To start the new year, I thought I'd focus on a very linguistic issue.
At the wedding I attended a few weeks ago, I had a long conversation with a guy who remained convinced that the Nagas needed both a common 'Naga' language, as well as their own unique script.
-What about Nagamese? People from all different tribes and language backgrounds already speak it.
-But it's not Naga. It's from Assamese.
He was right - the local lingua franca Nagamese is largely based on Assamese, with a fair bit of Hindi and Bengali vocabulary thrown in, and hardly any input from individual 'Naga' languages. But the suggestion that all Nagas needed a common 'Naga' language (and script to boot) seemed to me a tad ridiculous.
From a practical perspective, creating a 'new language' from scratch is a massive feat. Which languages do we draw from? And how much should the new language draw on each existing Naga language? 20% Angami, 20% Sumi, 20% Ao... ? Or should we choose a particular language / dialect and base our new language on that, the way Standard Mandarin was based to some extent on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, or Bahasa Indonesia was based on a dialect of Malay from Sumatra?
Then, how do we go about implementing the -for what of a better word- imposition of this new language on the inhabitants of the state? China managed to impose Mandarin across the country, while Indonesia did the same with Bahasa. Both required considerable resources and a concerted national effort. Nagaland currently has official and unofficial governments and corruption drains away most of the money being channelled into the state by the Government of India.
Also, how would people feel about having another language imposed on them? Most education is already conducted in English, with compulsory Hindi in most schools. Add that to the home language and Nagamese (if Nagamese isn't already the language of the home). Do we really need another language?
But hang on, we also need to create an indigenous script to accompany this new language too.
-What's wrong with the Latin alphabet?
-It's not ours. It can't represent the sounds of the languages here.
Well the Latin alphabet wasn't made to write English either. But somehow English, and other completely unrelated languages like Swahili and Bahasa Indonesia have managed to adopt the same script to represent their respective sounds. Letters can be added and removed, depending on the language's needs. The same letter may be used in two different writing systems to represent different sounds, like 'x' in English usually represents the sounds [ks], while 'x' in Sumi represents the voiceless velar fricative [x].
As with implementing a new language, introducing a new script would require considerable resources. But again, people already have to learn to read English (and Hindi) - do they really need another script to learn? Furthermore, it'll be used to write a language that no one currently speaks!
Looking at the bigger picture, what is the point of having a common 'Naga' language and a unique script? Undoubtedly, the perceived need for these is motivated largely by political and ideological factors, not practical ones. After all, having a common indigenous language is one way of asserting a 'Naga' identity, in contrast to an 'Indian' one. Similarly, an indigenous script is seen as necessary to being a 'real' language when viewed within a larger 'Indian' discourse, given that individual languages across the subcontinent like Bengali, Kannada and Tamil usually come with their own scripts. (European languages that use the Latin script aren't judged along this criterion though.)
This person I spoke to also believed that speaking one language would help unite the Nagas. There are people around the world who believe that if we all spoke one language, there would be less conflict. China and Indonesia had national language policies designed to create a sense of unity their respective countries.
But does speaking the same language reduce conflict? As important as language is in the creation of identity, it's still just one component - other differences may still arise within the same speech community.
For instance, one thing I've noticed is that there are very few dialectal differences in Sumi (with the exception of speakers from the Pughoboto area), so that people from across Zunheboto district as well as those in Dimapur and Kohima, are able to communicate with each other in Sumi. In contrast, Angami speakers from neighbouring villages sometimes have to converse with each other in Nagamese because they speak such different 'dialects' of Angami. I was told that this was the case for Angami speakers from Bara Bosti in Kohima when they meet people from nearby Jotsoma village.
But despite this 'linguistic unity' of the Sumis, it hasn't prevented the interfactional violence we've seen this past week around Zunheboto town between NSCN (K) and Unification.
So would one language unite all Nagas? I seriously doubt it.
At the wedding I attended a few weeks ago, I had a long conversation with a guy who remained convinced that the Nagas needed both a common 'Naga' language, as well as their own unique script.
-What about Nagamese? People from all different tribes and language backgrounds already speak it.
-But it's not Naga. It's from Assamese.
He was right - the local lingua franca Nagamese is largely based on Assamese, with a fair bit of Hindi and Bengali vocabulary thrown in, and hardly any input from individual 'Naga' languages. But the suggestion that all Nagas needed a common 'Naga' language (and script to boot) seemed to me a tad ridiculous.
