Languages are economic capital — India`s languages will survive: Ganesh Devy

Award-winning writer and academic Ganesh Devy recently headed the People's Linguistic Survey of India, a nationwide documentation of Indian languages. Speaking with Sandhya Soman, Devy discussed the survival of Indian languages, how our bilingual history and technological future help — and how English is in fact showing signs of exhaustion now:
What do you think of Unesco's prediction regarding India that around 3,000 languages spoken today will disappear?
The Unesco list is hardly perfect.It has included a scheduled language like Meiteyi and a state language like Khasi, later removed from the list. In India, unlike in other places, English actually helped in the growth of some languages. Also, print technology that came in the 18th century resulted in the revitali-sation of literary imaginations in most languages.
We need to look at the innate tenacity of our languages while considering the Unesco forecast.
Our languages have rich histories — but can we turn India's linguistic diversity into economic benefit?
For the last 300 years, leading technologies depended only on the principles of physics, chemistry and mathematics. Now, information technology, computer science and mobile technology are going to lead economic growth — all these use language as their raw material.
Hence, languages need to be seen as economic capital.
Speaking of technology, how can this aid the languages of India?
Fortunately, contemporary technologies have brought languages back to their original form — the spoken word. Writing was important but it was only a short interlude in the evolution of humans and languages.
Given the recent shift, the distinction between written and spoken language is fast melting. I guess this is reason enough for Indian `non-written` languages to look up.
Do you think languages without scripts can survive?
The truth is that a language can be written in any script. Eng-lish has always used the Roman script. Sanskrit was written in Sharada at one time, as also in Malayalam, Modi and Devanagari. There is no connection between a language and the script in which it is written — by this token, it is possible to place all 'spoken only' languages in scripts.
What has been the impact of English on Indian languages?
English has this reputation of being a 'killer language'. In Australia, New Zealand, North America and some parts of Africa, it has played that role.
But in India, the contact with English during colonial times resulted in quickening the growth of many languages. Before the arrival of English, many languages had coped with Sanskrit and Persian for several centuries and thrived in an atmosphere of bilingualism. This cultural experience gave them the ability to survive.
In the future, the innate bilingualism of the Indian mind will save our indigenous languages.
But are there languages that are showing signs of fatigue?
Well, metals often show what`s known as fatigue after being in existence for a long time. Similarly, when languages grow larger than their functions require, they start breaking down. The emergence of various languages, grouped under the Indo-Aryan family, from Sanskrit at the beginning of the second millennium, is an instance close to us.
In the last 60 years, particularly since the end of World War II, English has started showing signs of fatigue. That is why one talks of `Indian English` as being significantly distinct from New Zealand English. This happens to all mega languages. Mandarin Chinese and Spanish too are passing through this phase — but it is a very slow process.