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Globalization challenges Asian
languages
By Rahul Goswami
SINGAPORE - A continent that contains a third of
the world's spoken codes, and yet one whose astonishing
diversity of speech and written systems is being eroded
by relentless globalization. That, in a nutshell, is the
ethnolinguist's lament for Asia.
"In Southeast
Asia, the response to globalization is to acquire
language skills, not in many languages, but in one, the
English language, which is seen as the key to success in
the globalized age," said Dr Rujaya Abhakorn, lecturer
in Southeast Asian history at Chiang Mai University in
Thailand.
It is indeed English, which served the
colonial British Empire and now drives the knowledge
economy and the Internet, that is all too often seen as
a Tyrannosaurus rex that voraciously gobbles up
cultures and traditions.
"Efficiency and
development, growth and human capital, are not tolerant
of difference," commented Professor Joseph Lo Bianco,
director of the National Language and Literacy Institute
of Australia. "Globalized modernization requires that
knowledge is imparted in ways that are comparable across
differences of setting, culture and language."
Abhakorn and Lo Bianco were participants at a
conference on language trends in Asia held this month by
the National University of Singapore's Asia Research
Institute. The discussion focused on the sorts of
globalization in Asia today, and whether or not the
primary language of an economy is endangering other
languages.
Generally, some participants pointed
out, the endangerment of language is most serious in
localities where globalization is most advanced and
includes virtually all economic sectors.
Against
such a background, the future of languages such as
Hovongan, in north-central Kalimantan, Indonesia, and
Sou, in the southern Laos province of Attapeu, is in
peril - each is estimated to have about 1,000 speakers,
and thus classified as being endangered by the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO).
"Our language has been
ripped from the world," Goenawan Mohamad, founding
editor of the Jakarta-based Tempo newsmagazine, wrote in
a paper presented at the meeting, "stripped of shape,
smell, color and form, cleansed of the grit and
graffiti, the rumpus and commotion that make up real
life".
Even where languages are not endangered,
there are confrontations between them and English.
Dr Udaya Narayan Singh, director of the Central
Institute of Indian Languages in Mysore, India, provided
a background to the diversity and linguistic politics of
the country.
"Even when 80 percent of all
Indians speak one or another major Indian language, and
Hindi is understood by close to 60 percent," said Singh,
"there are still many other languages with a long
literary history, grammatical tradition and rich
heritage, and they are still in use in all modern means
of communication."
"Bilingualism in India," he
said, "is not just due to economic causes but also due
to conflict."
The official language of
communication of India is Hindi. But, Singh explained,
"There is always a hidden tussle as well as open
confrontation between supporters of Hindi who mostly
oppose the use of English, and supporters of the
regional languages who look to English as an alternative
link between the Indian states."
Globalization
has also brought about what has been called the
"McDonaldization" of societies, most notably through the
entry of cultural products such as Hollywood movies, US
toys, fast food and pop music.
However, Anthony
Reid, director of the Asia Research Institute, noted
that although media are among the potent forces of
globalization today, they has been beneficial in the
past. For instance, he explained, radio and cheap
cassettes have helped non-national-language communities
in Indonesia, East Malaysia, the Philippines, Myanmar
and India.
"Cassettes and radio invigorated and
helped standardize the verbal expression of the language
even as its written expression was being lost," said
Reid. "In diaspora, even isolated speakers could remain
in touch with their musical traditions with a portable
stereo and a few cassettes."
Indeed, Lo Bianco
commented that new communication processes have arisen
that link tribal, small and localized languages to
ecological sustainability, or which seek to give these
languages political recognition within human-rights
paradigms. This also occurred during the 1990s as a way
of stemming "the cataclysmic loss of the world's
linguistic heritage, a vast proportion of this in the
Asian region", he said.
Like threatened plant
and animal species, endangered languages are confined to
small areas. More than 80 percent of countries with
great biological diversity are also the places with the
greatest number of endangered languages.
The
need for protection has never been more urgent - many of
the world's endangered plant and animal species today,
for example, are known only to certain peoples whose
languages are also dying out.
Even so, there are
parallel globalizations, Professor Chua Beng Huat of the
National University of Singapore observed.
"In
entertainment, one is looking at a very conscious effort
of an industry globalizing itself," he said. "In East
Asia, where Singapore is culturally placed because of
its Chinese-dominant population, the idea that we are
being Westernized/Americanized is being disrupted."
Chua said that fans of products such as pop
music from Japan or television soaps from Korea claim it
is easier than watching Hollywood: "You can't be white,
but you can move yourself from Singapore to Taiwan; the
dominant language is not English but 'different
Chinese', depending on where it's put together. Are
these programs in fact reactions to globalization, and
nationalistic?"
One reaction to the conventional
idea of globalization, as pointed out by Anne Pakir, an
associate professor at the National University of
Singapore, is that English is "going 'glocal', that is,
going global while maintaining local roots". She sees
"glocal English" as a language that has international
status but which also expresses local identities.
Already, more Asians speak English than anyone
else, and the kinds of Asian English multiply every
year. For the many who continue to see it as an
intrusion, a destructive force, there may be some solace
to be found in the old Malay saying, "Your mouth is your
tiger."
(Inter Press Service)
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