Extinction of a Language is not merely phrases and letters lost in the mists of time, but a form of cultural suicide as with a language gone, mankind loses out on great skills, learnings, wisdom, ideas, innovations, artistry, and first-hand ancestral experiences and inventions. In a remarkable development, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted a resolution on multilingualism. The resolution promoted the UN’s Department of Global Communications to use both official and non-official languages, including Bangla, Hindi, and Urdu, in its communications.
This could become a reality given India’s efforts since 2018 to get these languages to have a stature that they deserve, putting special focus on the use of Hindi at the United Nations. “Hindi @ UN’ project was launched in 2018 with an objective to enhance the public outreach of the United Nations in the Hindi language, and to spread greater awareness about global issues among millions of Hindi-speaking populations around the world,” said India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador TS Tirumurti.
Language is the most potent and important invention of ingenious mankind. Languages are the tool to code the stories of human endeavours evolving over edges and are the best source of scientific and practical knowledge, wisdom, values and awareness of surroundings. The diversity of languages around the globe beautifully signify the versatility, uniqueness and robustness of human societies. India is blessed with a heritage which nurtures diversity and its languages.
Diversity is what defines nature and human diversity leads to more holistic growth. Even same kind of crops, if planted on the same land over and over again, makes the land unfit for agriculture and nonnutritive. Connected with the world by three oceans and more through the passes of mountains, the Indian Peninsula has welcomed foreign establishments, cultures, rules, leaders and faiths, adding more to India’s diverse heritage and cultural wealth. India is a kaleidoscope of umpteen varieties of cultures, food, traditions, artistry, religious beliefs and languages, products of the long history and unique geography of this land. Such a distinctive mix makes India’s diversity unparallelled in the world. Over the millenniums, the laws of diversity have permeated into the very core of the nature of the Indian subcontinent.
Today, more than 19,500 languages or dialects (analysis of a census released in 2018) that are spoken in India as mother tongues, help it to think and act for all, strategically, economically, socially, geo-politically and spiritually. This official addition of Hindi and Bengali at UN also makes perfect sense in a world where after Mandarin, Spanish & English, Hindi stands at the 4th-most widely spoken language globally (~4.429% of World pop.) followed by Bengali which ranks 5 in the list (~4.00% of World pop.). Also, for now, a UN News-Hindi audio bulletin (UN Radio) has also begun to be released every week.
The key to keeping languages alive is either through practice, or preservation or both. While Digital recording and incorporation of many local languages across the world are helping to preserve lingual remains, manual revisiting can also lead to revival of these languages which can be done through speaking, using it as medium of education, encouraging and promoting more and more of literature work and Media Content in these languages, etc. Hyperlocal Journalism through digital means can greatly result in quick upturn.
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