THIRD WORLD EXPERIENCE IN LANGUAGE USE
Ethos of Multilingualism
The developed countries have appropriated to themselves the titles of the First and the Second world. The developing countries are, then, lumped together and called the Third world. This euphemism has given the leaders of the First/Second world a sense of superiority; the leaders of business in these countries have the feeling that the Third world id for exploitation of raw materials, and the academic leaders have the feeling that they are producers of theories and the others are consumers. This has led many leaders of the Third world to believe that, in order to catch up with the advanced world, certain specific aspects of the socio-political and economic life of their countries need to be controlled or guided. They have uncritically accepted the Western nations of nation building and are indirectly playing the game of the developed countries. Many problems of developmental planning, flow from this. For example, the developed countries treat their respective dominant languages as resources, call them world languages, and use them to further their national interest. In the Third world, if language is to be used to inform and educate the public, to mirror the society, to interpret the development process and mediate in social change, then it is only common sense that all prevalent languages should be considered as resources and that all these resources be exploited for national self-realisation. Instead, many consider multplicity of languages as a problem, a burden, and an incovenience. Because of lack of clarity about the development goal and the means to reach it, there appears to be a conflict between the social, psychological on the one hand, and the political, economic on the other.
Social science theory building in the developed countries conceals exploitation as in the past the Bible concealed the motivation of establishing the colonial empire. By assuming that national development is a linear process of progression, and modernisation is equal to Westernisation, all development is sought to be measured in terms of GNP and per capita income. Linguists have provided ammunition to further this argument. Ferguson (1972) delineated the criteria of measurement of language development, which are established that areas of the world are economically backward are also linguistically backward. Fishman (1968 : 53-68) linked linguistic homogeneity with high per capita income (and, there fore, greater development) and further strengthened the Ferguson thesis. Ayo Bamgbose, Kasoki Ansre and a host of others have pointed out the pernicious effects of the above assumptions for Black Africa. But they are seldom quoted in Asia. The Indian and the Asian image in Africa and the African image in Asia is what comes through the Western media: Areas of race/tribal riots, political/social instability, poverty and underdevelopment. There is little to learn from one another and there is little commonality in the Third World experience. In order to arrest and eliminate this dangerous trend, it is time that we critically examine some of linguistic assumptions of the developed countries and their consequences.
There is a fundamental difference between the ethos of multilingualism characteristics of the Third world and the ethos of dominant monolingualism, characterising the developed world. Under dominant monolingulism, two languages are condidered as a nuisance, three languages uneconomic, and many languages absurd. In multilingual countries, many languages are facts of life, any restriction in the choice of language use is a nuisance, and one language is not only uneconomic but also absurd.
Under dominant monolingualism only one standard language is recongnised and other varieties of the same language are non-standard. The standard is often a narrow band, if not a point. Under multilingualism, the wider the spectrum of the standard, the greater is its chance of being widely accepted among speakers of different varieties (Rajyashree 1980). In any case, even in a single language area, there are different standard ; regional, local, spoken and written. Consistent with the above orientation, dominant monolingulism teaches that there is only one correct way of reaching a stated goal. Multilingualism not only teaches that different languages represent different correct ways of reaching a stated goal, it also permits tolerance of a good deal of variation within the range of the standard in one language.
The dominant language is the language of wider communication in a dominant monolingual country. In multilingual countries, there are different languages of wider communication somewhat hierarchically organised and used in different domains and functions. For example, in the State of Orissa in India, Desia is a language of wider communication for the tribals of South Orissa. Desia itself is considered to be a variety of Oriya. Oriya is the language of wider communication for diverse linguistic groups in the State. Bengali, Telugu, Marathi and Hindi bordering Oriya are languages of wider communication in certain areas and for certain purpose. Hindi and English are languaes of wider communication for specific social groups and are used in defined domains.
The definition of language and dialect are much more stable and their distinctions much sharper under dominant monolingualism. Under multilingualism, language varieties are 'focused' and 'faded' (Le Page 1964) under different socio-economic and political conditions. What is a dialect at one time is considered a language at another time and vice versa. Many minority languages accept one dominant language as cultural, language using it in domains other than intimate communication. This and many other strategies of interdependence lead to greater of convergence. Dominant monolingualism, on the other hand, seeks to attain uniformity through a 'melting pot' (Glazer 1970) strategy. It shocks the proponents and practitioners of this theory to find that identities are not easily killed.
The language boundaries are sharper under conditions of dominant nonolingualism as smaller identities are reinforaced due to heightened consciousness of small language groups under constant pressure of the dominant. In multilingual countries the language boundaries merge in such a way that there is no sharp break in communication. A study by John J. Gumperz(1971) in India shows that in the border of Maharashtra and Karnataka, although two languages, belonging to two different language families, are spoken on either side, the bilinguals use both languages with a single set of morphophonemic rules. Beginning from intra and inter-sentential code mixing to intra and inter-discourse code switching many phenomena display distinctive characteristics, which dictate re-examination of the theoretical and methodological basis of socio-linguistics form the vantage point of multilingualism.
In dominant monolingual countries, the geographical and psychological space among language varieties is varieties is narrower than in multilingual countries. The distance between the upper and lower caste language in the Hindi area, the distance between the upper caste language at one end of the Hindi belt and the other is muich sharper than the upper and middle class language in Europe or America. Therefore, the linguistic matrix and consequently the linguistic description become more complex.
Formulation of social science issues as well as presuppositions of research become different in both situations. While Weinsteian, an eminent political scientist looking at the American structure asks 'how much diversity can this structure tolerate ?' A person in a Third World country must ask ' how much uniformity can that structure tolerate'. Similar problems arise when one tries to impose the European nation building demands loyalty to unitary symbols. A nation stands on a single language, a single religion, and, in its extreme form, a single party and a single leader. Van den Bergh point out, "Nationalism in Myrdal's view contains an element of hypocrisy: it is the application of values held to be universal in a limited 'national' framework" (Godfried 1966: 828-861). The demand of the nation state to merge minority identities and seek firmer identification with 'national' aims, views many languages as incoveniences and burden on the elite. This creates many contradictions in multilingual societies, encourages nationalities constituting a multilingual state of seek independence, thus threatening its very being, and, in consequence, pushes the state towards greater autocracy. The approach of dominant monolingualism to research resulted in treating one language as an interference in learning another. That one language could be a facilitator in learning another was lost on the applied linguists, until multilingual facility forced recongnition of the untenability of this approach. Further, concepts like 'idolect' or 'the ideal speaker-hearer of language' would not probably have been formulated had the linguists grown up under multilingual orientation.
Problems of research are best exemplified by difficulties of speech recoginition by a computer. An automated speech recognition system relies on word recongnition. But distinct yet accousticaliy more similar, words produce spectrograms alike and are easily handled by the computer than the same word produced by different speakers under different setting. A further complication is ' to make the transition from sounds to words, from and accoustic characterisation of the intended message (Stephen 1981: 64-76). This shows that the binary logic of the computer has not made much head way in handling the expectations and abilities needed to learn a language. Not to speak of continuous speech, but when even handling isolated words is yet to be formalised, the problems posed by an individuals's repertoire of a social matrix in multilingual context where inputs from multiple languages lead to complexities both in terms of structure and function, can easily be comprehended.
The Third World countries house about 50 per cent of the world's illiterate population. Replacing many languages by one will not only make many otherwise literate people illiterate it will also deprive them of access to their own cultural heritage. Again, this will not only create semi-lingualism and semi-culturalism in the short run, but also dwarf the cultures in the long run. The gulf between the imposed language and the diverse languages spoken by the people is bound to grow, thus alienating the elite from the masses. The transnational languages competing to dominate the Third World countries are the greatest beneficiaries of the fissure among various linguistic groups. As long as these fissures continue, the Third World countries can never develop their personality, but will remain permanent parasites on the developed countries. It is in this context that the Third World experience in language use can be critically examined.
Dilemma of Development
Before we go into the experience of the specific countries in the Third World, some cobwebs need to be cleared. Although that 'knowledge is power' has alomost become a cliche', few have looked at its implications in the context of the Third World. If knowledge is power, then knowledge shared among many is power shared among many. In the same token, knowledge shared among a few is power controlled by a few. As the vehicle of knowledge and information is language, language use, dissemination of knowledge and information, and the structure of the State are intimately connected. Where language controls the access to rank, status and wealth and bestows privileges on a few, democracy atrophies. The elite become more and more intolerant of variety and variation, and the governments become more authoritarian.
For the foreign trained experts many people, many cultures, many languages everything is a problem. Therefore more emphasis is given in reducing population, homogenising cultures, melting languages rather than planning on different bases for the many. Many people are considered a curse, many cultures a handicap, and many languages a burden. This statement is not, however, against population control, but against wrong planning.
