, in my opinion, which causes it.
You might think I’m going to start talking about migrant workers. But, of course, they are not the problem.
While they might speak a mix of various languages, it’s more to do with languages not having the recognition to be able to protect themselves.
Let’s Look At The Dialect Problem
Many languages in India suffer the injustice of being called a dialect and thus, find little to no recognition. In my opinion: being considered a dialect has been detrimental to many Indian languages which, linguistically, clearly aren’t!
Rajasthani languages have been hit hard by this! With the locals already being well-versed in Hindi, they didn’t have much of a challenge in switching languages.
Rajasthani languages are a group of languages with a rich history. They are most related to Gujarati as they spring from old Gujarati as such. They are clearly not Hindi dialects and shouldn’t be considered so, any more than say, Punjabi.
Now, multiple examples of this could be given including that of the languages of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and more, causing languages like Garhwali and Kangri to suffer.
It is not just our national language which is capable of such forced assimilation, as even Kashmiri has done such things. For example, let’s look at the peculiar case of Poguli and Kishtwari.
Languages Should Be Preserved
These two languages are often branded as dialects of Kashmiri, and thus, get no recognition for the fact they are spoken by a Hindu minority in certain districts, making it even worse for them.
They are languages heavily influenced by pahadi (mountainous) languages, especially Poguli, so much so that confusion arises when some people think Poguli is a pahadi language, rather than a Dardic language (a sub-group of Ind0-Aryan languages).
Now, such incidents can be written about with respect to many languages of India, such as the Warli in Maharashtra, or any of the tribal languages of Kerala. For e.g. the languages spoken on the islands of Lakshadweep.
The Indian government should seek to recognise such languages and give them their rightful place in the multi-cultural, linguistic scape of India.