What English has done to other languages

I hadn’t heard about International Mother Tongue Day until 2004 when I took part in a Mother Tongue Day celebration at which, however, no light was thrown on the significance of observing February 21 as Mother Tongue Day.  Later, I learnt that, in the year 1999, UNESCO had declared February 21 as International Mother Language Day in response to a request from Bangladesh.  On February 21, 1952, in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), the police opened fire on a mass-rally demanding the declaration of their mother tongue, Bangla, as a state language of Pakistan, and a few young men who took part in the rally died of gunshot wounds.  Bangladesh still observes the day as Martyrs’ Day.  Incidentally, the love and respect that these language martyrs had aroused for their mother tongue, Bangla, laid the foundation for the war of liberation in Bangladesh.

One has the right to use one’s language and one has the right to maintain and develop one’s culture.  These are inalienable personal rights, according to UNESCO’s Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights.  But there are millions of people all over the world who have “lost” their mother tongues by opting to study, right from their childhood, through the medium of English, the language of opportunities, and by opting for, in addition, a dominant language other than their mother-tongue.  This has led to the marginalization of thousands of languages, particularly tribal languages, all over the world.  It is for this reason that language right activists call English a “killer language”.

How serious is this problem?  Here are some facts.  Alawa, in northern Australia, has only about 20 fluent speakers left.  Achumavi, in northern California, has just 10 elderly speakers.  There was only one speaker of Eyak in the year 2004 and he was 84 years old at the time!  Jiwali has no native speakers at all; the last native speaker died in 1986.  Manx as a native language became extinct in 1900 on the Isle of Man.

In the South Asian region, a number of languages are likely to become extinct in the near future.  In India, according to the 1961 census, there are only 98 speakers of Agariya and 17 speakers of Andamanese.  In Pakistan, there are only 250 speakers of Khowar.  In Bangladesh, Kumi is spoken by just 2000 people.  In Nepal, Kumal and Byangsi have only 1000 speakers each. 

In my own state, Andhra Pradesh, the study of the mother tongue, Telugu, has been made compulsory only recently. Until then, the tendency had been to avoid Telugu even as a Part I language in schools and colleges.  In English-medium schools, English was the medium of instruction and Hindi was the Part I language for hundreds of young people.  This was true of all the other southern states. (Tamil Nadu, which did not opt for the three-language formula, is perhaps an exception.)  Even though the study of the mother tongue has been made compulsory, people are by and large indifferent to the mother tongue. Mother tongue illiteracy is, therefore, an alarming problem.  At the global level, it is even more alarming.  According to a prediction by Krauss, a linguist, this century will see either the death or the doom of 90% of mankind’s languages.  They will be alive only in language documents and on the web. 

“Linguistic genocide”, “linguicide”, “language death” – the obiturial terminology is frightening.

Plain, evocative -- and non-vegetarian!

'Patient Pursuit of the Possible' was the title of the introductory chapter of a PhD thesis that came to me for editing last month.  I replaced that alliterative but vague title with a plain one: 'Introduction to the Study'.  The title of the last chapter ('Paradigm Shift') was extravagantly grand.  I put a circle round it and wrote 'Conclusion'.  The titles were elegant phrases, borrowed from J S Bruner in the case of the first one, and Thomas Kuhn in the case of the second.  But the problem with them was that they didn't fit in: they didn't indicate the central idea of the respective chapters.

It is difficult to find a title that is fitting as well as evocative.  The Grapes of Wrath, the title of a novel by John Steinbeck, is at once both.  In the closing scene of the novel, it is raining heavily, and Rose of Sharon, who has just been delivered of a still-born baby, is being carried along the high road by Pa and Uncle John.  They see a barn and take her inside. They find an old man lying there with a boy bending over him.  The boy says, "He ain't ate for days – reckon he’ll die unless he gets soup or milk."  Rose of Sharon lies down by the old man, undoes her dress and pulls his head down to her breast.  "You got to", she says and her face lights up with a mysterious smile.  The title, taken from 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' is itself a reference to Revelation.  Rose of Sharon, who gives life to the old man, is the Beloved of the Song of Songs "whose breasts are like unto a cluster of grapes", the Beloved who says: "Take, eat: this is My Body…"

If It Die, the title of an autobiographical fragment by Andre Gide, is reminiscent of St John's Gospel ("Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit) as well as Rousseau's Confessions.  Here are a few other titles that are evocative: A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Power and the Glory, The Sound and the Fury, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The God of Small Things.

A good number of literary masterpieces have very simple titles.  Tolstoy's tour de force, which is recognized as the greatest novel in world literature, has a plain title: War and Peace.  Dr Zhivago is plainer than that.  Animal Farm and 1984, the titles of Orwell's famous novels, are matter-of-fact.  Don Quixote, Gulliver's Travels, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer are some of the most fascinating books in world literature, but their titles are colourless.  But the books urge you to raise the old Shakespearian question: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet." 

