Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0167/01672.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 19KB | 296 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01672}
$Pretitle{221}
$Title{India
Chapter 4B.   The Social Context of Language}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{P. A. Kluck}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{english
language
regional
linguistic
even
languages
speech
social
state
telugu}
$Date{1985}
$Log{}
Country:     India
Book:        India, A Country Study
Author:      P. A. Kluck
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1985

Chapter 4B.   The Social Context of Language

     Listing the names and relationships among the great language families and
tracing the evolution of contemporary standard forms tend to give the
misleading impression that the speech forms associated with major
linguistic designations play a major role in the daily life of the average
Indian. In fact, however, standard tongues, such as Hindi or Bengali,
represent merely one aspect of a complex and subtle linguistic pattern.
India's languages, far more than those in most other countries, exist in a
series of complementary and overlapping levels mirroring the complex
levels of social hierarchy and caste interaction.

     Even as printing and modern communications have favored the development
of standardized regional tongues, these continue to coexist with myriad
village dialects. The distinctions between the numerous levels of language
are by no means clear and fixed; there is neither scholarly nor official
consensus. Village speech is understood by neighbors from surrounding hamlets,
and change-in the form of a dialect that is unintelligible-is apparent to the
villager only as he or she travels farther afield. There is a saying that
language changes every 60 to 80 kilometers; villagers themselves often do not
even name their own tongue, being content simply to believe that it is the
correct way of speaking. The names of dialects are often devised only by
neighboring villagers and often are anything but complimentary.

     The Indo-Aryan languages in South Asian villages form a vast continuum
stretching across the northern part of the subcontinent. At any point
neighboring dialects are mutually intelligible, and forms from some distance
are not. The relationship between distance and mutual intelligibility holds
not only within the Indo-Aryan belt but at its fringes as well. Because
vocabulary in many Dravidian languages was heavily influenced by Sanskrit,
Dravidian and Indo-Aryan speakers from nearby regions may understand much of
one another's speech, while two Hindi speakers from distant villages find
communication difficult. At marketing or administrative centers, people are
normally conversant in another level of language; the dialect of the town or
city serves as the language of trade between townspeople and visiting
villagers.

     Regional languages exist at another level still removed from the others;
they also exist in a variety of written and spoken forms, each with its own
complex history. Some of the forms of regional language may be unknown to
most villagers and even many city dwellers. Typically, it is the urban
intelligentsia who are conversant in a regional tongue; their commitment to
it is frequently a matter of rising ethnic-regional consciousness with broad
sociopolitical overtones. The standard regional language may be the native
tongue of only a small group of educated inhabitants of the region's major
urban center. Often the predominant regional tongue is associated with a
city that has long exercised politico-economic hegemony in a region. Even
literate villagers may have difficulty understanding it.

     Any given individual has a repertoire of languages, dialects, and styles
of speech that he or she may use, depending on the appropriate context. On
the basis of their social status, individuals differ in the speech forms they
have available. The more socially isolated-women and untouchables-tend to be
more parochial in their speech than higher caste men, who are often able to
use a colloquial form of the regional dialect, the caste patois, and the
regional standard dialect.

     The basic realities of social life feed into the complexity of language
usage. Society is hierarchical, and interaction always reflects the relative
statuses of those involved; these facts are reflected in the plethora of
speech forms designed for specific social situations. Social life is
compartmentalized into separate spheres, each with its appropriate behavior
and speech. In this sense the numerous regional and caste dialects persist
because the social reality they reflect and legitimize also persists.

     As a result, there are a large number of speech forms symbolizing either
membership in certain specific and circumscribed groups or interaction between
groups or individuals in certain contexts. In villages, for example,
differences in pronounciation, grammar, and word choice often mark the various
caste groups. The differences are not great enough to prevent members of
various castes from understanding one another, but they do serve to mark the
speaker as a member of a specific jati. The major split in North India is
generally between the touchable and untouchable castes. In South India there
is a three-way split among Brahmans, other touchable castes, and untouchables.
Beyond intercaste differences in language, most village castes use their own
formal and informal varieties, depending on the social setting. Also, there
are varieties, that only local jati members use in addressing one another.
Malayalam, for example, has separate terms for the word house, depending on
the status of the house occupants.

     Traditional speech has always had an elaborate vocabulary to reflect the
relative status of the speakers. Language has always reflected the enduring
social realities of South Asia. In traditional dramas, for example, women
and low-status individuals spoke a Prakrit, while the main characters spoke
Sanskrit. Scholars note that more recent changes are related to mass
communication and education. Educated and illiterate persons identify
themselves according to their speech patterns. In contemporary India,
however, the traditional social dialects are giving way to a more
straightforward distinction based on the speaker's educational background.
Among Telugu speakers, for example, linguists note a dichotomy in speech forms
between illiterate monolinguals and educated persons that transcends caste
or regional origin. The speech of the uneducated lacks the phonemes and
vocabulary borrowed from Sanskrit and English. The distinction is the more
telling because the phonemes can be mastered only with great effort. At the
same time, standard dialects that are used in university education are
expanding their technical vocabularies at a fast rate. Mass communication,
too, has facilitated the spread of standard dialects.

     An educated person may master several different speech forms that are
often so different as to be considered separate languages. Western-educated
scholars may well use the regional standard language mixed with English
vocabulary with their colleagues at work. At home a man may switch to a more
colloquial vernacular, particularly if his wife is uneducated. Even the
highly educated frequently communicate in their village dialects on returning
home.

     India's linguistic diversity has fostered considerable bilingualism,
although precisely how many Indians are competent in more than one language
and what those languages are remains the subject of debate. Relatively few
Indians are truly fluent in both English and an Indian language. Perforce,
a substantial minority are able to speak two Indian languages; even in the
so-called linguistic states, there are minorities who do not speak the
official language as their native tongue and must therefore learn it as a
second language. Many tribal people are bilingual. Rural-urban migrants are
frequently bilingual in the regional standard language as well as in their
village dialect. In Bombay, for example, many migrants speak Hindi or
Marathi in addition to their native tongue. Bi