The idea of a nation state, it has been pointed out earlier thrives on unitary symbols, exclusive logic, single standard and one correct way of reaching a stated goal. Multiligual pluricultural countries operate with an inclusive logic. For them plurality is not an impediment to cultural integration. The measure interdependence rather than distance. In this process, many disparate groups and entities get bound together (Bayer 1980). In the past, when history, tradition and knowledge was orally transmitted, a certain amount of cohesion was necessary for the relay of message across long stretches of space and time. In relatively modern times, when schooling became equated with education and the unschooled illiterates and semi-literates were dubbed as uneducated, the characteristics of the polity were changed, political rather than cultural relationships assumed importance. As a result, culture and language assumed a subordinate position in nation's planning.
The relationship between educational goals and outcome and the goals of language planning and language use are not of subordination, but of interdependence. Without language, literacy is inconceivable. It is an accepted fact that primary education should be given in the mother tongue of the child. If an early bond is not established between the home language and the school language, then, the very foundation on which lifelong education stands is weakened. The learner who cannot use language as medium cannot handle content subjects with confidence and therefore the standard of educational outcome becomes questionable. Thus, language planning is intimately intertwined with educational planning.
The relationship between educational planning and national economic planning is not one of mere emphasis. Economists consider their discipline to be the most important among social science, and others seem to passively accept it. Kuklinsky has pointed out that the context of planning is as important as planning itself. Language is one of the most important contexts of planning. Moreover, the realisation of the goals of planning depends on the popular participation. It is important that they are communicated to the people at different stages of formulation and implementation, and all language resources are exploited for this purpose. Language as a medium of education controls access to education. Language of administration, if incompatible with language of education, disables persons by denying equal opportunity to jobs and other economic activities. Language of mass communication may manipulate information so as to keep people in the dark, use popular idioms to exhort and motivate them to participate in national reconstruction. Thus, it will be seen that language is a component as well as the carrier of planning. Moreover, language provides basic orientation to education, and educated elite in charge of planning build into it biases through assumptions which may or may not be commensurate with the aspirations of the majority of people who are illiterate and not so highly schooled. Higher education is so structured in the developing countries that in most cases the transnational languages are the media of education. The campuses in these countries are not only extensions of campuses in developed countries, but the standard are also dictated by these countries. These are some common disturbing trends. The higher one goes in schooling, the greater is the demand for lesser language and greater is the movement from the rural to the urban and from one's own country to foreign countries.
According to a study by the UNCTAD on the 1971 base line, the developing countries exported 2968 crores of rupees worth of trained manpower to the U.S.A. Out of the India's share is 900 crores. Firstly, trained manpower in these countries, is being created at greater sacrifice, which is not relevant to the needs of concerned countries. Secondly, the majority of these with few exceptions may enjoy an good life, but remain mediocre. Their contribution to the academic or professional world is at the best second rate. Transnational language as media of instruction favour these fortunate ones, but the countries bereft of talents become double sufferers. Language is an indicator of the direction of the movement of talent, besides being the cause of it. A study of the migration of doctors and nurses involving 45 countries conducted by the WHO proves this point.
Planning for Three Languages in Multilingual Countries
Scholars under the influence of dominant monolingual orientation often consider trilingualism as an extension of bilingualism. But this is not true. In dominant monolingual countries bilingualism is by and large a result of planned action and is induced by school. In multilingual countries, bilingualism is a natural phenomenon and even trilingualism is not unusual.
C.M.B. Brann in his article 'Trilingualism in language Planning for Education (unpublished), has pointed out that the trilingual configuration of multilingual countries is nothing new. Brann has pointed out that in multilingual medieval Europe three languages, dialects, rising national language and Latin (later French) were in vogue. In the present day European community also this formula is gaining ground.
In the West, conscious policy decisions resulted in language attrition. For example, laws in the U.S.A. forbade teaching of German in Nebraska, made teaching of Japanese difficult in Hawaii, and resulted in the loss of French in Louisiana, where it was requirement for the membership of the State Legislature. In U.K., in the Act of Union initiated by Henry VIII in 1396, it was stipulated that, 'no person or persons that use the Welsh speech or language shall have or enjoy any manner, office or fees within this realm of England, Wales or other King's Dominion, upon pain of forfeiting the same office of fees, unless he or they use and exercise the English speech or language (Brinley 1978). In Europe also dominant monolingulaism is a cultivated historical process. In the Chamber of Deputees of France, even today Deputees claim that only one language, French, is spoken in France. However, European countries are becoming more and more aware of minority languages, and as they proceed to form a European community, they find that interdependent multilingualism is the only way.
Assertion of ethnic authenticity is viewed as separatism by those whose visions are coloured by dominant monolingualism. Having created and education system in the model of the West, they speak to the pressure of number of languages and complain that 'the main stream of education and language development is obstructed by the smaller language (Anwar 1973: 55-58). As in America, where having developed a machice to pluck tomatoes, the breed of tomatoes had to be made uniform to suit the machine, today's planners of education in multilingual countries try to suit the people and the reality of the country to fit the artificial system rather than the system to fit the need of the people and the objective reality of the country.
