Speaking in many tongues

Language is a deposit of thought, said Max Muller, without which the human species would be incapacitated in its quest for survival and modern-day nation states in their hunt for supremacy. By that rationale India is perhaps one of the richest countries in the world. According to the recently conducted linguistic survey of India, the country speaks in 780 languages and writes with 60 scripts. Few other nations and, perhaps even continents, have such a large basket of languages at their disposal.

The survey, which has taken 18 years and 3,000 people, is the first attempt in 100 years to map the country's linguistic diversity. Ganesh Devy, the force behind the 68-volume set of The People's Linguistic Survey of India (English publisher: Orient Black Swan) said at the launch of the Maharashtra survey, "The aim was to reveal the treasure we have. We have a forest of languages."

Creating a language takes centuries and it is the hallmark of great civilisations. Its characteristics cannot be described in a single statement and, in a way, it defies being defined. David Crystal, accomplished linguist and author, says even when we use short and functional sentences, there is a lot that is going on. (How Language Works, David Crystal; Penguin Books, UK) We use vocabulary, grammar, phonology, semantics and several other things to convey sense and relevance to what we speak and write.

Language is a complex machine. It is also one of the most distinctive features of the human race and has been used by civilisations to capture their myths and philosophies and weave them into literature, art and science. Scholars who have studied language and mythology have pointed out that myths were used to amplify the meaning of a word and to transform concepts into stories. Max Muller believed that mythology was the disease of language implying in a way that neither can do without the other.

Myths help layer words with multiple meanings. For instance, take the word zero. In India there are different kinds of zeroes. Ganesh Devy says, "We have the word 'kha' which is a zero that includes everything and which diminishes and grows with the things within it, we have 'shunya' in which there is nothing and we have 'purna' which has everything but it neither diminishes nor grows." The nuances that transform a complex mathematical construct into an equally complicated unit of language are unique to the culture that created the concept. If we lose the language, we lose the layers and the unique worldview of a civilisation.

Similarly language helps create myths that are rooted in the cultural context of a people. For instance, 'Uloopi', the water princess in Mahabharata who marries Arjuna, derives her name from the word uloopin which means dolphin. (E W Hopkins, Epic Mythology, Indological Book House, Varanasi 1968) The word is hardly used but as a character of a popular epic, it lives on. Another word with a forgotten past is Welsh. About 1,500 years ago, Germanic tribes invading Britain coined the term "welus", which meant slaves and outsiders, for the resident Celts of the region - the term lives on as "Welsh".

While losing a language may be in the natural order of things, it often means losing a bit of our past and for India, a wealth of literary compositions. The Bhils have four mahakavyas (epics), and the Sawra tribe, whose language is spoken by a small group of people, has plays, stories and songs. Given the utilitarian times we live in, the death of a language may not seem such a great tragedy. The logic is, if a language had any use, it would be used. But languages are not meant only to communicate (though that is a vital function), it has helped understand the world and create new languages. The binary system that our computers run on was derived from the metric compositions used by ancient poets and singers.

The word is more powerful than we can imagine. That is why most civilisations gave it a divine status. In India, Vac is the goddess of speech and the mother of the Vedas. The Irish god Ogma is said to have invented the Ogham alphabet. Hermes was regarded as the god of language, alongside Mnemosyne (the goddess of memory) by the Greeks. According to mythologist and linguist Ernst Cassirer, "Word in fact becomes a sort of a primary force in which all being and doing originate. In all mythical cosmogonies, as far back as they can be traced, this supreme position of the word is found." (Ernst Cassirer, Language and Myth, Translated by Susanne K Langer, Dover Publications, 1946) He finds a direct parallel between what the Uitoto Indians believed - that in the beginning the word gave the Father his origin - and the opening passage of John's gospel: "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God." (Bible, John 1:1; King James version). Perhaps, all those who count themselves as masters of the word, may want to take another call on who really serves whom.