Some books are a real feast, but their titles turn my vegetarian stomach.  But I'm developing a stronger stomach, particularly after reading Chicken Soup for the Soul.  In any case, I'd prefer such books to those whose titles are as pleasing as vegetarian food but the content revolting.

An autobiography that makes amends

For decades I had nursed a prejudice against Sir Winston Churchill.  The prejudice was largely due to what Churchill had said in the House of Commons during the debate on the Indian Independence Bill.  "Liberty is man's birthright", he began on a noble note, but descended soon to the depths of insensitivity: "However, to pass on the reins of the government to the Congress at this juncture is to hand over the destiny of hungry millions into the hands of rascals, rogues and freebooters… India will take a thousand years to know the periphery of the philosophy of politics.  Today we hand over the government to men of straw of whom no trace will be found in a few years."

My prejudice remained as deep-rooted as before even after I had read about Churchill's attempt to make amends for his insensitive remarks by praising one of those "men of straw".  "When you write to your Prime Minister, Mr Nehru", he said to the Indian High Commissioner in Ottawa, "tell him I think he is one of the greatest men in contemporary history.  He has accomplished two things that men can accomplish: he has conquered prejudice, and he has conquered fear."

What this penitential note didn't achieve, his book did.  Churchill's autobiography, which I read 82 years after the book had been published in 1930, showed him in a new light.  Emerging from the pages of My Early Life is a deeply sensitive and cultured young man whose battles to educate himself don't fail to strike a chord with the reader.

"Menaced with education" is Churchill's description of his initial contact with formal education.  The first bitter blow came from a governess with sinister looks, and the next, a literal one this time, from the headmaster of a boarding school where he had been sent.  Fortunately for Winston, he had already discovered the joys of reading, and he turned to books to seek relief from the distress caused by Greek and Latin which his masters taught with the "large resources of compulsion" at their disposal.  Then he went to another school where he was taught everything he liked – history,   French, poetry, riding, and swimming.  He was detained in the Fourth Form for as long as possible, and he was happy about it: it helped him master the English language!  "I got into my bones", he says, "the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence -- which is a noble thing."

After Sandhurst, Winston, 22 now, began his army career in India.  Having plenty of spare time on his hands in Bangalore, he spent about five hours a day reading the great classics on history, economics, and philosophy.  He devoured the eight volumes of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and went on to Macaulay and learnt all the Lays of Ancient Rome by heart.  It was followed by Macaulay's History and Essays, Plato's Republic, Darwin's Origin of Species, Malthus's  On Population…

Churchill was well known as a master of words.  My Early Life vouches for it.  What it also vouches for is the fact that he was a self-educated man.

What is high about our higher education?

In today’s The Chronicle of Higher Education, published from Washington DC, USA, I came across an interesting article entitled, ‘In Search of India’s Missing Professors,’ by P Pushkar, who is a research fellow at the Institute for International Development at McGill University.  The article would have one believe that alarm bells are ringing in Indian higher education. ‘There are reports,’ says Pushkar, ‘that India faces a shortage of 300,000 faculty members in its universities and colleges. It is estimated that the shortage will increase at the rate of 100,000 each year. These are big numbers even for a country of one billion-plus people and counting. What is remarkable is that the faculty shortage is serious not only in poor-quality public universities and colleges, but even at the world-class Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). The truth is that, with some exceptions, higher education is in deep rot. India simply does not produce a sufficient number of high-quality PhDs. Not surprisingly, the IITs and the IIMs are trying to recruit Indians from abroad to fill faculty positions. It remains to be seen, however, how many will actually take up such jobs. Here in North America or in the UK, there is no dearth of Indians with Ph.Ds who distinguish themselves in teaching and research. Few, however, want to teach in India, not even at the IITs and the IIMs. The motto for Indians abroad–certainly those in academe–is still “anywhere but India”.’

Pushkar raises an interesting question: ‘How has such a large and populous country, and one where education is highly valued, reached a point where it cannot find faculty members for its most venerable institutions?’ This is his answer: ‘The problem is in part about salaries. According to a study by Philip G  Altbach of Boston College and Jamil Salmi of the World Bank on academic institutions around the world, salaries at the IITs are “ridiculously low” compared to IIT graduates who go into the private sector. They could have added that salaries are also “seriously low” compared to salaries in Western or world-class Eastern universities, even adjusted for the lower cost of living in India.’

This is how Pushkar concludes his article: ‘India’s political leaders do not seem to appreciate the extent of the faculty crisis. Mostly, there is a lot of talk and ambitious plans about reforming higher education. They need to first try and change the way Indians think about the profession. That and better salaries, especially to attract qualified faculty for the IITs, IIMs, and the all-too-few other quality institutions. Until then, Indians will prefer to teach on North American, British, and Australian campuses.’

