Language is a tool for intellectual and emotional expression. Language is a vehicle for the transmission of culture, scientific knowledge and a worldview across generations. It is the vital, unseen thread that links the past with the present. We must emphasis the importance of protecting and conserving our linguistic heritage. Our languages are a crucial part of our history, our culture and our evolution as a society.
Ours is a multilingual country where more than 19,500 languages or dialects are spoken. However, almost 97 per cent of the population speaks one of the 22 scheduled languages. Modern Indian languages have ancient roots and are derived in some way from the classical languages. There is a rich literary tradition in many languages, especially the ones recognised as classical languages by the Government of India. Sanskrit, of course, is one of the oldest Indo-European languages, dating back to the second millennium BC. Indologist William Jones said in 1786: “The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar.”
Ganesh N Devy (Cultural Activist), who documented 780 Indian languages while conducting the People’s Linguistic Survey of India in 2010, also, shockingly, found that 600 of these languages were dying. He added that more than 250 languages have disappeared in the past 60 years.
When a language dies, “a unique way of looking at the world disappears”.
4,000 of the world's 6,000 languages face a potential threat of extinction, out of which 10 per cent is spoken in India, In other words, 400 Indian languages out of our total 780 languages may get extinct. According to the UN Human Rights four in every ten indigenious languages across the world may disappear or die.
According to UNESCO, any language that is spoken by less than 10,000 people is potentially endangered. In India, after the 1971 census, the government decided that any language spoken by less than 10,000 people need not be included in the official list of languages. In India, therefore, all the languages that are spoken by less than 10,000 people are treated by the state as not worthy of mention and treated by the UNESCO as potentially endangered.
India has around 196 endangered languages, including about 80 in the Northeast, according to the Unesco Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger 2009.
Examples of such languages would be Wadari, Kolhati, Golla, Gisari. These are languages of nomadic people in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana. Then there several tribal languages as well, such as Pauri, Korku, Haldi, Mavchi. In Assam, there is Moran, Tangsa, Aiton. As we discussed above that more than 250 languages have disappeared in the past 60 years. There used to be languages called Adhuni, Dichi, Ghallu, Helgo, Katagi. The Bo language in Andaman disappeared in 2010 and the Majhi language in Sikkim disappeared in 2015. But we need to remember that it is impossible to show a language dying in the last moment of its life. A language is not a single life system. It is a very large symbolic system. When the symbols collapse they do not do so in a single moment. The collapse is sprayed over a large time.
Table of the number of endangered languages with the states that they are spoken in according to INDIA TODAY.
| Indian states | No. of languages | Endangered Languages |
| Andaman and Nicobar Islands | 11 | Great Andamanese, Jarawa, Lamongse, Luro, Muot, Onge, Pu, Sanenyo, Sentilese, Shompen and Takahanyilang |
| Manipur | 7 | Aimol, Aka, Koiren, Lamgang, Langrong, Purum and Tarao |
| Himachal Pradesh | 4 | Baghati, Handuri, Pangvali and Sirmaudi |
| Odisha | 3 | Manda, Parji and Pengo |
| Karnataka | 2 | Koraga and Kuruba |
| Andhra Pradesh | 2 | Gadaba and Naiki |
| Tamil Nadu | 2 | Kota and Toda |
| Arunachal Pradesh | 2 | Mra and Na |
| Assam | 2 | Tai Nora and Tai Rong |
| Uttarakhand | 1 | Bangani |
| Jharkhand | 1 | Birhor |
| Maharashtra | 1 | Nihali |
| Meghalaya | 1 | Ruga |
| West Bengal | 1 | Toto |
Last year, An Indian language went extinct with the death of an 85-year-old in the Andamans, while one apparently extinct tongue was rediscovered as being still spoken by about 1,000 people in a corner of Arunachal Pradesh.
“Koro, a tongue apparently new to the world and which is spoken by just 800 to 1,200 people, could soon face extinction as younger speakers abandon it for more widely used Hindi or English.”
In the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Onge is spoken only by 96 people and Shompen by about 200.
Few days later, Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu released a book titled Tangams: An Ethnolinguistic Study Of The Critically Endangered Group of Arunachal Pradesh. “Language loss is the reason for cultural erosion,” CM Khandu had said, emphasising how the book will help the future generations of the Tangam community, which has reportedly 253 speakers concentrated in one small hamlet of Arunachal Pradesh.
Why are the languages at risk?
There are a few major reasons for this. One is that some languages as against other alternate languages in the area gain popularity because of an easier syntax.
Secondly, the social dominance by any group leads to the language of that group becoming more popular in that society. For instance, Sanskrit became popular in ancient India because of social domination by speakers of Sanskrit. Or English has become popular because of the colonial rule.
Thirdly, certain languages face the threat of extinction as they are not used as mediums of instruction in educational institutions, government transactions and the media.
How do we conserve a dying language?
1. We need to create livelihood support for the speakers of the language. If they have livelihood available within their language, nobody would want to switch from their language to any other language.
2. Another suggestion is to introduce these languages in primary schools in areas where they are spoken.
3. The proposed language departments in central universities can set up libraries or museums with audio and video material showing the oral traditions of these languages. Such documentation is expected to help preserve these tongues, and the audiotapes could be used as teaching tools within the communities.
4. The best way to keep a language alive was to prepare instructional material in that language and make it part of studies. For dialects that do not have scripts, then any other Indian scripts may be used when writing.
Conclusion
In every manner without any exception, the language we learn or use is the absolute condition of our narrative of the world and the way we see the world. There is no escape from it. A given language only has a certain kind of ability to narrate the world and the consciousness can enter the world only to the extent that languages can allow it to enter the reality surrounding it. If a language has seven terms for distributing colours, then the speaker of the language will see the world only in those colours. But if there is another language which has more colour terms, then the distribution of the world is more multicoloured. For instance, in Marathi, there is a colour term called Kirmizi that cannot be translated into any English term at all. It is brownish, greenish, bluish, it’s almost like the colour combination we see in a firefly. It is impossible to replicate that perception in the English language. But in the English language, we have navy blue or sky blue and many other languages might not have the exact colour term that translates the same. This is how language allows or disallows us in interpreting the world.
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