Language, Dialect and Tribal Language

Culture, they call it; it distingusheth them from the goat-herds.

                                                                                                -Nietzsche 2003: 07

Language is the aspect of human species that makes the human beings markedly different from any other species on the earth. Because of language only, we are able to develop a wonderful and varied human culture. Lambert (1967: 05) writes, “(l)anguage is a form or type or aspect of human behavior. Language is something which human beings produce and which in turn characterizes them as people. It is, so to speak, one of our most human activities, if not the most human.” Such views are available from the earliest history of linguistic research. (Harris 1983, Sapir 1963b, Lambert 1967) The most important difference between Human communication and the Animal communication is that humans have developed various means, channels and systems of communications as per their area, status and requirement. On the other hand, any animal can follow the signaling system from the animal of same type from any other area. Say for example, a dog born and brought up in India can easily transfer required signals and develop communication with other dog, born and brought up anywhere in the world. Cultural translatability makes us, Humans, different from other animals. It also makes us different from other human beings also. We, now, don’t just talk about language, but we have developed various codes of language based on our area of residence or our class, cast or religious identity. Thus, we, now, talk about dialects – class dialects, regional dialects, registers, occupational dialects – and tribal languages. Lambert (1967: 05) says, “(t)he real language consists of vocal sounds which people produce when they talk to one another. That is to say, human talk is the subject matter of linguistic science.” Linguistics is a scientific study of the language. “Scientific” refers to unbiased and objective study of various aspects and relations of language to human society and culture.

Max Muller remarked that all sciences pass through three stages, the “empirical”, the “classificatory” and the “theoretical” or “metaphysical”, the first stage is that of common experience; the second, of discovery and classification of hierarchic ordering in the data; and the third, an attempt to explain the causes and purposes of that order. (Dineen 1983: 17) Similar scientific/ observational hierarchies were actually provided by Aristotle in his Rhetoric as empeiria, techne: and episte:me. Generative paradigm also uses such hierarchies in terms of different adequacies of the grammar. The present paper will try to rise above the differences among these concepts, the negative association with the terms like dialects, tribal language and the concept of tribe itself. The paper will try to apply the suggested stages on the concepts of Language, Dialect and Tribal Language and will try to check the validity of these terms from scientific stand point. The paper will take the data from the Rathwi Language, a ‘so-called’ tribal language spoken in Raath area of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh border areas, it’s considered to be a dialect of Gujarati (cf. Vyas 1997, Acharya 2009 & Rathva 2004). The data of another variety will be provided from the Diu Dialect of Gujarati, spoken in Diu. This dialect is largely used by the fisherman community of Diu. The paper will provide the comparison of these two varieties with the Standard Gujarati. The data largely depend on Manasuri (2002). The paper will go by the stages suggested by Max Mullar.

Stage I: Empirical

This stage refers to ‘common experience’, the observation of the data. At this stage, the identification of the code is done. Gujarati is the language used as an official language of the state Gujarat. There are billions of users of this language in the state and in other parts of the world. It uses Devanagri script. There are all the various stylistic forms for various domains available in the language. Considering the sound system, vocabulary and syntactic and pragmatic structures, we can easily notice other varieties of this ‘standard variety’ of Gujarati. We can identify the social as well as regional uniqueness in many different varieties of Gujarati. The standard Gujarati /s/ sound is realized as /h/ in Diu variety. Similarly, /l/ is realized as /n/, and /c^h/ is realized as /s/ here. Similar, sound differences can be identified in Rathwi also.

There are so many lexical items which are unique to Diu variety and Rathwi. These lexical items are clearly absent from standard Gujarati. For example, standard Gujarati contains three different pronouns, /tu/, /təme/ and /ap/ for second person, and its usage is based on the interrelationship of the speaker and hearer, it addresses the issues of power relation. Diu variety has only one second person pronoun, /tu/, which is used for all the various purposes, even wife addresses her husband using this pronoun. Grammatically, there is no power distinction and marking available in this variety. In Rathwi, they have two pronouns for the same, /tu/ and /təhữ/, but again/təhữ/ is used in very marked situation, for example for Kings or head of the family etc. Otherwise, there is no gender of age distinction marked by the pronouns. We can see such apparent differences in syntactic structures and grammatical markings also.

Stage II:  Classificatory

This stage concerns with the discovery and classification of hierarchic ordering in the data. Based on all theses differences available in all these three varieties, Standard Gujarati, Diu Variety of Gujarati and Rathwi, we can postulate that these three are different codes employed by different groups of people. But, all these codes are employed in the region Gujarat, and as per the Government sources there is only one language, Gujarati, in the state, and all these varieties uses the same script for writing, though there are very few who write using Diu variety of Gujarati and Rathwi has oral literature which is being encoded by educated Rathwa people. One more important factor is that in Gujarat the medium of education is Gujarati, no matter what one’s mother tongue is. Thus, now educated Rathwa people are also educated through Gujarati medium. Consequently, the actual tribal language is also scripted using the same script. Thus, in spite of the apparent differences Rathwi is considered to be a dialect of Gujarati language and not a tribal language in itself. On the other hand, Diu variety, which is more appropriately a regional variety of Gujarat, does not have any name in the various dialects of Gujarati. Its existence is not yet acknowledged. Thus, this classification, which is used not only by Government but also by many linguists in their empirical studies, is inherently faulty.

