PLANNING FOR HERITAGE LANGUAGES

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Heritage, Language, Technology
Folk Languages in the Perspective of
Sociolinguistics
5-DAY Workshop, Nov 11-15, 2003 ASIATIC SOCIETY,
KOLKATA
Udaya Narayana Singh Central Institute of Indian
Languages, Mysore, India
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• Languages are disappearing at an alarming pace,
  so much so that in Pagels prediction only 10 of
  the current 6,000-7,000 worlds heritage
  languages will survive by 2050 A.D.

• When a language is lost because all speakers die,
  it is understandable. But wiping off of an entire
  community is painful.

THE LEGEND
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Disappearance, Death, Danger

• Who mourns language loss in a folk language
  society?
• Aboriginal elders who speak their languages do.
• Also, the younger people mourn their loss.
• Most indigenous people point to the connection of
  Aboriginal languages with culture.
• They talk about their roots and identity.
• A Red Indian Secwepemc elder Nellie Taylor once
  noted that "without your language you're nothing,
  you are like a white person, lost and without a
  home. How very true even in South Asian context?

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... Even this vastly reduced reservoir of
linguistic diversity constitutes one of the
great treasures of humanity, an enormous
store-house of expressive power and profound
understandings of the universe. The loss of the
hundreds of languages that have already passed
into history is an intellectual catastrophe in
every way comparable in magnitude to the
ecological catastrophe we face today as the
earth's tropical forests are swept by fire. Each
language still spoken is fundamental to the
personal, social and - a key term in the
discourse of indigenous peoples - spiritual
identity of its speakers. They know that without
these languages they would be less than they are,
and they are engaged in the most urgent struggles
to protect their linguistic heritage. (Zepeda and
Hill, 1991)  
Zepeda, O. and J.H. Hill, 1991. The Condition of
Native American Languages in the United States.
In R.H. Robins and E.M. Uhlenbeck, Robins
(editors). Endangered Languages. Oxford Berg
Publishers
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Moving away from South Asia, lets take up a
concrete case of Canada
 

• Over 60 languages were originally spoken in
  Canada, according to Kinkade (1991158)
• At least 8 were extinct by 1990 (approx. 13)
• 13 languages (21) are judged 'near-extinct'

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More about Canadian situation

• Most of the remaining languages in Canada are
  seen as viable but having small populations - a
  risk in itself.
• Only 4 languages may survive in the long run.
• In a more recent study by Norris (1998) study
  using 1996 Census data, the estimate of
  Indigenous languages likely to survive in Canada
  is down to 3.

• 23 languages in Canada are 'endangered' (38)
  now, because they have few speakers under 50
  years old and almost no children are learning
  them.

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We can plot the decline in the percentage of
speakers of Indigenous languages among the
Indigenous populations of Canada in the following
manner
Plotting the Decline in Canada
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Indigenous language speakers as percentage of
Indigenous population, Canada
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The North American Scenario

• Chafe (1962) counted 211 languages as still
  living in the USA and Canada in 1960
• Out of these only 89 (42) had speakers of all
  ages
• Therefore, 58 folk languages are 'endangered' or
  'near-extinct'.

• For North America as a whole, any prediction is
  difficult
• North America had had a turbulent early history
  of colonisation and massive mortality due to
  disease
• Bright (1994) and Mithun (19991) put the number
  of Indigenous languages originally spoken at
  around 300.

QUITE GRIM
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Predictions

• Thirty years later Zepeda and Hill (1991136)
  estimate that 51 (approx. 24) of the 211
  languages supposed to have been alive in 1960
  have disappeared.
• Campbell (199716) predicts that 80 of the North
  American languages spoken at the turn of this
  century 'will die in this generation'.
• The prediction is for 20-30 Indigenous languages
  will survive in North America by 2040.

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Krauss (1996) uses a four-fold classification
based on which age groups speaking the language,
could be placed in respect of the United States
in this way

• Category A, still being learned by children, 20
  languages, 12
• Category B, still spoken by the parental
  generation, 20 languages, 12
• Category C, spoken by grandparents and up only,
  70 languages, 40
• Category D, spoken by only a few very oldest, 55
  languages, 36

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Indigenous people now left in Eastern USA
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Australia Equally Disturbing Statistics
In absolute terms, there may be actually only
55,000 speakers of Indigenous languages there.

