Language as Identity in Colonial India

Policies and Politics

Papia Sengupta

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9789811068447
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book is a systematic narrative, tracking the colonial language policies and acts responsible for the creation of a sense of "self-identity" and culminating in the evolution of nationalistic fervor in colonial India. British policy on language for administrative use and as a weapon to rule led to the parallel development of Indian vernaculars: poets, novelists, writers and journalists produced great and fascinating work that conditioned and directed India's path to independence.The book presents a theoretical proposition arguing that language as identity is a colonial construct in India, and demonstrates this by tracing the events, policies and changes that led to the development and churning up of Indian national sentiments and attitudes. It is a testimony of India's linguistic journey from a British colony to a modern state. Demonstrating that language as basis of identity was a colonial construct in modern India, the book asserts that any in-depth understanding of identity and politics in contemporary India remains incomplete without looking at colonial policies on language and education, from which the multiple discourses on "self" and belonging in modern India emanated.

© The Author(s) 2018

Papia SenguptaLanguage as Identity in Colonial Indiahttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6844-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Theoretical Developments: Linking Language to Identity

Papia Sengupta¹

(1)

Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Delhi, India

Abstract

This chapter gives a detailed analysis of theoretical development that links language to human identity. Historical insights from Western and Indian philosophy of language is analyzed by outlining how language shares an intimate relationship with nationhood, being and belonging. It is argued that knowledge- transmission, interpretation, epistemological understanding and information- generation are impossible without language, be this words, symbols, signs. The chapter asserts that the hierarchical relationship between writing and speech needs to be challenged as the history of many cultural communities is based on oral narratives.

Keywords

LanguageIdentityNationPhilosophy of languageOralityCultureKnowledge

End Abstract

We speak when we are awake and we speak in our dreams. We are always speaking, even when we do not utter a single word. We speak because speaking is natural to us. Man is said to have language by nature.

Wilhelm von Humboldt in Martin Heidegger 1971, 85

Humans identify themselves in multiple ways. These different and at times distinct identities are distinguished from each other in linguistic expressions, as much they are defined and understood through language. We cannot imagine assigning identity without language, as imagination is conducted in language and identities—from naming to higher forms of the “epistemology of testimony” (Fricker and Cooper 1987, p. 57) is unthinkable without language. This starts with our name, which is the first known sign of identity; that is, how the world knows you and how you introduce yourself to the world are both language dependent. People who are not known to us personally may perceive us by our physical attributes, such as skin color, sex, hairstyle and clothes. Thus, humans make sense of the world around them primarily in two ways: through sensing the physical world and giving names to objects in order to identify them, and secondly by knowing, in other words being told by elders, teachers and parents. Naming and “knowing by transmission” therefore become the main sources of language, which leads to knowledge (Chakrabarti 1992).

The next critical question that emerges is whether words can truly depict reality. In Plato’s Cratylus , Socrates argued that naming was the true depiction of the object, which remains central to many approaches to the origin of language. But Plato was not fully convinced that language can truly depict reality:

Since words are already a physical imitation of reality, both poetic manipulation and critical study of language can only fix man’s attention on a level inferior to reality itself. The inherent human element prevents language from being completely faithful to reality. Faithfulness to nature determines the worth of language. (Partee 1972, p. 114)