From a practical perspective, creating a 'new language' from scratch is a massive feat. Which languages do we draw from? And how much should the new language draw on each existing Naga language? 20% Angami, 20% Sumi, 20% Ao... ? Or should we choose a particular language / dialect and base our new language on that, the way Standard Mandarin was based to some extent on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, or Bahasa Indonesia was based on a dialect of Malay from Sumatra?
Then, how do we go about implementing the -for what of a better word- imposition of this new language on the inhabitants of the state? China managed to impose Mandarin across the country, while Indonesia did the same with Bahasa. Both required considerable resources and a concerted national effort. Nagaland currently has official and unofficial governments and corruption drains away most of the money being channelled into the state by the Government of India.
Also, how would people feel about having another language imposed on them? Most education is already conducted in English, with compulsory Hindi in most schools. Add that to the home language and Nagamese (if Nagamese isn't already the language of the home). Do we really need another language?
But hang on, we also need to create an indigenous script to accompany this new language too.
-What's wrong with the Latin alphabet?
-It's not ours. It can't represent the sounds of the languages here.
Well the Latin alphabet wasn't made to write English either. But somehow English, and other completely unrelated languages like Swahili and Bahasa Indonesia have managed to adopt the same script to represent their respective sounds. Letters can be added and removed, depending on the language's needs. The same letter may be used in two different writing systems to represent different sounds, like 'x' in English usually represents the sounds [ks], while 'x' in Sumi represents the voiceless velar fricative [x].
As with implementing a new language, introducing a new script would require considerable resources. But again, people already have to learn to read English (and Hindi) - do they really need another script to learn? Furthermore, it'll be used to write a language that no one currently speaks!
Looking at the bigger picture, what is the point of having a common 'Naga' language and a unique script? Undoubtedly, the perceived need for these is motivated largely by political and ideological factors, not practical ones. After all, having a common indigenous language is one way of asserting a 'Naga' identity, in contrast to an 'Indian' one. Similarly, an indigenous script is seen as necessary to being a 'real' language when viewed within a larger 'Indian' discourse, given that individual languages across the subcontinent like Bengali, Kannada and Tamil usually come with their own scripts. (European languages that use the Latin script aren't judged along this criterion though.)
This person I spoke to also believed that speaking one language would help unite the Nagas. There are people around the world who believe that if we all spoke one language, there would be less conflict. China and Indonesia had national language policies designed to create a sense of unity their respective countries.
But does speaking the same language reduce conflict? As important as language is in the creation of identity, it's still just one component - other differences may still arise within the same speech community.
For instance, one thing I've noticed is that there are very few dialectal differences in Sumi (with the exception of speakers from the Pughoboto area), so that people from across Zunheboto district as well as those in Dimapur and Kohima, are able to communicate with each other in Sumi. In contrast, Angami speakers from neighbouring villages sometimes have to converse with each other in Nagamese because they speak such different 'dialects' of Angami. I was told that this was the case for Angami speakers from Bara Bosti in Kohima when they meet people from nearby Jotsoma village.
But despite this 'linguistic unity' of the Sumis, it hasn't prevented the interfactional violence we've seen this past week around Zunheboto town between NSCN (K) and Unification.
So would one language unite all Nagas? I seriously doubt it.
I agree with you that one language will not being about unity, may be just linguistic unity.
ReplyDeleteA new language from scratch? Phew...that'd be impossible eh?
Focus on English, Hindi and Nagamese for mass communication? Better. I think.
Regards,
http://nokik.blogspot.com
bbc.co.uk recently did a (rather ridiculous) article about what the world would be like 100 years from now. One of the items was 'English would be spelled phonetically', which I thought was cute. The other more important prediction was that English, Mandarin and Spanish would be the only languages left. I reeeeally think that's a stretch. Language is as much a cultural identity as the food, the customs and beliefs or the clothing. Given much of that changes with globalisation but I don't think whole cultures will give up their languages and just let them vanish. That would be absolutely tragic! (Article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16536598 but it's rather depressing so don't bother if you're in a chocolate & blanket mood).
ReplyDeleteAs far as a unique script goes, I agree that the Latin alphabet could probably cover it. Sure, a unique script would be pretty and interesting, but it really does hinder outsiders learning the language & thus hinders the language from growing and spreading. In Swedish the ä, å and ö are enough to add the sounds that don't exist in english, similarly in Turkish, umlauts are used to excess, and the addition of the ı to add the changeable vowels works well, so it's not hard to simply extend what is already in use...
Now I've written an essay though ... my apologies. X)
J