Language is essentially a tool. A tool that is basically used for two purposes. You can either use this tool to repair the various relations that exist in the human world or you can use it to destroy the same. The usage of this tool and the extent to which it can be used ultimately varies from person to person. It depends on your intentions, motives, insecurities, ego, and most importantly on your understanding of the human psychology.
Language wars are definitely not something that have been unheard of. They have been taking place since time immemorial. It is sad but true, that in some places they still exist. If not in the exaggerated form like it used to, it definitely does exist somewhere deep down the heart of mankind even today. Blame the human conscience!
Right from the days of the French revolution, it has always been a matter of question for the diverse number of people who eventually happened to live together in the same territory due to some war. These people coming from different backgrounds, families, religions, had only one question in their minds. Which language is to be held as the more predominant? Does the economically dominant class get to have their only say? And thus a whole new chapter begins where the words “ours” and “theirs” appear to be the only prominent and penetrating ones that the human mind supposedly seems to understand. Because everything else makes no sense and get blurred away.
“Thus, England came into Normandy’s hand, and the Normans at that time could only speak their own language, and spoke French just as they did at home and taught their children in the same manner, so that people of rank in this country who came of their blood all stick to the same language for if a man knows no French people will think little of him. “
Oh! Yes my friend the barrier of language is such.
In today’s date, however, multilingual society is the new expression of the modern thinking. Though Barack Obama’s presidential victory marks a healing of the linguistic, racial, cultural differences to some degree and it is certainly a moment of pride for us but still practically speaking, will a common man suddenly stop feeling secluded in an alien country having a different tongue?
Maybe the emotions which are universal will bring the people together. And yes, since we all are very well accustomed to the theory of the great Wordsworth, let us just say that literature brings the new ray of hope. Literature is nothing but the spontaneous overflow of emotions. Howsoever different your and my way of verbal utterance may be, our emotions or more precisely human emotions, will help us to reach that new edge where all of us becomes one. The plethora of emotions that literature provides us with bridges the linguistic gap between us. For my friend! Emotions don’t have a language of their own. They exist in all of us. Universal that is.
Therefore, in the end, it’s the emotions and various other feelings that unite us. Though the languages divide, what we try to convey unites us without doubt.
Author bio: Literature has always fascinated me ever since I was a child. I am an avid reader and I take ample pleasure in the art of writing as well. Learning about new things happening around the globe,discovering new facts, experiencing the little things in our day to day lives and interpreting all of it in an altogether different way from my perspective has always been my way of working.