• Out of about 300 in 1800, there has been a
  decrease of 90 in the number of such speakers of
  all age groups who can speak fluently.
• Decline rate in Indigenous people speaking their
  own languages from 100 in 1800 to 13 in 1996.
• If these trends continue unchecked, by 2050 there
  will no longer be any Indigenous languages spoken
  in Australia.

Of the 20 languages categorised in 1990 as
'strong', 3 should already be regarded as
'endangered'.
14
ABS 1994 Survey of Aboriginal Relative
proportions of those who can speak an Indigenous
language and those who speak an Indigenous
language as the main language at home.
15
Proportion of Indigenous People speaking an
Indigenous Language or Creole, 1996
16
Spread of Speakers of Indigenous Languages by
Absolute Numbers
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Matter of Rights

• The Preamble to the United Nations Charter says
  "We the peoples of the United Nations determined
  to save succeeding generations from the scourge
  of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought
  untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith
  in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and
  worth of the human person, in the equal rights of
  men and women and of nations large and small, and
  to establish conditions under which justice and
  respect for the obligations arising from treaties
  and other sources of international law can be
  maintained, and to promote social progress and
  better standards of life in larger freedom, and
  for these ends, to practice tolerance and live
  together in peace with one another "

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• In December, 2002, at the United Nations in
  Geneva, Switzerland at the Eighth Session of the
  Working Group on the Draft Declaration on the
  Rights of Indigenous People (WGDD), the tussle
  between large nation states like US, Canada
  Australia and the indigenous peoplebecame
  evident.
• The Draft includes a preamble as well as 45
  Articles e.g. Every indigenous individual has
  the right to a nationality.

Disturbing debates
Article 43 states "All the rights and freedoms
recognized herein are equally guaranteed to male
and female indigenous individuals

• The Draft was adopted in 1994 by the
  Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination
  and Protection of Minorities of the UN Commission
  on Human Rights. It was then channeled to the
  WGDD where it has been kept in limbo by the
  larger States. The Draft is to be finalized by
  2004.

Charmaine White Face, a freelance writer, in
www.dlncoalition.org
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Lets try to understand the Spread of the problem
in India

• The Scheduled Tribes account for 67.76 millions
  representing 8.08 of our population living
  mainly in the forest and hilly regions (1991
  Census)
• More than 70 are in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra,
  Orissa, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and
  Gujarat.
• We not only need special provisions for their
  protection from social injustices and all forms
  of exploitation, we also need concrete plans for
  development with safeguards including promotion
  of educational and economic interests
• I think a concrete Language Development Plan is a
  need of the hour.

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What could we do in India?

• There is a general feeling among many that we do
  not have a mechanism in place to protect and
  promote minor and minority languages.
• The trouble is that they often point to small
  countries like Nepal where both in Constitutional
  provisions and in Universal Education documents
  these issues are specifically mentioned.
• In case of India, the sheer size of the country
  and complexity of the administrative set up are
  such that it cannot be compared with other
  nation-states in this respect.

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Responsibilities Shared and Scattered

• 5th 6th Schedule of the Constitution Article
  224 Under Home Ministry
• Special representation for the STs in the Lok
  Sabha and Assemblies till 2010 (Arts, 330, 332
  and 334)
• Under Articles 164 and 338, separate State-level
  and National Commission at the Centre with Dr.
  Bizay Sonkar Sastry in the Chair), Ven Lama
  Chosphel Zotpa (Vice-Chair) Under the Ministry
  of Tribal Welfare, 1999-.
• Commission for Linguistic Minorities (Allahabad)
  under the Ministry of Social Justice
  Empowerment

• Grant-in-Aid scheme under Article 275(1) was also
  created
• Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 and the
  SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989
• Planning Commissions landmark step 43 Special
  Multi-purpose Tribal Blocks (SMPTBs) during 2nd
  Plan, later called Tribal Development Blocks
  (TDBs)
• Under 4th Plan, six major projects in Andhra
  Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, and a
  separate Tribal Development Agency was
  established.

