Context and contextual priorities
matter more than anything else.
1.
Please note that wherever I have used the word compulsion
in this write up it refers ‘to externally imposed force or coercion’.
2.
I have nothing against Sanskrit nor am I
insensitive to its beauty, but, we all must remember a few things that are
dynamic and they develop and decide the events, characteristics, behavior
patterns of human life in each age or period and also determine the importance
and impact of certain things predominantly based on primarily the survival
value aspect of life.
3.
In this process or for that matter in the evaluation of many things two factors
that are of vital importance, which we cannot afford to ignore, one the context
because life does not function in vacuous inanity nor on past templates, and
two because of the context the prioritization of things in terms of its contextual
utility for each individual and the society at large.
4.
The present context for the individual, the nation
and the whole of humanity must prioritize, as rightly repeated and
reinforced by our Prime Minister Shri,
Narendara Modi, economic development,
technological advancement, empowerment of all, more scientific researches,
encouraging youth to develop skill sets and contribute to these activities,
create an atmosphere of peace, harmony and happiness etc and all other concomitant
aspects, of course not necessarily in the order in which they have been
indicated here but all of these must be prioritized over whether what language our
youth must be proficient in. Once again I repeat let us not forget facts
of nature, I mean evolution, as one the greatest scholar Guy Murchie in his
magnum opus 'THE SEVEN MYSTERIES OF LIFE'[ http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/07/guy-murchie.html
] in the Chapter on 'Human Languages' writes that," curiously enough, unlike
the rest of proliferating evolution, languages and dialects seem to be getting
fewer".
5.
Make in India is a
great motivating slogan while ‘speak in Sanskrit’ or ‘should study Sanskrit’
will be irrelevant to the vital aspects of growth needed for every youth and
the nation as whole.
6.
Homogenization is the psychological disease of the West [a] and why should we so
avidly adopt a disease which is not likely to deliver any great dividends in
the spheres of priority indicated above.
7.
For your information my love for Sanskrit has made me publish
all these links indicated below in my blogs, years before the new found craze
for Sanskrit made its landing in our educational system and unnecessarily
providing more TRP for all TV channels in many languages other than Sanskrit.
8.
Let us remember one thing while all of us feel
the need for unity, what unity needs is feeling for all by all .Let us remember
what the great seer Bahaullah has said: “If language can help create a sense of
nationalism, it can equally well help create a sense of internationalism.”
9.
We must all remember that language, I mean every language in general, by itself has
got so many facets and functions starting from being a mere tool of
communication to representation to being a fulcrum to push out thoughts to
expounding philosophies to entertaining in excellent literary styles to
enlightening with wisdom [incidentally wisdom has never been partial towards
any language]. People and institutions interested in any particular
language must do in depth study and research in bringing out the great
treasures in that language to the public domain, if necessary even trough
translation so that people are motivated to migrate towards learning that language.
There are several magnets to attract people to learn a language but not force
or compulsion to learn it. Let us remember what the great Plato has said in his
‘The Republic’, “Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm
to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold
on the mind.”
10. Let
us all remember that the great Hindu
scriptures are much admired, researched and relished primarily because a great
Saint called Swami Vivekananda , a soul chosen to reveal the broad minded and
open outlook of Vedas, expressed them in a language which others could understand
what he initiated is a great boon to the whole of humanity. Imagine the loss to
humanity if the entire gamut of great words or works of wisdom were struck in a
language that people living in a particular place alone had accessibility to.
11.Let us make an unbiased
approach without any unloving criticism or uncritical love towards or for any
language in particular. There are multiple factors which made or make languages
evolve [b]. If anyone
pursuing the study of languages will
know that each language has certain
predominant factor attached to it, though any language can be or may be used to delve into any realm, and
this predominant factor with which it is associated promotes the greater usage
[ I mean more number of people using it for specific purpose] . When this
predominant factor recedes even relatively or slightly or marginally in its
impact or influence or significance or importance then along with it the usage
of the language also moves away. It is just a matter of evolutionary trend that
we have to accept and live with rather than getting sentimentally glued to it and
fanatically push it forward which can actually hamper growth [c] Paper and writing with a pen have not lost
their role totally but the keyboard and touch screens have taken over a vast
area of their usage.
12. Latin and Greek gave way to
English, French, German etc in the course of evolution of human activities and
the changing political milieu and because of that none of the wisdom that was
in Latin or Greek language was lost.
That’s why according to expert linguist like David Crystal, “Indo-European
‘skei’ with the meaning of ‘cutting or separating one thing from the other’ has
been the root for a wide range of words starting
from scythe, scissors to schism, skill, science, conscience, shit etc” But the
language and its users move on without bothering too much about these issues
with syntactic flexibility. [d]
13. My
blog postings on the greatness of Sanskrit
1.
