Language and State

Abstract

Language distinguishes human beings from other species. It is the foundation of human societies and knowledge. Every language offers a unique worldview, and any threat to language also implies that there exists a threat to our ways of lives, minds, and society. There are approximately 6,000 languages in the world, which in turn means that humans are able to look at the same world in 6,000-plus different ways. Unfortunately, these unique world views are sinking quite rapidly and collapsing. The linguistic reorganisation of states in India as well as states’ education policies result in the marginalisation of many languages, and thus, of knowledge systems. As a human being, we cannot say if our consciousness actually exists as a differentiated thing in this world. Therefore, we cannot say whether the phenomenal world (the world surrounding us) is a dream that we are currently dreaming about or whether it is real? However, these happen to be philosophical questions which have been debated for many decades. The only bridge that exists between human consciousness (Chitta) and the phenomenal world (Astitva, Satya or Reality) is language. In the absence of that bridge, the human mind or say human cognition would be completely at a loss while making an attempt to formulate an image of what exists at all - for instance, the cosmos, this world, nation, society or whatever, in the absence of a language, which is foremost here, in rank. Without language, humans would not have been humans. Indeed, that’s the most dramatic marker of our human identity.