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A lot more needs to be done with concerted focus,
esp. in prevention of land alienation from tribal
to no-tribal, review of National Forest Policy
and Forest (Conservation) Act 1980, etc

• The Fifth Five Year Plan marked a shift in the
  approach when the Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) for
  direct benefit of the STs was launched
• In 1987, the Tribal Cooperative Marketing
  Development Federation (TRIFED) was set up for
  marketing help remunerative prices to tribals
• The GIA scheme covers 376 NGOs working in this
  area, each getting about 90 grant.

BUT ARE ALL THESE ENOUGH?
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Possible areas we could move in
Cultural documentation Dictionaries (general
purpose) Thesauri Specialized/Technical
Glossary Literacy books Primers Style
Manuals Initial Literary Attempts
EACH OF THESE RELATES TO TECHNOLOGY TODAY.
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LINGUISTIC PLURALITY
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Truly plural world

• 1,576 rationalized mother-tongues
• 1,796 other mother-tongues
• 114 languages with 10,000speakers
• According to Ethnologue, the figure is 401.
• Tremendous variation Hindi with 33.72 crores to
  Maram with 10,144
• Large non-scheduled languages - Bhili 55.7
  Santali with 52.2 lakh speakers
• 146 speech varieties used in radio
• 69 languages in schools
• 35 languages newspapers and periodicals.

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Multilingualism a burden or an asset?

• India has always had a large number of languages.
• There have also been many language families.
• Language distances are great in both structure
  and function, i.e. in both grammar and use.
• There is a necessity to bind us together.
• Each one of our national languages acts as
  binding forces.

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There was No Breakdown in Communicationever in
India

• During the several centuries, our writers were in
  the process of constructing India as a nation.
• But this construction was possible not because of
  any one language.
• Just as Sanskrit bound us together because
  people from all corners contributed to enrich
  knowledge bases using Sanskrit as a medium,
  Prakrit gave us the much needed freedom to speak
  in peoples languages.
• Just as Sanskrit was important, so was Tamil
  literary tradition.
• There was freedom and joy all around in the
  matter of languages communi-cation options.

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POOR LITERACY IN LARGE AREAS

• Mainly Problems of TEACHING -
• MODE NON-INTERACTIVE
• MATERIALS CONVENTIONAL
• METHOD UNINTERESTING

SOLUTION? USE LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY
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PROMOTE ALL VARIETIES OF OUR LANGUAGES

• Each speech area has a rich variation, esp Hindi
  heartland.
• There is often a tendency to brush all varieties
  as if they do not exist.
• We do more harm to our major languages this way
  than help its cause.
• Encourage folklore, writing, plays and
  performances and cultural traits in each
  sub-community.
• Remember that English has grown as a world
  language not by strictly monopolized its style
  and standards but by liberalizing its use.
• Even while talking about ancient Indian
  literature which many of us confuse with only
  history of Sanskrit literature we find scholars
  like Winternitz commenting thus The history of
  Indian literaturenot only stretches across great
  periods of time and an enormous area, but is also
  one which is composed in many languages.

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Wide variation

• Although South Asian nations offer remarkable
  similarities in many respects that have to do
  with plurality of languages and cultures, they
  vary in a number of other ways.
• Take for instance, in density of population (and
  consequently, in Physical Quality of Life, I.e.
  PQLI ratings), in overall GNP, Per Capita Income,
  or in size.
• Since maps often do not tell us the complete
  story, lets briefly compare them in terms of
  other features.

31
(No Transcript)
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However, their standard of living differs,
because of population density
33
Economic might depends on overall country-wide
income. They differ on that count, too.
34
However, the common man in South Asia face more
or less the same predicament
http//www.ifpri.org/themes/sai.htm
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Patterns of Language Death

• Finally, I would like you to look at the patterns
  of language death, survival and revival in the
  South Asian context from a socio-linguistic
  angle.
• Interestingly, Sociolinguists show that the
  pattern of appearance disappearance is related
  to the game of language names or labels used.
• Language labels become important as there are
  different claimants of language status among
  dialects, speech varieties and pidgins.
• With disappearance of languages, other
  sociolinguistic items like registers, speech
  communities, texts and traditions may also
  disappear thru a set of complex processes.

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Language Loss in developing nations

• Theodore Wright compares a number of cases across
  the globe and shows that contradictory forces are
  at work.

• In some nations, former languages of power have
  lost to others, and hence are facing some kind of
  endangerment
• Manchu in China, Coptic in Egypt, Gaelic and
  Latin in the British Isles, Quechua in Peru,
  Arabic in Spain, German in Eastern Europe, Urdu
  in India.

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Cases where Colonial Languages won over

• They all lost the link with power as dynastic
  states or colonial powers were overthrown.
• But there are other cases where, even after
  political changes, former languages of power
  became even more successful.
• For example, Spanish and Portuguese in Latin
  America, Afrikaans in South Africa, or French in
  Canada, or English in many countries.

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The Politics of Language labels

• There are also instances like language revival,
  as it happened with Nepali.
• Or, campaign for rightful place for what was once
  a marginalized speech like Konkani.
• There are also cases of survival of a
  transplanted language community, such as
  Saurashtri Tamil.
• Many generations of settlers in Andaman Nicobar
  also retained their languages.

• The predicament of the planner is that every
  decade, many new language labels come up.
• Angika, Bajjika, or Galong are labels which went
  out of use recently.
• On the other hand, we have no dearth of new
  labels - Rajbanshi, Kokborok or Gorkhali.
• They are also new voices of stridency.

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Stories of Language Retention

• 1. South Asia is still unique in that languages
  are ratherretained here than be allowed to die.
•   2. Just as languages go out of use, or try to
  re-group and emerge as separate entities in their
  own right, there are also instances like the
  language revival, e.g. Gorkhali or Nepali.
• 3. This often happens after its neighbouring
  communities write them off as marginalised
  speech.
• 4. There are also instances of survival of a
  transplanted language community, such as
  Saurashtri Tamil, among the settlers from Gujarat
  in Tamil Nadu who retained their original
  linguistic patterns for 200 years.
• 5. Take the case of many generations of
  settlers in Andaman Nicobar from the mainlands
  who have also retained their languages.

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The Feature of Split Merger

• There are thus two opposite patterns of
  convergence and divergence working in the field
  of languages here.
• Languages split and new speech forms emerge
  finally giving rise to new languages.
• Mergers of language structures is often known as
  linguistic convergences.
• Thru it, dissimilar structurally divergent
  languages become more like one another.
• When it happens on social plane, unified
  varieties emerge like Sadari in Jharkhand.

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Asian Variation Human Genetics

• Speech variation in South Asia is closely related
  to genetic variation. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, a
  geneticist from Stanford correlated
  archaeological evidence as well as DNA markers,
  including mtDNA and Y chromosome. She and her
  colleagues suggest the following
• There are four major clusters in Asia Southeast
  Asians, East Asians (including Mongols and
  Siberian Uralic speakers), Northeast Asians
  (showing the greatest similarity to American
  Natives, their genetic neighbors), and a
  heterogeneous group of extra-European Caucasoids.
• South Asians to Iranians, Arabs, and other Middle
  Eastern groups fall in this last group.

Ref http//popgen.well.ox.ac.uk/eurasia/htdocs/ca
valli.html
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• The expansions of Indo-Europeans (Tocharians?)
  may have started around 3800 years ago.
• Perhaps 1000 years (or earlier), Indo-European
  speakers from the oases south of the Urals, north
  of the Black Sea and in western Kazakstan moved
  west-ward east-ward.
• They moved to the south, mixing with (presumably)
  Dravidian speakers of the region including Iran,
  India and Pakistan.

THE SOUTH ASIAN STOCK PATTERNS OF EXPANSION FROM
THE WEST TO THE ORIENT
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Defining South Asia as an entity

• Consider the genetic gradation of Asian people,
  and north-south division will become important.

Ref History and Geography of Human Genes by
Menozzi, Piazza and Cavalli-Sforza, Chapter 4
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Socio- linguistically, South Asia is still strung
together?

• Speech variation is the order, and cultural
  habits, rituals, and belief-systems show an equal
  extent of plurality.

• In a Times of Indias web-portal, Sandy Sundaram
  (April 16, 2003) in her Speaking Free,
  recollected the peculiar predicament of many
  multilingual Indians like herself

• Father was posted in the true Telugu districts
  it was but natural that we siblings spoke purest
  Telugu. Grandma, being a true Tamilian, made sure
  we also spoke Tamil, and tutors gave us the
  basics of English. Mother, being a very wise
  lady, engaged a Hindi tutor. To complicate
  matters, father went to Calicut and Mangalore,
  making us reasonably proficient in Kannada and
  Malayalam. This multi-lingual upbringing can be a
  boon and a curse.

