The Language Controversy

PROF. K. VISWANATHAM

Andhra University

There is a passionate debate in the universities and the Press regarding

(a) the periods allotted to the study of languages,
(b) the usefulness or the lack of it in the study of literature,
(c) the science-orientation of the curriculum,
(d) the replacing of English by the mother-tongue,
(e) the study of English as a ‘library’ language, and
(f) the falling-off of standards in English.

In this emotion-charged debate certain basic facts seem to consistently ignored or not mentioned. Many do not know what they say. Some who say the right things do not mention the right reasons. It is not enough to say that you like Shakespeare. You have to point out why all should study Shakespeare. This essay tries to pinpoint these basic facts so that the issues might be viewed and judged dispassionately.

There is no need to underline the importance of the study of languages. It is implied in the word Logos which means word or thought. Vaagarthaaviva sampruktau. Wittgenstein and others have pointed out that without language there is no thought. Man is a talking animal. Remove talking; man is a mere animal. Theoretically we can say that thought is wider than speech, that thinking is possible without language. But for all practical purposes the limits of our language are the limits of our thought. That is, without words there is no thinking. If there are no words like tree, leaf, blossom, etc, we cannot think about the tree. Henry James in an oft-quoted context remarked that all problems come to the question of speech. Simeon Potter in his Language in the Modern World writes: “When there is any kind of interference with the free speaking of a given language or dialect, or an endeavour to enforce its use, much more than the linguistic factor is at stake.” (p. 184) Bloomfield suggests in his great book: “It is only a prospect, but not hopelessly remote, that the study of language may help us towards the understanding and control of human events.” (p. 509) To regard language as superfluous is to regard lather as superfluous in shaving. Language is a social activity. It is the instrument of human progress. Without it we are dumb statues. In Dewey’s library classification language appropriately stands between Sociology and Natural Sciences. So the attempt of our so-called educationists to reduce language study is based on unawareness and sounds like Peter’s denial of Christ.

“It is enough if we have language as a tool of communication. Where is the need to study literature or old classics like Shakespeare and Milton instead of modern writers?” is the second denial. It is not understood that the study of literature is advocated because of the nature of man and the theory of knowledge. Man is cognitive, conative and affective. Our education is said to be purely cognitive and hence lopsided. Emotions are wild horses that drag us hither and thither. They cannot be drilled into a queue easily. Literature to some extent chastens the affective side of man. Newman recognises the difficulty when he writes: “Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread silk.” (Knowledge its own end.) Unlike other disciplines literature brings the whole soul of man into activity. We are, wrote Dr. Johnson in his Life of Milton: “Geometricians by chance but perpetually moralists.” Bloom’s celebrated taxonomy of educational objectives is helpful. Hence the need for the study of literature.

It is being increasingly recognised now that the insights of poets are as valid as the insights of scientists. If H₂O is valid for one kind of activity, Keats’s lines:

“The moving waters at their priest-like task
Of pure ablution round Earth’s human shores”

are also valid in another way. The growth of the mind is facilitated by various disciplines. Students are not noisy buckets into which knowledge can be pumped. The work of Susan Isaacs and Valentine Bowlby and Paiget proves this. Kenneth Charlton writes “In the 20th century, however, there appears to be a move towards a synthesis of knowledge and this may very well lead us by the end of the century to a quite different approach to the nature of knowledge and therefore of the curriculum and curriculum theory.” (Changing the Curriculum, p. 76) Hence Aldous Huxley’s plea for a Chair for Synthesis in every university in his well-known Ends and Means. In a way we go to Newman’s knowledge is one and indivisible. In the words of John F. Kerr, we need to consider the types of relationships that should obtain both within and between the main areas of knowledge...“The theory of knowledge raises many questions about the relationship of the various disciplines to the development of mind and to the nature of knowledge.” (Changing the Curriculum, p. 27)

Literature is the creative use of language. It is through literature that we acquire even language skills. As Carlyle puts it “the best grammarians have been the worst writers.” It is poets who create language. That is why Prof. Raleigh quipped that the philologist knows everything about the word except the use to which it is put.

Rishinaam punah aadyanaam vaachamarthaanudhaavati.

As the principle of augmentation is not applicable to literature, old classics cannot be set aside. When our meddlers with education abolish literature, their ignorance is interesting in its variety and scope. They rush where angels fear to tread.