These are my reflections on Pushkar's article:

Except for the sensational headline ('In search of India's "missing" professors), the article is a fairly accurate picture of the abysmal situation in India. Jairam Ramesh's observation about the so-called excellence of the IITs and the IIMs was not a tongue-in-cheek remark; it was a perceptive observation which the minister had the courage to articulate, even though political compulsions made him retract it later. Several decades ago, one of the Indian Vice-Chancellors, V V John, who never minced words, put it even more bluntly: 'There is nothing high about our higher education.' 'It cannot be brought lower,' he might say if he had lived to see the abysmal depths to which higher education has sunk in India over the past quarter century.

I think it is not just better salaries and better living conditions that have forced talented people to emigrate to countries like the USA, Singapore and the Gulf. Indian higher education doesn't just have the environment in which self-respecting people can breathe easily. One of my friends who is teaching abroad once said, 'I would not go back to teach in India even if they doubled my pay.' And he gave two reasons for not going back to India: political interference and a hierarchical atmosphere in which the head of the department or the Principal acts like a feudal lord. There is room for all this in our academia because it consists predominantly of lowbrows. At the lower rungs of the higher education ladder, where you find State-funded universities and colleges, the situation is much worse. As a teacher in one of those colleges who rejected an opportunity to work in a foreign university early on in my 30-year-long career and stayed behind, I have often been a victim of thuggish brutality for standing up for intellectual freedom.  About a decade ago, I was forced to resign as the Head of the Department of English in my college, and, a few months ago, I was abused ("Bloody fellow!" shouted a lecturer, advancing menacingly towards me) by some of my colleagues at an official meeting in my college and threatened with violence.  This is by no means an isolated incident; colleges and universities have by and large become a haven for idle gossip, calumny, slander and what have you.

Research, which Pushkar’s article talks about in passing, is one of the sordid aspects of Indian higher education. Some years ago, I spent a few days with Professor Helen Christiansen from Canada who was an authority on second language acquisition and who was a research examiner for some of the prestigious Indian universities. When I asked her about her perception of the state of research in India, she told me with no hesitation that, without a single exception, the PhD dissertations she had received for assessment from India were third rate. And she took pains to justify her remark. 

Helen was blunt. And what she said hurt my national pride. But the fact remains that we, Indians, are a nation of third-rate researchers. Much of what goes on in the name of research in our universities cannot stand up to close scrutiny. The recently-reported case of plagiarism in Indian academia is just a tip of the iceberg. I have refused to evaluate several MPhil and PhD dissertations and asked the universities which had sent them to spare me the agony in future.

I shall conclude with an amusing anecdote which can demonstrate how appallingly lowbrow Indian academia is. Once I attended a scholarly lecture on research methodology which, I thought, was brilliant. The audience consisted of college teachers most of whom were engaged in either MPhil or PhD research. Behind me was a row of lecturers who launched into an hour-long natter minutes after the lecture began. In front of me were several rows of teachers, some chatting, some snoozing, and some with a bored expression of their faces. My own row was kept awake by the loud snores that came from a senior lecturer seated beside me!

  

Is a secular Christmas possible?

Jesus Christ brings to mind the story of the temple bells, told by Father Tony de Mello, a Jesuit priest.

The story is about a temple which had sunk into the sea but whose bells, ringing out ceaselessly, according to a legend, could be head by anyone capable of listening.  Inspired by the legend, a young man travelled thousands of miles and reached the place to hear those bells.  But all that he heard was the sound of the sea.  He kept at this task for weeks but in vain.  Disappointed, he decided to leave the place.

It was his last day in the village.  The young man went to the shore to say goodbye to the sea.  He lay on the sand and, for the first time, tried to listen to the sound of the sea.  Soon, he was so lost in the sound that he was barely conscious of himself; so deep was the silence the sound produced.

Now he heard the temple bells!  First he heard the tinkle of a tiny bell, followed by another, another, yet another till every one of the thousand bells was pealing out in harmony and his heart was rapt in joyous ecstasy.

This is how Father de Mello commented on the story: Do you wish to hear the temple bells?  Listen to the sound of the sea.  Do you wish to catch a glimpse of God?  Look intently at His creation.

That seems to be the essence of all that Jesus preached.  He said, "Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all they heart, with all they soul and with all thy mind."  In the same breath, he said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour."  To put them both in different words, this is what Jesus seemed to be saying: Use your faith in the service of the living men in the world.  It appears, then, that his plan of action is not so much for the salvation of the soul in the other world as for the liberation of mankind from, say, oppression and misery in this world itself. 

This is indeed a humanistic ideal which ought to be the concern of everyone who cares for others.  If Christianity is a convenient name for this ideal, a religionless Christianity should also be possible as, indeed, it was possible for the German theologian, Bonhoeffer.  It was he who coined the term, "religionless Christianity".