Well, here I would like to quote a wonderful
and worthy observation from a wonderful blog maintained by my friend Mike Magee
http://www.shivashakti.com/ [don’t miss to see his page
http://www.shivashakti.com/datta.htm] about some aspect of Sanskrit language
“One of the unique but mysterious features of the Sanskrit language is how many
words can be used at three separate and distinct levels of thought. Even whole
verses have this remarkable feature. It is one of the factors which have made
translation into other languages so difficult. The difference presupposes three
groups of people. First there is the literal meaning intended for the
householder or worldly man, and a guide to better thought and action. The
second is the meaning on a higher level intended for the mumukshi or hungry
seeker for God. Here the same words take the reader from the mundane level to
the higher level, and the implications. The third is the meaning intended for
the soul who has attained or is nearly ready to attain liberation”. This
literally leads to both correct, crystal clear meanings and also gives room to
those who pander to chaotic and callous interpretations, more so in spiritual
texts, I stress spiritual texts, not religious ones, wherein there are always
many esoteric intrinsic meanings which unravel only to the enlightened souls
and not necessarily to a linguistic scholars or academic thinkers or even
intellectual giants
I have mentioned
this in my blog link
http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2011/05/dear-all-i-was-asked-write-about-guru.html
2.http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/09/sanskrit.html
3.http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2012/09/sanskrit-why-it-is-great-language.html
4.http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2011/10/sanskrit-its-importance-statements-and.html
5.http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/09/sanskrit-and-science.html
6.http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2011/12/sanskrit-is-divine-language-why.html
7.http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2010/11/sanskrit-help.html
[a] Sick obsession of the western psyche, namely,
homogenization. If we glimpse through the annals of history, we can observe
this and the several ways in which this has been carried out: by
indoctrination, by force, by cultural invasions, by wars etc. Throughout
history it has failed miserably. Be it the Roman Empire’s greed to spread its
tentacles , be it the attempt to homogenize religion which failed with Spanish
Inquisition, be it Nazism or Colonialism, all have failed. Once these attempts
at homogenizing cultures, beliefs, political ideologies have failed, now, the
West is trying it in Trade and Economy. As before, it is bound to fail. But
what we must learn from history and guard ourselves against is the heavy price
that humanity may have to pay for facing and overcoming these attempts
emanating from a few individuals charged with fanatical obsession in terms of
Religious wars, Nazism, Colonialism etc with all their destructive
manifestations.
The impact of the previous obsessions were
restricted to specific geographical area as they collapsed before they could
successfully spread everywhere. But the manifestations of the present
obsession, read Globalization of trade and economy affects the lives of
everyone on the globe, either directly or otherwise, and can cause irreparable
environmental damage which can even render life miserable for future
generations.
[b]
Every language has evolved imbued with beauty and utility with marvelous
manipulations to make meanings conveyable and meaningful communication.
Language in my opinion has been the most important tool in the growth and
development of human evolution in all aspects.
However, it still remains a great puzzle with many of its
interesting nuances well explained by great scholars, linguists,scientists,
attempted to be studied by many psychologists and neurologists but awaiting a
very convincing scientific explanation in terms of evolutionary biology or
perhaps it could as Dr.V.S. Ramachandran himself says somewhere, "I’m
arguing that what happened is more like your jaw bones: there are different
adaptations which evolved for different purposes. For example, bones of the ear
that evolved for amplifying sound were exapted from reptilian jaw bones used
for chewing. There is a fortuitous emergence of different sets of neurosystems
that evolved for completely unrelated reasons—and the equally fortuitous
interactions between them resulted in early language, which then became an
elaborate system. So, it’s not wrong to say that there was natural selection.
But there were multiple exaptations with fortuitous interactions which resulted
in language.".
[c]
On 29th May,2014 Times of India newspaper carried a central
page article titled ‘HAPPY TO BE UNHAPPY’ BY Suman Chattopadhyay how
insisting and enforcing for some decades Bengali medium has caused economic and
cultural disadvantage for the Bengali youth.
[d]
As per the great linguistic scholar Steven Pinker in his wonderful book one of
the trio logy ‘THE STUFF OF THOUGHT-LANGUAGE AS A WINDOW INTO THE HUMAN NATURE’
writes “language itself is not a single system but a contraption with many
components…….syntax itself encompasses several mechanisms, which are tapped to
different extents by different languages……one of the key phenomenon of syntax
is the way that sentences are built around their verbs. The phenomenon goes by
many technical names [including subcategorization, diathesis, predicate
argument structure, valence, adicity [roots thus mark points of interface
between the language faculty and the wider cognitive makeup of a person], arity
[the number of arguments that a function can take] ,
case structure, and theta-role assignment], but I’ll refer to it using
traditional term verb constructions.”
He also goes on to write , “For example, pour,
fill and load are all ways of moving
something somewhere, and they all have the same cast of characters: a mover,
some contents that move, and a container that is the goal of the movement. Yet pourallows
only the content -locative [pour water], fill allows
only the container –locative [fill the glass], and load goes
both ways [load the hay, load the wagon]”
J.Krishnamurthy very clearly puts this
across “force,
compulsion, determination, a compulsive urge to bring about the change will not
bring about a change at all; it brings about only greater disorder - which is
obvious to anybody who has observed.”
Osho puts it, “Compulsion
is sure to provoke resistance from the mind contrary to your expectation. Your
inhibitions become invitation and your taboos attraction.”
Mahatma Gandhi says, “ Force, violence, pressure or compulsion
with a view to conformity are both uncivilized and undemocratic”.
The dominance and disuse of any language or even certain expression
and words within a language undergo various mutations. As
with life, with language also many changes happen some rational and logical and
some just happen and which defies all logic as the great linguist David Crystal
used to say both the words impedeand expede were
introduced during the same period, as well as disabuse and disadorn , but in each of these pairs only the first word stayed in
the language for no logical or linguistic reasons.
Every language is an art and science of very
vast dimension carrying within it several years of civilization with all its
splendor, the experiences of many souls, expressions of many lives and as such
each language is a vast store house of both art and science. In short
each language on earth is a divine tool or probably the best medium to express
our thoughts and experiences.