Stage III: Theoretical

This stage is the theoretical basis of our classification of stage two; this is an attempt to explain the causes and purposes of that order developed in second stage. In order to put the classification into the theoretical format, we need to understand the concepts of language and dialect. To put simply, language is a medium of communication. The spoken language is considered primary and written language is secondary (Lambert 1967: 05). Sapir (1963a: 83) says, “(t)o the linguist there is no real difference between a ‘dialect’ and a ‘language’”. This is a kind of utopian condition that Sapir refers to, but, the reality is very different. Another linguist, Wilson (1967: 86), writes, “when we discuss language, ‘dialect’ should be a neutral word. We simply mean ‘the form or variety of a spoken language peculiar to a region, community, social group, or occupational group.’ Here again, ‘should be’ used by the author clearly implies the difference between the reality and the ideal. Nevertheless, he clearly mentions the various associations of the varieties of language with the social criteria like region, community or group. Harris (1983: 07) refers to this issue as a ‘fiction’ of  linguistically homogenous communities, for example in our case, the postulation is that that in entire state of Gujarat, we have only one community which follows same rules of grammar and communication. But, the reality says that not a single spoken variety actually represents the standard Gujarati.

Layman naturally assumes that these terms, language & dialect, which are both popular and scientific in their use, refer to actual entities that are clearly distinguishable and therefore enumerable. It becomes important to understand the concept of dialect. Dialects have the origin in Greek tradition, ‘dialects’ bore the names of various Geek regions, they were not written but spoken varieties of Greek, each one specialized for certain literary uses, e.g., Ionic for history, Doric for the choral lyric, and Attic for tragedy. In that period the language called ‘Greek’ was therefore a group of distinct, but related written norms known as ‘dialects’ (Haugen 1972: 98). The case of Gujarati is completely different, the varieties here lack the written tradition, and the standard variety is not the reconstructed form of those varieties. Instead, there is no near equivalent of the standard variety, it is the variety imposed on people. There was nothing like ‘common’ Gujarati language from which other varieties are developed. Thus, the analogy, generally followed by many linguists, does not give us the theoretically sound picture.

Due to the above analogy, the language and dialect dichotomy apparently leads to the categorization that makes the language superior. Dialects are merely part of the bigger/hyponemous term Language. We always say that ‘Rathwi is a dialect of Gujarati’, or ‘Gujarati has a Diu dialect and a Rathwi dialect’. This conception also hypothesizes the primordial characteristic of Language, it anticipates that Language was originally there and the various dialects are corruption of the actual language (Stanley 1967: 86). Akmajian et al (2009: 276) rightly puts, “the term dialect refers to a form of a language that is regarded as ‘substandard,’ ‘incorrect,’ or ‘corrupt,’ as opposed to the ‘standard,’ ‘correct,’ or ‘pure’ form of a language.” (Italics in original.) As a result the written from of Gujarati is considered to be the purest form, something “God-given”, and people generally deny the very existence of the other varieties, just like what happens in the case of Diu variety of Gujarati. But, the fact is that the various varieties, the ‘so-called’ dialects of Gujarati actually predate the Standard Gujarati.

            The identification of dialects is generally based on the criterion of ‘mutual intelligibility’. This criterion fails in cases of Diu variety as well as Rathwi. The fisherman community of Diu can comprehend the sophisticated variety of Gujarati and generally switch to it for the communication with outsiders, but the variety is incomprehensible from an outsiders. Rathwi is spoken on the border of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, on this side of the border it is considered to be a variety of Gujarati and on other side of the border the same code is considered to be a variety of Malvi/Hindi. Rathwi variety is not intelligible for the Gujarati users; consequently, they also constantly switch from Rathwi variety to Gujarati. These are the issues related with the concept of dialect.

Language vs. Dialect & Language vs. Tribal Language

These issues raise two different but related dichotomies, both binary oppositions are results of structural developments in sciences, and in both the dichotomies, the concept of Language is central, and both are direct out put of power relation in the given society. I will depend on the discussion of Language by Sapir (1963b). Sapir discusses some important characteristics of language. He stresses the speech as a realization of language (Ibid 07), which could be any form of language, either a dialect or a tribal language. Basically, there is no difference in terms of realization. There is no tribe found, so far, without language, and all the living groups have equally powerful and perfect means of expression. Thus, considering the communication as a criterion all forms of language are linguistically identical, neither one is superior or inferior.