It must be understood that in multilingual countries the three-language formula is a strategy and not a goal (Pattanayak 1970). It is a launching pad for exploration of the world in ever widening circles and, depending on one's capacity, interest and requirement one may learn as many languages as one needs. No language is a ritual language (unless it is used in the sense of a language used for ritual purposes) as no language is a world language. All language are in some sense ritual languages and no language is an out of world language. In a dominant monolingual State, dialects are used in functionally defined domains. Once this is understood, the question of half language, and the fear of semilingualism would automatically vanish. All languages represent valuable elements of cultural heritage. The question is how to retain that heritage under the pressure of the mono-model.
Third World Example
From time immemorial, before the present state of India was born, the Indian identity had been established. The two Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharath have assumed the cultural unity of India in spite of differing political structure as parts of it. The different travellers to India, Greek, Chinese, Aarb, have left accounts which refer to India as one cultural personality. In the same sense Africa had and still has a corporate personality. But this is more a literary allusion than a political fact at this time. While scholars still refer to India as a continental State because of a Union Government, the same is not true of Africa. Whatever may be the political structure, African personality cannot be denied. The identity of problems in both India and Africa cannot be overlooked and needs to be studied as such.
India, which has 15 official languages, 13 of them regionally and 2 nationally used in education, administration and mass communication, pursues a deliberate policy of multilingualism. For example, the State of Karnataka offers primary education in eight languages. So does the Bombay Municipal Corporation in the metropolis of Bombay. The State of West Bengal offers options of 14 languages at the Secondary School Examination. The Calcutta University, the North Eastern Hill University, the Javaharlal Nehru University, the Ranchi University are some of the universities which offer postgraduate programmes in non-scheduled languages. States are free to declare more than one official language within their boundaries. The States of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa have declared district wise demarcated additional languages as State Official languages. Sahitya Akademi, the National Academy of Letter, recognises good literature in whichever Indian language they exist and institutes prizes to encourage them. The purposive multilingualism can further be seen in the Government aid to voluntary organisations through which languages other than the VIII Schedule languages are given special consideration and assistance. The country's educational programmes are so designed that by the end of the school stage all children are supposed to have learnt three languages. But the pattern of education is still diverse. For example, there is a constitutional obligation to give primary education in the mother tongue of the child. But one finds three broad patterns among the unilingual primary schools. Only 58 mother tongues are used as the medium of instruction at the present time. Most schools which use Hindi or English, the official and the Associate official languages of the country respectively, as medium. The bilingual primary education also demonstrates three broad patterns. There are many schools which teach two languages, one as medium and the other as subject at the primary stage. There are about 240 schools, known as Central Schools, where two mediums are used, one for humanities and social sciences and the other for physical sciences. The third pattern, bilingual education of a transfer model is experimental now. The idea is to start teaching through the medium of the mother tongue, but organise instruction in such a manner that by the post-primary stage the child is ready to follow instruction through another language medium.
It is realistic that as more and more mother tongues find recognition in the school system, the three-language formula becomes a four-language formula. In principle, India is committed to bilingual primary education and in practice it is so even if not officially ordained. Wherever there is difference between home language and school languages, whether it is dialect, style or language, the teacher makes use of the home language of the child to teach him the standard or the school language. In pedagogic terms, the child who already knows his language learns the skills of reading writing and transfers these skills to the other language to which he is introduced in the school. There are numerous ways of maintaining language. In the school, some of them are maintained subjects.
It is important to know that there is a considerable amount of passive bilingualism in the country. Apart from the fact that all languages irrespective of their family affiliation share a common core vocabulary, syntactic structure and a common semantic field, their functions are so complementary that so result, most language boundaries are bilingual. Most cities and slums are multilingual. Today, internal tourism and education and more particularly the electronic media help the perpetuation of multilingualism.
The protagonist of the monomodel have often argued that learning so many languages is as waste of time and is a burden on the child. There are many fallacious and mischievous assumptions underlying such statement. First of all, nobody engaged in preparing a history curriculum has found studying local history, regional (Europe, Latin American) history and world history a burden on the child. Neither scientific discoveries and inventions in different periods nor by different parts of the world is considered a burden for a student of science. There is no reason, why languages used for preservation of one's cultural identity and establishing communicational bonds in a ever widening circle should be considered a waste or a burden. Secondly, having failed to manipulate research results to prove that bi-or multi-lingualism is subtractive and in the face of overwhelming example that multilingualism is cognitively enriching, the social scientists drawing their sustenance from the unitary model have no valid basis for making such statements.
