‘Focus on regional languages will help undo years of neglect’
BHUBANESWAR: Linguists hailed the National Education Policy (NEP) move to promote, strengthen and preserve Indian classical and regional languages at the same time giving emphasis on Sanskrit.
Steps like giving primary education in mother tongue or regional language, creating digital content and using local languages as medium of instruction in higher education will have large scale impact on developing and strengthening our languages, experts believed. However, there is a need to create lot of awareness among people to get them attracted to their mother tongue or regional languages, they pointed out.
Jatin Nayak, a former professor of English at Utkal University said, “This has been a recommendation of the Kothari Commission. Regional languages should be the languages of knowledge. In countries like Japan, China and Germany, the primary medium of instruction is in their mother tongue. It is very natural that we must read in the language we speak and think. What we have been doing is terribly unnatural and at least an attempt has been made to correct this historic blunder.”
Regarding the over-dependency on English language, Nayak said, “English has grown at the expense of the mother tongue but this step in the NEP should not be seen as a threat to English.”
According to the NEP, higher education institutes can use mother tongue or local language as a medium of instruction and can offer programmes bilingually.
“It is not that attempts have not been made earlier. There were initiatives to prepare text books in higher classes in regional languages, but it was discontinued as there were few takers. Making mother tongue the mode of instruction is very crucial and everyone, including the younger generation, must appreciate and follow it,” said author and academician, Dash Benhur.
The NEP also envisages to set up an Indian Institution of Translation and Interpretation (IITI) to ensure preservation of Indian languages. Besides, e-content will be developed in eight regional languages including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Odia and Bengali.
“No doubt it is a great step to improve mother tongue from the primary level and give it emphasis in higher education as well. But it will take some time to overcome the years of neglect we have done to our languages,” said writer Gayatribala Panda.
The NEP has also proposed that universities and institutes studying classical languages and literature will collect, preserve, translate and study the tens and thousands of manuscripts that have not yet received due attention.
Besides, Sanskrit will be mainstreamed and several institutes imparting Sanskrit and Indian languages will be significantly strengthened.
EoM