A large number of unwritten languages in South-Asia are indeed preserved in the form of Oral Tradition. This oral tradition is robust in South-Asia. It has survived many thousands of years, serving as the sole vehicle of information transfer to culture, philosophy, human relations, social history, and evolving civilization.
However, a popular statement about ‘literacy and illiteracy’ in connection to mother-tongue, to many extend, fails to correspond to the reader’s view. It has been stated that “Illiteracy does not kill, it is not a disease, but literacy means crossing the boundary of mother tongue, which leads to endangerment of mother tongue.” However, I disagree with it and rather consider literacy an important system that acts as a “Storehouse of Mother-Tongues, thereby Safeguarding Linguistic Diversity.”
Without proper literacy, not all, but few languages will soon disappear. Sanskrit, which was once a mother tongue for many but has least speakers today, has survived in the present times because of contributions from those extreme literates. Sanskrit is given a platform through massive records of existence in texts and manuscripts, which couldn’t have been expected from illiterate groups.
If I consider India's situation, literacy has increased up to 74.04%, with the state of Kerala experiencing the highest literacy rate. But this does not make people in Kerala cross the boundary of mother-tongue. In fact, people over Southern parts of India have revealed their inability to fluently speak even ‘Hindi’ (the widely spoken language in the country) with few percentages of adults speaking it, thereby sticking more to their mother tongues like Malayalam over Kerala and others include Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, etc., with equal importance to the English Language.
This makes a clear-cut understanding that increases in literacy will make people more sensitive about their identity and its related inheritance. The concept of “globalization” may excite the literate ones, but not too extreme, which would let them give up their legacy, at least in terms of using “Mother-Tongues.” It is definitely true that “illiterate ones” may keep the oral tradition of mother tongues intact. Still, oral languages are not in a codified format, rather written tradition of any language is a proper preserver of the same, which would come from none other than “Literate Groups.”
Economic progress through globalization comes at the cost of gross neglect of small languages and its knowledge. The other reality reveals that language is a gift to globalization, as language plays an essential medium to communicate across one’s culture. So, language becomes the very lifeline of globalization. But there are certain threats of globalization to languages, especially mother tongues-
- Dialects and regional languages are becoming more marginalized as they succumb to languages such as English that wield greater perceived social and economic value.
- With the ease of communication through digital means such as email, SMS, chats, etc., grammar has been taken for granted, developing informal styles. To say, good writing is gradually becoming a lost art.
- Globalization can eradicate regional linguistic diversity and lead to a homogenized culture. And uniformity kills. At the same time, diversity adds spice to one’s existence.
To respect, protect, and nurture the nation's diversity is the prime responsibility of every citizen so that unity is ensured. Multilingual education should be acknowledged in education and administrative systems. Thus, this collective awareness can create more sensitivity and empathy towards linguistic differences and play an important role in unifying the country against cultural oppression and social inequalities.
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