Heraclitus , coming before Plato , theorized the “notion of interpretation,” as determined by logos (Hussey 1982, p. 35). Logos , in Greek philosophy to the Gospel of John, is regarded as the “most multifaceted word in Greek language” and can be equated with various English words such as composition, to gather and to take account of (Hoffman 2003, p. 27). Be it composing or naming, the function of language is not limited to identifying external realities. Humboldt proposed that “language is connected to mental power of humans,” which is the source of linguistic and cultural diversity and is the external expression of the inner human mind: the “feelings, desires, thoughts and beliefs responsible for development of culture” (Humboldt 1999, p. xi). Humboldt pronounced language to be energy (energia) and a product of human nature, “an involuntary emanation of the mind, a gift fallen to human by their inner destiny.” Language is thus not a means to an end; humans did not plan to construct language, but it came naturally (Humboldt 1999, p. xi). Humboldt’s lucid exposition on the naturalness of language and its relation to humans established the inseparability of people and language. Language is not only the opening to a world of knowledge but a window for self -understanding. We are thinking beings and to think comes naturally. Since language brings out our internal feelings, thoughts are innate in language, which then forms “the formative organ of thought” (Humboldt 1999, p. xvi). Such epistemology substantiates that thinking is impossible without language. This is also true of people who cannot speak or hear: they depend on sounds or sign language in order to assign meanings to the objects of the world.

Stuart Elden’s reading of Heidegger argued for logos as speech, while Heidegger , noting the zoon logon echon ( Aristotle’s “rational animal”), asserted that, “logic was a science of the ways ‘being’ was addressed and articulated.” This logic for Heidegger was “hermeneutical ontological logic, looking at the interaction of being, truth and language” (Elden 2005, p. 283). Like Humboldt’s brilliant treatise expounding language as mental power , Deborah Modrak’s disquisition on Aristotle asserts that in De Interpretation central elements of Aristotle’s thinking are words, “the meaning bearing mental state [pathema] and the object in the word [pragma] the referent of the word, elucidating the crucial relation between word and mental state and mental state and objects of the world” (Modrak 2001, pp. 2–3).

The divine origin of language, as opposed to the constructivist–evolutionary theory which opined language as a construction which develops and changes with the developments in the human socio-political environment, can be traced back to antiquity. The popular myth about the Tower of Babel and the creation of linguistic diversity, a punishment visited upon humans by God for having dared to build a tower to reach God’s abode, emanates from Genesis 11:1–9 (Ross 1980, p. 714). This myth and others have attracted significant attention in modern linguistics, especially with regards to theories about the origin of languages. What is remarkable is that this divine babel (or confusion) of languages was used by humans to form the basis for identification of their communities. God may have succeeded in creating diverse languages, but His success in creating divisions on language grounds remained a dream, as modern times have witnessed territories, empires and kingdoms which speak different languages becoming integrated, and the disintegration of peoples that speak the same tongue. The United Kingdom is the oldest example of speakers of different languages (Welsh , Irish , Gaelic and English ) forming one empire in the modern period, whereas speakers of the same language(German) broke into two states, only to reunite again after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Most post-colonial countries are multilingual, a few examples being India , South Africa , Malaysia and Indonesia . Therefore, there are states where speakers of distinct languages live side by side as citizens.

The German scholar who has been credited for spearheading research into language diversity and the valuing of the diversity of languages as human creativity, through the refutation of the functional theory of language (proposed by the British empiricist who claimed language was merely a communicative medium), is Gottfried Herder (Forster 2002, p. 324). Asserting the inseparability of language and thought, Herder proclaimed that “language sets limits to human cognition” (Forster 2002). If thoughts are dependent on language, as he asserted, then identity of self , thoughts and ideas about what comprises the self and other, mine–thine, we and they are linguistically conceptualized. There is disagreement as to whether language and thought are one and the same or whether language is the mere external representation of inner thoughts; but my objective in this work is not to analyze these dissenting approaches. What I intend is limited to demonstrate that identity and language are inextricable, which essentially means that my position is in congruence with that of Herder’s .¹ His ingenuity lies in his locating of “culture as encompassing all human creativity and pursuing a line of argument for the right of the colonial cultures to be free from domination, inviting respect” (Spencer 2007, p. 83). In this he seems to be an influential forerunner of Nietzsche ,² and of Karl Marx’s critique of European modernity . Herder’s significance, especially for language students, also lies in his admiration for the diversity of cultures and his lack of acceptance of the general European position of dominance or the universalizing of the Western way of life as the best formula. Herd...