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VARIATION IS NOT A NEW PHENOMENON

• After Independence 1961 and 1971 figures show193
  classified languages out of a total of 1,652
  mother tongue labels.
• 1961 and 1971 census figures of raw labels
  numbered 3,000.
• This jumped in 1981 to around 7,000
• It finally touched an all-time high of 10,000 in
  1991.
• Rationalization thus became a big challenge.

• Speech Variation in early surveys makes the
  picture of changing space of Indian languages
  clearer.
• The older demographic records like census returns
  of Bombay (1864), Madras Presidency (1871) and
  Bengal (1872) or Griersons LSI (1886-27) tell
  the same story.
• 179 languages and 544 dialects at the turn of
  20th century.

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SOUTH ASIA A COMPARATIVE CHART
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Standardization as a goal for Folk Languages

• Vernaculars require to get a uniform and
  consistent norm of writing that is widely
  accepted by its speakers (Haugen 1994 4340) for
  them to achieve standardization.
• They must also be legitimized as State
  languages (Williams 199224).
• They must provide planners with motivation for
  literacy as well as computerization (Le Page
  1992 120-38). That provides the connection with
  language technology.
• Such languages also need to be intellectualized
  (Garvin 1955).
• A combination of all these or some of these will
  provide occasion for others to admit these
  languages in the privileged club, as it were.
  

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Model of Secondary Standardization for Folk
Languages

• All developing countries have to resolve the
  problem of finding the appropriate model of folk
  language development.
• In Meta, 1994, I had proposed a dichotomy of
  Primary vs. Secondary Standardization applicable
  to developing countries.
• The point made there was that
  
• although primarily
  standardized
• languages usually had no
  model before
• them to imbibe, languages of
   today
• have  a number of models of
  primary
• development before them.
• These latter languages are described as having
  adopted a Secondary Standardization strategy.
• Obviously, when languages develop naturally, they
  take longer time to develop because of lack of
  planned interventions.
• Depending on degree of intervention by the
  planners, the secondarily standardized languages
  show a kind of cline or gradation.

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Types of Multilingual Societies Indigenous
Language Communities

• I would argue that the typology of multilingual
  contexts be viewed as a cline.
• At one extreme lies Type A-societies where
  'language' is almost anthromorphized.
• In some, language is a revered entity and is
  regarded almost like an object of worship.
• Here, language becomes a matter of passion for
  which the community is ready to make bigger
  sacrifices.
• The history of nation-building is often written
  after such sacrifices. Bangladesh is an ideal
  example of this type.
• However, since Bangla is spoken by 98 people
  there, the fate of 44 other folk languages are
  not known, nor documented. BRAC efforts are only
  begun now.

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The Other Extreme

• At the other extreme lie Type-Z communities that
  view 'language' as a tool.
• Some of them view it as a skill to perform some
  action the nature of which depend on exigencies
  such as
• (i) doing business,
• (ii) establishment of links,
• (iii) use of it as a medium of mass
  communication,
• (iv) for spending leisure-time, or
• (v) to use it as a utility like a library
  language, or language of religion, etc.
• No doubt - this is also an equally common and
  capable way of handling societal multilingualism.

• Such communities often use different 'tools' (or
  languages) for different purposes,
• They are often (but not necessarily so) unable to
  be charged enough to use language as an
  instrument of nation-building.
• Singapore with its four national language
  communities offer a picture that comes closer to
  this kind of postulation.
• Here we find a number of interesting strategies
  being used, including cultivation of new
  country-internal norms like Singlish, for
  instance.

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More about the Cline A Little about the
Development Model

• Surely, one could point out a number of
  situations from multilingual communities around
  the world to push the point further and plot them
  on a cline to show that this typology does not
  offer all-or-none mutually exclusive baskets as
  was often assumed in earlier typologies.
• I would suggest that many of these possible
  types show an overlap of features from
  neighboring types.
• Thus, they together present a cascade that poses
  an interesting challenge for language planning
  agencies.
• I would like to argue that language planning
  models have to eclectic and pluralistic to
  accommodate these differences. To the extent this
  is needed, it draws from the pluralistic paradigm
  as presented in Singh (1992 Language Development
  and Planning A Pluralistic Paradigm. Shimla
  IIAS).