The colonial response to language diversity

The term ‘civilisation’ is no longer a term that historians, ethnographers or archaeologists use with any great fondness. Its use primarily gained currency in Europe as a cultural history description when Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) published History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in six volumes between 1776 and 1788.

His theme was civilisation and its destruction, caused by barbaric enemies. He wrote, “After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four principal causes of the ruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a period of more than a thousand years: i. injuries of time and nature; ii. hostile attacks of the Barbarians and Christians; iii. use and abuse of the materials; and, iv. domestic quarrels of the Romans.” 

The success of his work was such that there was hardly anyone in England with any claim to education, class and social distinction who had not read the copious tomes produced by Gibbon.

It was as if to read Gibbon was to be civilised. It would be surprising, therefore, if Sir William Jones (1746–1794) — referred to as ‘Sir’ in order to distinguish him from his famous mathematician father who was also named William Jones (1675–1749) — would not have read it.

Sir William founded the Asiatic Society in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1784 and presented his most important observation to the world in 1786. It was well received in Europe in the heyday of Gibbon’s history.

The term ‘civilisation’ was implicit, though not foregrounded, in Jones’ formulation related to historical linguistics. His hypothesis was about ancient relationships between various European and Asian languages, or the ‘Indo-European’ languages. 

In his Third Anniversary Discourse (1786) to the Asiatic Society, he suggested that Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin had a common root, and that indeed they may all be related, in turn, to Gothic and Celtic languages, as well as to Persian.

This indicated the existence of an older language, no longer in existence in his time, a ‘proto-Indo-European language’. He concluded that all these had probably developed from a common source.

Jones’ well-founded hypothesis and the work of his eminent scholar colleagues, such as Charles Wilkins (1749–1836), Nathaniel Halhed (1751–1830), Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) and James Prinsep (1799–1840) provided Indians of their time a new thread to connect themselves with ancient India. 

Previously, the connection was through myths, legends and epics. Jones’ hypothesis opened up a path for the late 18th-century India to approach its remote past.

His Asiatic Society colleagues and successive generations of European scholars in Calcutta, Madras, Bombay and other stations of the East India Company continued to produce new and scientific knowledge about Indian geology, geography, society, literature, language, religion, arts, and possibly every conceivable area of knowledge.

Given the political dominance of the British during the 19th century, the body of knowledge produced by the European ideologists became quite influential. Besides, the industry of these ideological scholars was remarkable. 

Under the influence of these scholars, a new knowledge of India emerged for contemporary Indians, and a new philosophy of historical linguistics developed in Germany and France, which started classifying languages into language families.

Initially, it was claimed that all Indian languages had grown out of Sanskrit. Gradually, the Dravidian language family, the source of which was Tamil, was proposed by Robert Caldwell in 1856.

Since the times of Sir William Jones, major attempts have been made to propose and formulate conceptual categories for describing the linguistic and cultural diversity and knowledge traditions in India.

The corresponding process of decolonisation has also spurred efforts to align traditional knowledge with the colonial production of knowledge within the context of the Western modernity.

While the clash, as well as collaboration, between what is seen as knowledge compatible with the Western cognitive categories and knowledge traditions rooted in the lives of predominantly oral communities, continue to occupy the imaginative transactions in India, the mainstream institutions of knowledge, such as schools, universities, hospitals, courts, etc., have acquired forms that often leave out the complexities involved in the ‘great transition of civilisation in the Indian subcontinent’.

This situation poses an intellectual challenge that thinkers in the 21st century need to negotiate. Probably, the most important among the cognitive categories that continue to carry traces of this ‘transition in civilisation’ orientation belong to the field of creative expression in language and the one related to language description. 

(The writer is chairperson, The People’s Linguistic survey of India)