Who needs English ?

[Kalyan]

Who needs English?

Most of the editorials and articles that have appeared in English language newspapers on the Samajwadi Party's promise to ban English and the computer seem to have been written with a vitriolic pen. Mulayam Singh Yadav has been accused of trying to push the country back into the medieval age in order to shore up his electoral prospects.

Even Amartya Sen has joined the bandwagon condemning the proposal as regressive. Though Singh's opposition to the computer is not grounded in reality – as the march of technology is unstoppable – the opposition to English merits serious consideration.

    Language is not just a means of communication, but is inextricably intertwined with the cultural ethos and identity of a society. There is no harm in learning English or any other foreign language as a window to the world, but it should not be at the cost of one's own language. If the world has shrunk into a global village, it does not mean that only one language should survive and the rest should die. But, unfortunately, many languages are under threat.

Min Bista, the representative of UNESCO, in the forum '2008 International Language Year & the 9th International Native Language Day' voiced his concern, and said, "At least 3,000 languages out of more than 6,000 in the world are on the verge of disappearance. It is predicted that by the year 2050, 90 per cent of human languages will disappear from the earth." He added that disadvantaged native languages are being adversely impacted by advantaged languages, internet and globalisation.

    If this trend continues, the world would be robbed of its diversity.

The UN has registered more than 6,000 languages but half of these languages are spoken by less than 10,000 persons, and one-fourth of them by less than 1,000 persons.

UNESCO has listed 196 languages of India as endangered. India, a nation with great linguistic diversity, tops UNESCO's list of countries having the maximum number of dialects on the verge of extinction. These facts have been compiled in the UNESCO's latest Atlas of World's Languages in Danger of Disappearing. The atlas classifies around 2,500 of the 6,000 languages of the world as endangered – 538 critically endangered, 502 severely endangered, 632 definitely endangered and 607 unsafe.

    According to the report, nearly 200 languages have fewer than 10 speakers and 178 others have  between 10 and 50 speakers and over 200 languages used in the world have died out over the last three generations.

"The death of a language leads to the disappearance of many forms of intangible cultural heritage, especially the invaluable heritage of traditions and oral expressions of the community that spoke it," UNESCO director-general Koichiro Matsuura said while unveiling the report.

    There is an attempt to foist English, a language of the elites, on the masses in the name of it being a link language. Even a section of Dalits and OBCs are now convinced that English is the only gateway to success. There is a great misconception that English is the only language of wisdom and a golden passport to success. Indian culture and language spread throughout the world when English was not even heard of in this region.

    Those who talk about the progress of countries like Germany, Japan and China forget that they progressed without learning English. When the Europeans started occupying Japan, initially the Japanese resisted but failed. Then they realised that the Europeans had superior technology and arms.

So they decided to upgrade their technology. When any Portuguese or Dutch ship docked at a Japanese port in the 17th century, the Japanese acquired from those ships whatever books they had on board. Then these books were translated and circulated for mass reading and the Japanese gained information from overseas. But Japan also preserved its own language. Language is what nourishes civilisations. Just to be able to march to the connected world's beat, we cannot afford to privilege English over our native tongues.


courtesy : Sudhanshu Ranjan
source : times of india

[Shiny768]

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and of the United States since the late 19th century, it has become the lingua franca in many parts of the world.

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Learning Software

[pradeep prem]

now a days English can be used for basic
this should be known easily to all work