All languages, whether spoken or written, living or extinct, are ‘primarily a system of phonetic symbols for the expression of communicable thought and feeling.’ (Sapir 1963b: 07) Diu variety and Rathwi are not an exception; both the codes have specific phonological structures. These phonological structures are different from that of Gujarati phonological structure. ‘The speech apparatus which is used in the articulation of language is the same for all known people’ (Ibid) thus, it is useless to classify the codes as dialect or tribal language. In spite of different phonemic structures for different varieties, the research shows that there is no language without a definite phonemic structure (Ibid: 08).  Similarly, claiming that a particular code is more grammatical or ‘form bound’ than the other is also empirically disproved (Ibid: 09-10). Akmajian et al (2009: 318) states it rightly as, “no natural language has been shown to be more primitive than any other language in terms of grammatical organization, expressiveness, and so forth”

            Similarly, the term tribe also raises innumerable questions. All homosapiens are having the equally complex cultural system. None of the cultures is more developed, or primitive than the other, they are just different. But, socio-political and economic status put one culture or one type of ‘way-of-living’ superior to another. The concept of tribe, with modern connotations of primitiveness, comes from western sciences. And, it is important to critically investigate and redefine the concept with special reference to Indian societies.

Conclusion:

Haugen relates the concept of language with the Nation, and dialects are used by the people in respective areas. But, in the country like India, the situation is markedly different. Gujarati refers to an official variety of a given state, and certain varieties of this language are used in some other states as well as in few other countries too. Here, in India a linguistic variety is an essential part of a group’s identity, and hence classifying the variety is equivalent to classifying the groups and people.

To conclude, I would like to remind the cases of Rathwi and Diu variety of Gujarati. Diu Varity which actually is a variation of Standard variety of Gujarati is not acknowledged as a variety in itself. On the other hand, Rathwi which is basically a tribal language is considered to be a variety, merely a dialect, of Gujarati. Both the concepts of ‘dialect’ and ‘tribe’ bear negative connotations, and they are considered to be inherently inferior in the dichotomies of ‘language-dialect’ and ‘civilized-tribal’. These negative connotations hinder the objective and scientific investigations in the respective fields. Hence, it is important to go through the stages proposed by Max Muller and we need to classify the data on the basis of scientific evidence. 

References:

Acharya, Shantibhai (2009)    Ame Bolio Chhie: Varied Analysis of Gujarati Dialects. Ahmedabad: Gujarati             Sahitya Parishad.

Akmajian, Adrian, Richard A. Demers, Ann K. Farmer & Robert M. Harnish (2009) Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication. New Delhi: PHI Learning Private Ltd. (5^th Edition)

Dinneen, Francis P. (1983) “Language and Linguistics” in Approaches to Language (Edited) Roy Harris: 17-29. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Harris, Roy (1983) “Language and Speech” in Approaches to Language (Edited) Roy Harris: 01-15. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Haugen, E. (1972) “Dialect, Language, Nation” in Sociolinguistics (Editors) J B Pride & J Holmes: 97-111. Harrmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.

Lambert, J. J. (1967) “Basic Concepts for Teaching from Structural Linguistics” in A Linguistic Reader (Edited) Graham Wilson: 03-09. NY, Evanstone & London: Harper & Row, Publishers.

Manasuri, Nazir (2002) Dhhalkachabo. Ahmedabad: R. R. Sheth & Com.

Nietzsche, Friedrich (2003) Thus Spake Zarathrustra. New Delhi: Robin books.

Rathva, Parsing H. (2004) A Small Dictionary of Rathwi. Unpublished dissertation submitted to the M S University of Baroda, Vadodara.

Sapir, Edward (1963a) “Dialect” in Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality (Edited) David G. Mandelbaum: 83-88. Berkley & Los Angeles: University           of California Press.

_____ (1963b) “Language” in Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality (Edited) David G. Mandelbaum: 07-32. Berkley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Rundle, Stanley (1967) “Language and Dialect” in A Linguistic Reader (Edited) Graham Wilson: 86-89. NY, Evanstone & London: Harper & Row, Publishers.

Vyas, Yogendra (1997) Bolivigyaan ane Gujaratni Bolio. Ahmedabad: University Granth Nirman Board.

Wilson, Graham (1967) “Introduction to ‘Language and Dialect’” in A Linguistic Reader (Edited) Graham Wilson: 86. NY, Evanstone & London: Harper & Row, Publishers.

The paper was first presented at three-day seminar on Linguistic and Language Development in Jammu and Kashmir with Special Reference to Tribal Languages of the State. Jointly organized by Department of Linguistics, University of Kashmir, Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore and Urdu Teaching and Research Centre, Lucknow. (November 2011) and later published in Sahitya Anand: An Inter-disciplinary International Refereed Research Journal (June 2013) Vol. 1, Issue 3. Pgs. 18-21.