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J. Prabhakara RAO
Professor in Linguistics & Coordinator,
Centre for Study of Foreign Languages,
University of Hyderabad
(Hyderabad, India)
Multilingualism in India and Indian Languages in Cyberspace
Recent years have witnessed a number of significant changes in language
management. For instance, largely as a result of globalization and scientific and
technological advancements, there has been a considerable focus on frequency
and intensity of use of languages in cyberspace. However, cyberspace is vastly
available in developed and in some of the fast developing economics like
India, China, Brazil, South Africa, etc. The reasons are obvious – qualified
human resources, free capital movements, transcontinental trade resulting in
consumption identical products, etc. Besides, the distribution of population
and big improvement in the level of communication access (telephony, mobile
phones, Internet, etc.) during last five years have given boost in these countries
for designing tools and implementing them vigorously for effective use of
tremendous huge size of cyberspace.
The paper is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the background
for multilingualism and its development. The second part concentrates
on various governmental initiatives to promote multilingualism using
information technology.
1. Genesis and Development of Multilingualism in India
Multilingualism represents a historical phenomenon in the Indian subcontinent.
It began with the migration of Dravidians and then contact of
Aryans with Dravidians. It is important to note that ‘Dravidians’ and ‘Aryan’
are not racial terms. As Krishnamurti (2003:3) observes, “still there is no
archeological or linguistic evidence to show actually when the people who spoke
the Dravidian languages entered India. But we know that they were already
in northwest India by the time Rigvedic Aryans entered India by the fifteenth
Century BC E.11”. Scholars still debate on this issue and “a truly convincing
hypothesis has not even been formulated yet” (Zvelebil, 1990:123). However,
this situation had provided basis for the birth of multilingualism in the Indian
subcontinent. Multilingualism flourished with the spread of both the tribes
across India and their contact with local austroloid tribes (a hypothesis yet to
be established). In later centuries, Sanskrit which was the language of rituals
became archaic and new forms of Sanskrit such as Pali, Prakrits came into
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