Search This Blog

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Language fanaticism, Linguistic fanaticism

1.   Ethno centric and linguistic fanaticism pursued with a massive mass mania is a deadly combo and dangerous trend, even if it increases our pride in our ancestry, especially when it tries to intrude into every realm of human activity. Probably it can or may  back fire as it happened with the European religious fanaticism which was broken by the age of reason, scientific temper, trade and commerce etc a combined counter combo, which all got together, and literally threw away the religious fanatic imposition and intrusion into all realms. So much so, when thrown out the religious fanaticism lost its relevance and its fortresses turned into museums of antic value. Most of these citadels of power, pride and pomp in the past are now protected and promoted as tourist  attractions as heritage centers or monuments and in some cases where they have lost even this relevance and respect are being used as lovers’ parks or lotus-eaters joints.

2.   Resurrection, repair and remodeling can never replace the robustness of the original.

3.   ‘Madisaru mami kalaiyil kondaiyil poovaithu kolamita kalai kandu kavithai pirandhadhu’ can never bring out the essence however well or expertly it may be translated in any other language in the globe.

4.   I observe,language too evolves in contexts to name new things, to label new activities and to fulfill the need for injecting new meanings for expressing feelings and emotions hitherto unexpressed verbally etc.

5.   I feel it has more to do with the socio-cultural milieu in which the interaction or communication happens; the socio- cultural milieu in which the language got churned up during it evolutionary process and also the predominant factors that contributed to the growth of that language.

6.   Some languages have too many words and expressions for religious activities; some have similarly for philosophical concepts; some have similarly for  nature; some have similarly for  technology; some have similarly for  winter sports and snow; some have similarly for  food etc

7.   Like everything else language too is more susceptible to these factors contextual utility, socio cultural acceptability and to cater to the necessities that arise in a new environ [like words that have cropped up after the advent of cyber world]

8.   I do not think this requires an elaborate thesis to establish.


I wish you read fully these links that I have been writing in the past few days          and give a feed back in this link has reference to some other in links in it

The following links were written of course for an unwanted raging controversy in the past week in India

9.   On19th Nov.


10.      On 22nd Nov.


11. On 23rd Nov.
   
 
The factors contributing to the greatness of Sanskrit are too many to enlist but primarily         they could be classified as:-

a.    Its ancientness,

b. Its great structure,

c. Its flamboyant syntax,

d. Its enormous literature [many yet unearthed],

e. Its multiple layers of meaning- its ability to express one thing on the surface while ensconcing something esoteric for the perceptive interpreter with a profound knowledge unraveling the multiple layers of meaning as Mike Magee mentions in http://www.shivashakti.com
[This fact I feel has not yet been fully explored especially from texts like Devi Bhagavatham]

f. Its geopolitical life- Most importantly the geopolitical influences which did a great damage to Sanskrit as excellently written by the great scholar Rajiv Malhotra  almost a decade ago in this link which I have been repeatedly posting in my facebook page 


    Some interesting links




16.       Any language survives based on its relevance at specific times and that in turn depends on too many factors which cannot be oversimplified or over generalized.


No comments: