You are what you speak....

Language and culture are two of the most important factors that have influenced a person's choice of association. From quite a long time, since human beings learned about a settled way of living and developed a medium of communication, bonds and relationships were based more on that medium, which soon evolved into a LANGUAGE. The inherent urge of a human, for that matter of any living being, to communicate what he/it feels was at the root of evolution of language. The primary doubt that arises at this point is about the X-factor that lead to a more cohesive and structured medium of communication in humans, which probably does not exist in other living beings (may be my superiority complex as human is making me write this). The answer lies in the human mind, and probably the mind itself is the answer. Human beings’ uncanny ability to strive for progress has lead to the evolution of the once rudimentary means of communication into a proper LANGUAGE, as we call it today. There is no doubt that man learned this art (or should I call it science*) of speaking in a language, from animals. However, where the rest of the living beings failed, human being succeeded. He/She developed various languages that gave him/her the capability to dominate other creatures. A tiger anywhere in the world can probably understand the growl of another of its species, but a human being cannot understand more than 4-5 different languages (exceptions might always be there). That brings me to the point where I can discuss about the pros and cons of having thousands of different languages.

The multitude of languages that developed in various parts of the world, in course of human evolution helped man to form the first boundaries of social existence. Though metaphysical in nature, the language barrier acted and still acts as the primary instrument of a man to identify his so called “group”. This “language” has helped man in a variety of ways, starting with forming groups to hunt for food to the art/science of writing and to the highly potent debates among the intelligentsia that create a vast knowledge repository, language had it’s foot print in every giant leap or small step that man made during his evolution. This boon of association that language provided helped man to collocate the vast number of ideas that were prevalent in his realm of contact but were never churned to create knowledge. The knowledge thus created had the potential to better the lives of its users and lead to congregation of people speaking the same tongue seeking its benefits. Creation of knowledge is one of the most important reasons behind the development of human bonds on the basis of language.

Soon after the language barriers, the geographical barriers emerged. For an infinite number of reasons, men transformed the as of now surreal social barriers to physical ones by demarcating their geographical sphere of influence. In many cases people within a given geographical region spoke the same language (there might be different dialects), but in some cases there evolved a hundred different languages within a particular region. As a result the region was split further on the basis of the language spoken. The best example is India and the 29 different states that make up the republic, most of them formed on the basis of language. The people in the northern parts of the country where Hindi is the numero uno language tend to speak in a different manner to a person who is conversant at the same. This can be observed down south as well, where people across four states use close to 4-8 different languages. The difference in the language you speak alienates you among the group and this is highly prevalent in southern India. The person sitting next to you in the bus cribs that films in the local language are not doing well as the number of “non-local” population is increasing, another person at work says to your friend “having been here for 5 years, you still could not get the language (local language), but after working with him (referring me) for 1 year your are able to speak his tongue.”, the cab driver says to your colleague who is a so called “non-local” ,“E bhasha matladatavu swami” (C’mmon boss which language do you speak). Well these are just small examples to show how the divide exists in the minds of people, even after 60 years of independence and development.

This is not to say that a sense of oneness doesn’t exist and people are very much segregated. We still cheer when Indian team wins a match. We savor the moment with the person next to us, irrespective of his nativity and language; we still speak in English to colleagues at work with the same enthusiasm that comes when we speak in our native tongue; we get united in situations of dire need irrespective of the differences. Despite all this, a glow comes in our faces when we realize that the person sitting next to us in a bus in Washington is an Indian and it actually brightens when we further enquire and find that he speaks the same language that we speak. No doubt, your language is a very big differentiator and you are what you speak.


Science -- Ability to produce solutions in some problem domain (from wordweb).