Following the elite social scientists, the language politicians also preach monomodels. Playing on the dual phenomena, greed to grab power and fear of losing privileges, the set up oppositions like Hindi/Urdu (Hindi, Muslim), Hindi/English(Nationalism, Internationalism), Indian languages/English (Localism, Modernity), Indian languages/Hindi (Localism, Nationalism). They plead for the transnational language on the ground of its neutrality among contending national languages and equality of inconvenience for all. It is necessary to expose the myth of neutrality. No language is neutral and certainly not the speakers. Moreover the argument of inconvenience for all works out to the convenience of those in power and has a parallel to the colonial language policy. All these arguments seek to substitute the culture of interdependence by a relation of dominance and subordination.
The Indian situation cannot be completely described without a reference to literacy. India, a cradle of civilisation from the earliest times, has about 400 million illiterates, 50 per cent of that of the whole world. In the past literacy was not equated with education. Even 200 years ago the illiteracy in England was appalling. It is in the middle of the 19th century that Bentham proudly announced that only written law is civilised law and the customary law is that of the barbarian. The third world not only accepted it but also accepted the European equation of education with schooling. It is then that they disabled themselves. Since then we are running after the mirage of universal literacy. This does not mean slackening of attention and efforts towards literacy. As in India, in selected areas experimentation must be conducted in biliteracy, so that while mother tongue literacy will be motivating, other tongue literacy may provide the much needed follow up materials and economic opportunity. But as John Oxenham rightly points out, literacy as a technology is subject to obsolescence (Oxhenham 1980). Unless intellectuals and educational planners work for literacy will keep some more educated busy, and the absolute numbers will the continue to go up while there may be marginal improvement in the percentage of literacy.
While India is at one end of the spectrum, probably Singapore is on the other and is planning towards monolingualism (Afendras 1980). The 62 per cent Chinese in that country are being taught Mandarin, although none of them are Mandarin speakers. The large majority of them are Hokkien speakers and the rest are diverse dialect users who are bilingual in Hokkien. The Malayan population is about 22 per cent and Indians about 11 per cent. The accent is on English education. This year the Government of Singapore has imported 400 English teachers from England. This is a strange but calculated move. People in authority secretly hope that once people's roots in the mother tongues are loosened, English would automatically take over. This is justified on the ground that Singapore is a trade centre and therefore English is in its best advantage. This experiment may succeed because of the smallness of the place and the peculiar demography and politics of the country and the region. But the results would be quite interesting from the point of language planning.
In the South-East Asia the case of Indonesia and Malaysia deserve special mention. Both the countries took planned action to create standard national languages. Both countries agreed to keep their national languages separate, though they work in close co-operation and co-ordination. Because of many factors Indonesia has been more successful in establishing its national language and uses it in a larger number of domains than Malaysia. Both the countries face pressure from their ethnic minorities for some recognition of their languages. The solution to their problems lies in multilingual interdependence rather than assertion of dominance. The enlightened leadership in both the countries is bound to make a success of their resolve in creating unity in diversity.The third world experience will be incomplete without a reference to China. However, firstly its decision making apparatus being centralised makes for a difference. Secondly, it has recently gone through a traumatic experience and yet to recover from it. Thirdly, as long as it seeks parity or equation with super powers, it will be forced to make compromises which will create inner contradictions. The fact of the Chinese case is that for all practical purpose China is a multilingual country. In the past the standardised writing provided unity to the many mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. It is no longer entirely true. There is a need for simplification of Chinese character and there are sensible moves in this direction (john 1972:450-475). There is, however, internal pressure for Romanising the script. Once that happens, the existing bonds among dialects/languages are bound to be loosened and more pressure mounted for uniformisation. This is the path to disharmony. One can only hope that a great country like China will not fall prey to the modern trappings which will destroy its culture and create internal discord.
To conclude
This chapter did not intend to present case studies of individual third world countries. It has raised certain issues and pointed out certain fundamental in policy, planning and implementation under conditions of dominant monolingualism. It argues that imposition of a monomodel on the multilingual, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural countries of the world instead of strengthening them will weaken their cultural fabric and impoverish them.
The essay further hinted that the developing third world countries are experiencing tremendous internal dissensions and external pressure. This external pressure orientation is internalised by the third world elite who are unconscious allies of the external motivation. Unless socio-economic planning and social science theories and practices are motivated that they can bind the local, the regional, the national and the transnational in a single thread, they will remain irrelevant to the peoples and countries of the third world.