Next, these meddlers say: “Let all these periods released by the abolition or reduction of language study be devoted to science.” This conflicts with the advanced theory of education in the West. Barker in his booklet on the British universities writes that “the whole trend now is to see that Institutes of Technology are not allowed to remain purely technological.” The lopsidedness of a purely scientific and technological syllabus should be rectified by what he calls ‘aesthetic technology’. This is the old warning of the humanist that we have learnt to fly in the air, to cross the ocean but have not learnt how to live. As Dr. Nisbet says: “We are plagued by our achievements, for material progress has inevitably taken toll of traditional culture. There are, as the recent Apollo moon landings make clear, great events taking place in our society. But they are events of the technological, not the social, order.” (The American Review, October, ’70, p. 27) Conquest of nature, initiated by Bacon, is the boast of science. But Ecology tells us that this boast is pitiful and absurd. It is Max Born’s mournful conclusion that the contemporary scientific revolution has destroyed ethics. Thinkers realize now that science can no longer remain ethically neutral as applied science degenerates into mis-applied science. Harvey Wheeler pleads for bringing science under law. (The American Review, July ’70, p. 55)

If this is the pattern of thinking in the West, how is it our educationists force on us obsolete ideas? It is just like obsolete military hardware of the West becoming our brand new equipment. A book like Henn’s The Apple and the Spectroscope should modify our obsolete ideas. There is need for the science student to test on the pulse of his being the truth of:

“One impulse from the vernal wood
Will teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good
Than all the sages can.”

Otherwise he is not educated in the best sense of the word. Scientific boon-doggling has been scandalous. Peterson suggests development of four main modes of thought: the analytic, the empirical, the morals the aesthetic. Phenix classifies knowledge into six realms: Symbolics, Emperics, Aesthetics, Ethics, Synoptics, Synnoetics. It is even pointed out by Mario Poi that the student of science needs training in language as much as or even more than the student of the arts because most of the scientific terms are derived from Greek and Latin roots. The student of science should have the linguistic training to know that cyclotron should be cyclon, that the word scientist itself is wrong, that splitting the atom is a contradiction in terms; he should get a diploma in technical lexicography. Even a student of Economics should know why Slump was replaced by Depression, Depression by Recession, Recession by Downturn. How do terms Rightists and Leftists come into vogue? A student of politics should know that they have reference to the Bible and the primitive idea of the right hand. Language is the biography of the human race, the history of thought.

All over the country the move now is to replace English by the mother-tongue Telugu, Tamil, etc. For the sake of argument it should be pointed out that the mother-tongue concept is absurd linguistically. There is no mother-tongue or grandmother-tongue. In the study of language the distinction is drawn between cultural transmission and genetic transmission, Sleeping, walking, etc., are the result of genetic transmission but language is the product of cultural transmission. That is, even if you are born in Tamil Nadu of Tamilian parents you do not acquire proprietary rights over Tamil. You have to learn it as you learn English. And it is not proved that we learn our mother-tongue more easily and quickly than we do another language. “The debate as to whether the learning of a foreign language by an adult is qualitatively different from a child’s acquisition of his native language remains unsolved.” (Linguistics, VOA Forum Lectures, Carroll, p. 187) In common parlance we use the expression mother-tongue as we say: The sun rises, the sun sets, though the sun neither rises nor sets. As Harry Hoijer puts it succinctly: “Human children have no language at birth.” (Ibid., p. 61) Speaking pragmatically, not theoretically, we have a mother-tongue. The adoption of the mother-tongue or regional medium leads, as everybody knows, to balkanization of the country, freezes mobility from one state to another, reduces ‘employment opportunities’, is fatal to the unity of the country.

The ‘language condition’ of our country is bedevilled by the use of many languages. If there is only one, one can opt for it on linguistic (not patriotic) grounds. No language as language is superior or inferior to another. A language may be less rich at a point in time, but given the opportunity, it will develop. For instance, there is astonishing resemblance between the language condition in our country and that in England after the Norman Conquest. Just as Jeremiahs here say: “What will happen to our Law and Medicine if English is removed?” Jeremiahs in England at that time said: “What will happen to the Law Courts if French removed?” As we know French was removed though terms like Oyez still remain and English flourished. And Bacon’s despairing cry that English would become bankrupt was falsified, Basham tells us that the doctors of the East India Company learnt rhinoplasty from native physicians and Sine in Trigonometry is Aryabhatta’s term Jira mistranslated by the Arab and the Spaniard. Do the Russians and the Japanese wail: “What will happen if English goes? - Did our ancients depend on English to make The Wonder was India?” But as is pointed out earlier, there is not one language to replace English and hence the need to retain it.

Educationists do realize the need for retaining English. It should be studied as a library language, they say. If regional language is the medium in the high schools and colleges and if English is retained in the post-Graduate courses, where is the equipment for the student to use this library language? It is just like cutting off a man’s legs and expecting him to sprint at the Olympic games. It is difficult to understand the logic or commonsense behind this. You are asked to reduce your diet but increase in weight.

Every body admits that standards in English are deplorably low, and all kinds of diagnoses are publicised solemnly and remedies suggested with fervour. The reason stares us in the face and we have eyes that see not. With the going of the British rule their language has lost its prestige and there is no incentive to study it well. A language is learnt effectively if there is an incentive. Students used to flock to the Engineering course at one time; now the rush is not great. Let every State Government notify that unless a student gets 50 per cent in English he won’t get a job. Standards in English will go up in no time. Philip H. Taylor says: “What has been missing until recently is interest in the business of learning for its own sake, something which is considered by many educationists to be a central feature.” (Changing the Curriculum, p. 83) There is neither ‘the exploratory drive’ (as it is termed) nor the temptation of cashing in the proficiency in English on something.

