Significance of Multilingualism
Significance of Multilingualism
Important for Prelims Exam:
'Hindi @ UN' Project 2018, Indian Languages, Multilingualism, Eighth Schedule
Important for Mains Exam:
GS-2: Efforts for the preservation and promotion of Indian languages,Importance of Multilingualism
Context:
“Multilingualism” is an important topic that is considered from different perspectives at the societal, cultural and political levels. It is a principle that says that different languages and cultural richness in a society should be respected equally.
Multilingualism:
- “Multilingualism” is a principle whose main objective is to respect different languages and cultural richness equally. It encourages people of different communities and languages in the world to understand and respect their language and cultural identity.
- India's multilingualism is not only a matter of numbers, but also a matter of culture, identity and history. The languages of India reflect its diverse and pluralistic society, where people of different religions, races, castes and classes live and interact together.
- A prime example of the importance of adopting multilingualism is India, where there is an abundance of languages and scripts.
Significance of Multilingualism:
- Cultural Heritage: Multilingualism is a means of understanding and significantly respecting the various cultural richness in a society. It values people in their religious, cultural and historical contexts.
- Respect for languages: Multilingualism considers all the languages that are spoken in a community as equally important. It provides an opportunity to people speaking different languages to respect and study their languages.
- Social prosperity: Multilingualism is important for social prosperity because it provides people from different communities the ability to live and work together. It can be a means of reducing inequality and discrimination especially in the society.
- Political prosperity: Multilingualism is important for the political prosperity of a society because it can provide opportunities for different communities to achieve respect and equal rights.
- Education: Multilingualism plays an important role in the field of education as it provides opportunity to get education in different languages and gives students the opportunity to take education in their mother tongue.
- Multilingualism can enhance cognitive abilities such as memory, attention, problem-solving and creativity.
- Research has shown that bilingual and multilingual people have better executive functioning, responsible for planning, organizing and controlling mental processes. According to research, mental processes are the areas of implementation of tasks related to planning, organization and management, in which bilingual and multilingual individuals can make better progress.
- Multilingualism can also improve social and emotional skills such as empathy, perspective-taking and intercultural competence.
- Learning different languages gives people access to different cultures, values and world views, which can help them understand and appreciate diversity.
- Multilingualism can also provide practical benefits, such as career opportunities, travel experiences, and information and entertainment.
- Knowledge of more than one language allows people to communicate with more people, explore more places and enjoy more resources.
Multilingual Scenario of India:
- India is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world, where more than 19,500 languages are spoken.
- According to the 2011 census, more than 25% of the population in India speaks two languages, while about 7% of the population speaks three languages.
- According to studies, Indian youth are more multilingual than their older generation.
- Nearly half of the urban population aged 15 to 49 speaks two languages.
- Efforts of the Government of India for the promotion of linguistics:
'Hindi @ UN' Project 2018
- 'Hindi @ UN' project was launched in 2018 as part of efforts to promote Hindi in the UN.
- Its objective is to promote the delivery of UN public communications in Hindi and to bring greater awareness of global issues among the millions of Hindi-speaking people around the world.
- It is essential to truly adopt multilingualism in the United Nations.
- Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish are the six official languages of the United Nations. Whereas, English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat.
Constitutional Provisions:
- Eighth Schedule: There are 22 languages officially listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. All these state level languages are mentioned in the Indian Constitution Part XVII from Articles 343 to 351.
- Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri.
- Six classical languages are also listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.
- Tamil (announced in the year 2004), Sanskrit (year 2005), Kannada (year 2008), Telugu (year 2008), Malayalam (year 2013), and Oriya (year 2014).
- Article 29: This article provides the right to all minority citizens to preserve their distinct language, script or culture. This article also contains provisions prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, caste, creed, religion or language.
- Article 343: Through this article, Hindi has been given the status of the official language of the country. This article provides that the official language of the Union will be Hindi and the script will be Devanagari. The form of the numerals used for the official purposes of the Union will be the international form of Indian numerals. According to this article, English shall continue to be used as the official language for a period of 15 years from the commencement of the Constitution.
- Article 345: The Legislature of any State may by law adopt any one or more languages in use in the State or Hindi as the language or languages to be used for all or any of the official purposes of that State.
- Article 346: It recognizes the linguistic diversity of India by allowing the use of multiple languages in official communications. It also provides a mechanism to ensure effective communication between the States and between the State and the Union.
- Article 347: It empowers the President to recognize any language as the official language of a State, provided the President is satisfied that a substantial majority of the State desires that language to be recognised. Such recognition can be for a part of the state or the entire state.
- Article 348(1): It provides that all proceedings in the Supreme Court and every High Court shall be in the English language unless Parliament by law otherwise provides.
- Article 348(2): It provides that, notwithstanding the provisions of Article 348(1), the Governor of a State may, with the previous consent of the President, preside over the proceedings of a High Court whose principal seat is in that State. authorize the use of Hindi language or any other language used for the official purposes of that State.
- Article 350 gives every person the right to submit a representation to any officer or authority of the Union or a State for the redress of any grievance, in any language used in the Union or the State, as the case may be.
- Article 350A directs every state to provide primary education in the mother tongue.
- Article 350B provides for the appointment of a "Special Officer" for linguistic minorities.
- Article 351 empowers the Central Government to issue guidelines for the development of Hindi language.
Conclusion:
- Thus, multilingualism is an important principle to encourage prosperity and equality among people from different communities in the society. Considering the multifaceted importance of multilingualism in the global environment, India should give constitutional recognition to all its other regional languages. Because multilingualism involves not only cognitive benefits but also the potential to enrich diverse cultures.
Source: Live Mint
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Mains Exam Question
What is multilingualism? How relevant is it in the current political scenario? Discuss.