I don't know if there is a secular Christmas as well, but I don't see any reason why there shouldn't be one.

More about lying with statistics

"What have you got against statistics?"  a Facebook friend asked after reading the piece, 'Lies, damned lies and statistics.' "Nothing at all", I replied.  "I only distrust those who work with statistics."  Then I told her a couple of real-life stories.

One of them will bear repeating.  Thirteen years ago, I was working on a research project which involved a lot of statistical analysis of data.  I consulted two well-known statisticians in Chennai who agreed to do the work for me for a hefty fee.  They said that, in their analysis, they would be using three tests (namely, Kruskal-Wallis, Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney, and Kolmogorov Smirnov) which, they claimed, were "spanking new".  A month later, they gave the results.  When I checked their calculations at random, I found even their arithmetic incorrect.  I had to get the entire data reanalyzed, and it was done with great competence by a young man in Vijayawada.  The young man told me that the three tests used in the analysis were far from new: they had been in use even two decades ago.  He showed me the 1977 edition of a book called Non-Parametric Statistical Inference by JD Gibbons, which spoke about the tests.

Lots and lots of such lies pass unnoticed, thanks to what the mathematician John Allen Paulos calls our "mathematical illiteracy".  In a lovely little book called Innumeracy he has written, Paulos points out that most people are uncomfortable with basic mathematical principles which makes them poor judges of the numbers they encounter.  We accept statistics, both good and bad, with reverence because we don't have a good head for figures.

I never had a good head for figures when I was a student.  But a friend of mine whom we called Statistics Srivatsan had a wonderful head.  At the slightest provocation, he would launch into a lengthy statistical explanation.  Once a language teacher asked him why he was often late.  "Often?" Srivatsan asked with a quizzical expression on his face, and continued, "So far in this academic year, you've taken 98 periods, sir.  And I've come to 82 of them on time, which is 8.3 per cent higher than the class average of …"

Once Srivatsan quizzed me with a statistic.  "Do you know, Ramanujam, that, in this world, every ten seconds, a woman gives birth to a child?  What do you think about it?"  "Think about it!" I burst out. "Who is that irresponsible woman? We must tell her to stop it at once."  Srivatsan fixed me with a gaze of cold hardness that would have frozen an Eskimo.

I wonder where Statistics Srivatsan is now.  Wherever he is, he must be a statistician; I can't picture him as anything else.  And he must be lying with statistics as impressively as he did when the teacher asked him whey he was often late.

Lies, damned lies and statistics

A story I read in the Lifestyle magazine fascinated me.  A woman was told that she would be granted three wishes but that her husband would get ten times more or better than whatever she wished for.  For the first two wishes, she wanted to become the richest and the most beautiful woman in the world, and both were granted.  Her third wish was malicious: "I'd like a mild heart attack."

Of course, the woman had a mild heart attack, but what would the husband have got for the third wish?  He would certainly have had a heart attack.  But would it have been ten times severer or ten times milder than the wife's? 

That depends on how we interpret the condition in relation to the wish.  And if we are required to generalize the "sample" (one woman) to the "population" (all women), what conclusion can we come to about women in general?  That also depends on our interpretation.  If our interpretation is that the husband's heart attack was ten times severer, then women are clever indeed.  If, on the contrary, our interpretation is that it was ten times milder, women are dumb, though they think they are smart.  Most women might argue that the first interpretation is the correct one, and most men, the second.  Truth, it is said, "will out".  But it looks as though there are no truths; there are only interpretations.

If you think I am splitting hairs, you are right.  And I am splitting hairs because I have just finished reading two books about statistics in which there is plenty of hair-splitting: How to Lie with Statistics, written more than forty five years ago, and Damned Lies and Statistics, published in 2001.

Joel Best, the author of the second book, talks about the following statistic he once came across in an article in a prestigious journal: "Every year since 1950, the number of American children gunned down has doubled."  What does it mean?  Well, let's assume that the number of American children gunned down in 1950 was one.  If the number doubled each year, there must have been two children gunned down in 1951, four in 1952, eight in 1953, and so on.  By 1980, the number would have been one billion (more than four times the total US population that year).  By 1995, when the article was published in the journal, the annual number of children gunned down in America would have been over 35 trillion.  Absurd!  Actually, the author of the journal article had borrowed the statistic from a 1994 yearbook in which the information had been given as follows: "The number of American children killed each year by guns has doubled since 1950."  In other words, the deaths in 1994 were twice as many as in 1950.  But the statistic had got garbled in the journal article. And considering the reputation of the journal, the statistic must have been uncritically accepted and quoted by several researchers.

Let me go back to the point I made with reference to that funny story with a clever punchline: you can prove anything with statistics if only you know the "art" of interpretation.  Benjamin Disraeli was not wide of the mark when he said: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."