Tongueage

If we expose ourself to any language we learn it. An illiterate beggar on the road is more likely to surprise us with a turn of phrase which a scholar may not. It is the same reason why an ordinary German may know fluent German than a foreign scholar of the same language. It is because language thrives on the open streets, not in closed biblioteques. 

Why we accept the elitist opinions on the beauty of language is beyond me. A workable grammar, proper syntax & a reasonable vocabulary are the survival kit of any language. What gives language its vitality is its easy use with the purpose of carrying a thought across and not ornamental doodah! It is not what the 'Shastrys' of language claim and whose advise is taken by the Goverments in their official documents, circulars, etc. It is not a living language but a pile of dead bodies of words, put together to sound officious only to be, more likely, misunderstood. On Indian railway platforms you read notices with words like " नि:शुल्क" for instance. Most people who travel are not pundits or poets or logophiles. They are ordinary people in a hurry to catch the next train to their destination. Platform notices and other public notifications should serve as tools for easy communication & not impress with some idiotically inflated word which not all are likely to understand. It is because such words are not prevalent or even in day-to-day use. 

Poets, especially Mir Taqi Mir, who is called "ख़ुदा-ए-सुख़न" (God of poetry) used commonplace words in some of his most celebrated couplets. 

"सिरहाने 'मीर' के कोई न बोलो

अभी टुक रोते रोते सो गया है"

See that word 'TuK'. It is vernacular and it is that word which has made the shér famous! 

Javed Akhtar has told of his father, the celebrated Janisar Akhtar, telling him that is is easy to write with difficult words but difficult to write with easy. 

This fallacy seems to be universal. Pakistan made Urdu the national language but Pakistanis are obsessed with the exercise of infusing Persian and Arabic words in their Urdu. Just listen to the new field marshal Munir speaking at public meetings! His lips swear by Pakistan but his rooh, soul, seems to crave to fly out of his body and hover over the Arabian skies! 

I recently watched Dr. Arfa Syeda Zehra in a video saying that now-a-days Pakistanis are making Urdu more & more Farsi. (Rather farcical, methinks! ) 

Similarly, Ashok Vajpeyi, admittedly very eloquent and learned, uses Hindi in a manner that may be understood by only the educated elite from the Hindi belt. Sanskritisation of prakrit (which means unrefined! ) to me seems to fail in recognizing the very raison d'être of the natural reasons why a khadi-boli stood shoulder to shoulder with the classical languages. Tamil, debatably the only old-world language which has evolved through centuries with a regular maintainance of her vitality, has successfully retained her quality because it admits the seepage between the use of language in the various sections of her populace. There is a give and take. It is this barter, the natural exchange without imposition, which makes a tongue thrive. 

Some learned fellow in the aechelons of the ruling party has the wish to unify Indian subcontinent with one language and he feels it should be Hindi. The people, the end-users of language do not feel comfortable with this proposal. I am with the sentiment of the people. #Tamil Nadu for one, should NOT accept this proposal. So also west #Bengal, Assam and other states with literature comparable to the best in the world. If the nation wants to unite on the basis of one language then the nation must decide, the people should decide, not some official with his private, hidden agenda. RSS is trying to revive Sanskrit. With all due respect to its pliant, rigid classisism and the elitist aura, sanskrit will not regerminate in modern climate. We have only to go into the reasons why such a great language dwindled in the first place in a nation with such diversity as India. Diversity cannot, by definition, admit uniformality. Diversity must remain; it must be prioritized because it is more adaptive to vitality within its elements. For instance in a rose garden not all roses are of the same subspecies. We have red, yellow, white, blue, magenta,crimson, scarlet, salmon and even the rare black roses on display. Imagine a rose garden with one hybrid tea rose spread across furlongs. It may look fine but it may not have the sense in which Gertrude Stein said, "a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose..."In this context Stein's line seems apt because a rose cannot be merely representational.  Seeing one rose is not enough to experience the essence of rose yet a rose in any shape and colour and fragrance is a rose. So it is this rose and that rose together gives you the broad picture of rose. That must be understood. A forest has more vitality than a laid out jardine. It needs maintaining. A forest, on the other hand, is best maintained if left to its own resources. 

The values which hitherto fore held things together are collapsing. Perhaps, letting go of the old is advisable to usher in the new, but right now the chaos makes deciding difficult. 🌹