Policy makers shout: “Let us modernise the syllabi.” It shows an amazing capacity on our part to deceive ourselves by words. ‘Modern’ is one such word. A modernised syllabus for English published recently stresses the need for exercises in the usage of words, elements of grammar and structure, etc. In all honesty, what is the modernisation here? This insistence was there from the beginning when we were students in the first form. We have all been products of the old system of teaching and learning and we are not bad as far as the use of English goes. A Professor of English in the Kings College, London, under whom I did research told me that he listened to excellent English at Madras. If English has lost that excellence at Madras now, it is not the system that is in fault. That system produced eminent writers and speakers who have carved a place for themselves in the pantheon of Indian Writing in English. Something else is responsible for the low standards.

Language consists of words and the syntax of words. A magical word like ‘modernise’ does not bring about a change. A language has to be learnt the hard way. When a King asked Euclid to teach him geometry easily, he was told: “O King, there is no royal road to geometry.” Even teachers of English suggest naively that Shakespeare and Milton should be replaced by modern poets forgetting that Shakespeare is understood much easier than a modern poet. You can read a whole play of Shakespeare in two hours than half a dozen lines of a modern poet in a day. That is why C. S. Lewis stated in De Discriptione Temoprum that seven scholars conducted a seminar on Eliot’s A Cooking Egg and could not come to any agreement about its interpretation. This is modern poetry! And we fall plump for it! And one is amused at the seriousness with which these suggestions are made. A student of literary criticism knows that some old authors may be modern and a writer of today may not be modern at all. Plato is said to be perpetually modern. Donne is modem but Bridges is not, though Donne is Elizabethan and Bridges is of the 20th century. Swift’s English is modern though he belongs to the 18th century, whereas Hardy’s is said to be slipshod though he is a late Victorian. ‘Modernise the syllabus’ is fatuous in its naivety; it is the class-rooms which have to be modernised. The teacher lectures to masses, not classes. The overcrowded class-rooms are a negation of education.

When we know

1. that without speech there is no thought,
2. that literature also is knowledge,
3. that educationists advocate inter-disciplinary fertilization,
4. that literature alone chastens the affective side of man, 
5. that old classics cannot set aside as the principle of augmentation is not applicable    to the arts,
6. that emphasis on science conflicts with an advanced theory of education implied in aesthetic technology,
7. that the concept of the mother-tongue is linguistically absurd,
8. that the adoption of it is fatal to the country and its citizens,
9. that you can’t eat your cake and have it too, that is, you can’t have the mother-tongue, reduce the importance of English indirectly and still use English as library language,
10. that the falling-off of standards is not because of a system which is more sinned against than sinning,
11. that we have an amazing capacity of deceiving ourselves with words like modernise, reform, change and saying: ‘Off with Shakespeare’ but not realizing that it is easier to understand Shakespeare than a modern poet,
we have to conclude

that in the political configuration of our country it is unwise to have the mother-tongue as the medium,
that the falling standards in English can be arrested only by offering a strong incentive for learning it well.

Quack remedies do not set right the educational set-up. Our experimentation and modernising are because of our confusing change with progress. Mere change is not progress; it may even be the negation of progress.

The best thing we can do is to stick to English and see that standards are raised. A book like Changing the Curriculum suggests hundred and one things about education. For instance, Paul H. Hirst points out how a simple fact: Harold Wilson (or Edward Heath) is the Prime Minister cannot be taught without concepts or that curriculum innovation requires the migration of subject specialists. But let us stabilize what we have; let us not play ducks and drakes with the unity of the country and the growth of the younger generation.

Nirad Chaudari states bitingly in The Continent of Circe that the only efficient mass-production factory in India is the nationalised factory of words. We, Indians, are fond of talk and do-nothingism. Let us not experiment and ruin our country; let us read Shakespeare and progress. It is the good student, writes Lord Robins in his great document on Higher Education, that makes the great teacher. Let all our efforts be directed towards creating this good student in this Babel of Tongues.

How far we have strayed away from what a university stands for is seen in our strident cries about examination reform. In the view of a Commission this reform should be the first and foremost. There cannot be a greater travesty of a university than this attitude Examinations are the least part of a university. The late Livingstone (in whose house at Oxford I spent a delightful hour) in his Plato and Modern Education remarks that modern universities have become howling dust-storms of a vast examination system losing sight of education as such so much so education leads to ‘elaborate barbarism’. To remedy the ills of higher education through examination reform is like trying to cure a T. B. patient by cough mixture. Newman sbates his preference for a university which does not conduct examinations at all.

One of the fundamental investigations in the linguistic field is the tyranny words exercise over us. We think we are the masters of language; we are the slaves of language. We think we use language; language uses us. Men imagine, said Bacon long ago with amazing acuteness, that their minds have command of language; but it often happens that language bears rule over their minds. Language is there before an individual is born, as Frank Musgrove puts it, and it will be there after he is dead. It was not born with him and does not die with him. Language is a social fact which can only be understood in relation to other facts of the same order.

If we monkey with the language problem, there is every risk of our relapsing into monkeys. We may lose the essence and cling to the bosom of the ape.