Goals and Strategies of Development of Indian Languages (An Old Book)

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Foreword

The Central Institute of Indian Languages was established on July 17, 1969 to help evolve and implement the language policy of the Government of India and coordinate the development of the Indian languages so that they could grow rapidly in richness and become effective means of communicating modern knowledge. The Institute serves as nucleus to bring together all the research and literary output of the various linguistic streams to a common head thereby demonstrating the underlying oneness of our country. The research activities of the Institute are for the use and development of Indian languages in education, administration and mass communication. After independence some of the Indian languages are given the status of official languages in respective States which enable them to develop and use in education, administration, mass communication, judiciary, legislation, science and technology etc.

In order to provide a comprehensive account of the development of these Indian languages, the Central Institute of Indian Languages conducted a seminar on "Goals and Strategies of Development of Indian Languages". The present volume is the revised version of the papers presented in the above seminar by the scholars specialised in the area of language planning and State officials who are directly involved in the implementation of official language policies and its developmental projects. We hope that this volume will be a valuable reference to provide adequate information of different stages of development and strategies by different States for the development of these languages.

INTRODUCTION

The Central Institute of Indian Languages held a seminar on Goals and Strategies of Development of Indian Languages with a view to provide a critical and comprehensive account of one of the most crucial areas of Language Planning in India. | The Official Language Policy of the Union as well as of the States and Union Territories emphasize that the Indian languages should be used in the public domains and hence should attain the capability in terms of technical and scientific terminologies, registers, styles and standardisation of variations. In order to achieve these capabilities there have been considerable efforts on the part of Union as well as the State Governments. Every State has created infrastructure in terms of institutions for preparation of technical and scientific terminology, textbooks, manuals and translations. However, even after four decades of planning and developmental work, achievement is not upto expected level. The low achievement of goals set by Official Language’Policy makers could be attributed to various factors. Some of them could be the following.

‘ The planning for development of one language has been done in isolation of other languages which may not be suitable for a multilingual Situation. For example, as suggested by the Planning Commission, development of Hindi is to be achieved by assimilating the forms, styles and expressions from other Indian languages. However, in actual practice this aspect has been neglected. Also, while planning for the development of regional languages of the States, aspects of development of minority languages of the States as well as enrichment of the State Official Language by assimilating forms of the minority languages and dialects has been ignored.

Secondly, the planning for development of languages is done in isolation of economic, social and technological development. For example, economic development in terms of various policies like liberalization, demands knowledge f English while State policies emphasise the use of Indian languages for the greater social mobility across States is not taken care of in the planning for development of Indian languages.

Thirdly, the planning for the development of languages is done in isolation of domains of language use. There is. lack of coordination between the domains like education, administration and judiciary. For example, education system which produces administrators lacks a course on administrative language or a judge who undergoes legal training in English lacks training in the use of technical terminologies in Indian languages and to deliver judgement in Indian languages.

Fourthly, the planning for the development of language is done in - isolation of users which has resulted in the mismatch between the products and their users. This mismatch is reflected in both use of materials and the training programmes. The materials are not transferred into active use and the training programmes for learning languages and using it in administration ended up in officials knowing language but not using it in their actual work.

In view of slow and skewed development of Indian languages, it becomes essential to redefine the concept of development of language and review the strategies adopted by planners for the development of Indian languages. Therefore, the seminar was organised which focused on the following themes:-

1. Concept of development of language.

2. Review of development of Indian languages.

3. Strategies for development of Indian languages.

4. Creation of terminologies and other reference matcrials.

5. Implementation of Official Language Policy of the States.

The first theme, ‘The Concept of Development of Language’ has been discussed in four articles where the emphasis has been on the development of language in multilingual context. Annamalai looks at development as change in direction from one kind of development to another rather than change from a stage of under development to a stage of development. He also describes models and methods to be followed which would help to meet the challenges faced by Indian languages to reflect the aspirations of common people and take over the role played by the colonial language. Halemane elaborates the issue of the role played by Indian languages as the voice of common people and states that the real success of the people’s participation is ensured only when the language form accounts for people’s diction and terminology. Pattanayak argues in favour of a cyclical and flexible approach for development of languages of the developing world as opposed to the linear and binary approach of the West, which will help for the survival of the world with diversity of languages, ethnicities and values. Dahake supports the cyclical nature of development and views development as both the act of developing and the resultant state of development. He further emphasizes that the co-existence of distinct languages and both oral and written traditions should be part of planning for development of Indian languages.

**Contents and Sample Pages**