There was a time when I heard someone I knew describing all Indian languages to someone of non-Indian origin as 'dialects of Hindi'. Ironically, this person was not even a Hindi speaker. Anyway, I thought his remark was rather ignorant, considering that I've been taught there are multiple languages spoken in India, and that there is no standard Indian language, of which other languages are mere dialects.
But lately, I have been questioning that assumption. That is not to imply that I am saying one language is India's standard language and the others are not worthy of being called languages. But rather, can languages/ dialects so close to each other really be separated out?
The actual question here is how we define dialect, as separate from language. A Yiddish scholar, Max Weinreich popularised a saying which goes along the lines of: a language is a dialect with an army and a navy. I think what Weinreich wanted to say was that whether something is a language or a dialect is not determined by the language/dialect itself but rather by political conditions. If a dialect has an 'army or navy', i.e. if its speakers have the political power to present it as a language, rather than a dialect, then a language it is. The whole process seems kind of arbitrary.
Consider for example, the various dialects of Hindi. The whole idea of placing a bunch of dialects under the label of Hindi is rather weird. This is especially if you consider that Standard Hindi and Punjabi, which are separate languages resemble each other more than Standard Hindi and eastern dialects of Hindi do. At one point of time, a language called Maithili was classified as a dialect of Hindi, even though linguistically it was much closer to Bengali than to Standard Hindi. Eventually, Maithili was recognized as a separate language, and not as a dialect of Hindi and was added to the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.
The whole process seems random at times. If someone demands a language status for their mother tongue, and the conditions are favourable, then perhaps the mother tongue can be classified as a language. Let us try to make a little sense out of this mess.
One important factor which determines the difference between a language and a dialect is politics. The politics of identity, of nationalities, and other such things. For example, consider Serbian and Croatian. Both are almost the same language, or dialects of the same language at the most. Yet, because of the fact that different cultures associate themselves with that/those language(s), and that they want to highlight their difference from each other, Serbian and Croatian are two separate languages. Just a little disclaimer: I am not very informed about Slavic culture or politics, so I sincerely apologize if I have made any ignorant or uninformed comments.
To me, the above example doesn't seem very strange because I have seen something similar close to home: India speaks Hindi, Pakistan speaks Urdu. (India also speaks Urdu in places such as Hyderabad and Kashmir) Aside from their scripts, which is a matter of convention, they are virtually the same language. If they differ, it's in their educated vocabulary- maybe, Hindi and Urdu are dialects of the greater Hindi-Urdu language, or maybe they are the exact same thing. We don't know-but what we do know is that same language has been divided into two by political divisions.
But sometimes, politics works the other way to unite multiple mother tongues into a single language. In China, there is a multitude of languages spoken (the Mandarin dialect being only one of them), but all of them are classified as Chinese dialects, even though there are various dialects which are mutually unintelligible i.e. speakers of one tongue don't understand the other. Yet, everything is counted as Chinese. Why? Because the idea that the whole nation shares a single language promotes the idea of national solidarity.
Politics however is not the only factor in classification. One other factor is the amount of literature the language has. In a previously mentioned example regarding Hindi, the belt of dialects extends to, but does not include Bengali. Why is Bengali not a dialect of Hindi, but languages in its neighbourhood, which resemble it more closely than they resemble Standard Hindi, are? There could be multiple reasons, but one factor is the wealth of literature that Bengali possesses. Its literature calls for its classification as a separate language.
But if literature is a deciding factor, what about the dialects of Hindi- Awadhi or Braj? Much of the initial literature in Hindi was written in these dialects. But, as time passed on, the importance shifted from Braj and Awadhi to Khari Boli, which forms today's Standard dialect. So, why did Awadhi and Braj, despite their vast literature cease to be languages in their own right? I believe the answer lies in the history of these languages. An accurate answer would involve a historical analysis, but the point I was trying to make is that literature is not a make-or-break point in a dialect's quest to become language.
At the end of it, I am still not convinced that the classification of mother tongues as languages or dialects is not arbitrary. So there isn't much hope that I have managed to convince you of the same either. But what I think I have managed to do is to add a little bit of sense to this arbitrary process. There isn't an exact answer, there are a lot of answers, and all I have done is given you some of them. So tell me, what do you think determines if a mother tongue is a language or dialect?
Yash
But lately, I have been questioning that assumption. That is not to imply that I am saying one language is India's standard language and the others are not worthy of being called languages. But rather, can languages/ dialects so close to each other really be separated out?
The actual question here is how we define dialect, as separate from language. A Yiddish scholar, Max Weinreich popularised a saying which goes along the lines of: a language is a dialect with an army and a navy. I think what Weinreich wanted to say was that whether something is a language or a dialect is not determined by the language/dialect itself but rather by political conditions. If a dialect has an 'army or navy', i.e. if its speakers have the political power to present it as a language, rather than a dialect, then a language it is. The whole process seems kind of arbitrary.
Consider for example, the various dialects of Hindi. The whole idea of placing a bunch of dialects under the label of Hindi is rather weird. This is especially if you consider that Standard Hindi and Punjabi, which are separate languages resemble each other more than Standard Hindi and eastern dialects of Hindi do. At one point of time, a language called Maithili was classified as a dialect of Hindi, even though linguistically it was much closer to Bengali than to Standard Hindi. Eventually, Maithili was recognized as a separate language, and not as a dialect of Hindi and was added to the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.
The whole process seems random at times. If someone demands a language status for their mother tongue, and the conditions are favourable, then perhaps the mother tongue can be classified as a language. Let us try to make a little sense out of this mess.
One important factor which determines the difference between a language and a dialect is politics. The politics of identity, of nationalities, and other such things. For example, consider Serbian and Croatian. Both are almost the same language, or dialects of the same language at the most. Yet, because of the fact that different cultures associate themselves with that/those language(s), and that they want to highlight their difference from each other, Serbian and Croatian are two separate languages. Just a little disclaimer: I am not very informed about Slavic culture or politics, so I sincerely apologize if I have made any ignorant or uninformed comments.
To me, the above example doesn't seem very strange because I have seen something similar close to home: India speaks Hindi, Pakistan speaks Urdu. (India also speaks Urdu in places such as Hyderabad and Kashmir) Aside from their scripts, which is a matter of convention, they are virtually the same language. If they differ, it's in their educated vocabulary- maybe, Hindi and Urdu are dialects of the greater Hindi-Urdu language, or maybe they are the exact same thing. We don't know-but what we do know is that same language has been divided into two by political divisions.
But sometimes, politics works the other way to unite multiple mother tongues into a single language. In China, there is a multitude of languages spoken (the Mandarin dialect being only one of them), but all of them are classified as Chinese dialects, even though there are various dialects which are mutually unintelligible i.e. speakers of one tongue don't understand the other. Yet, everything is counted as Chinese. Why? Because the idea that the whole nation shares a single language promotes the idea of national solidarity.
Politics however is not the only factor in classification. One other factor is the amount of literature the language has. In a previously mentioned example regarding Hindi, the belt of dialects extends to, but does not include Bengali. Why is Bengali not a dialect of Hindi, but languages in its neighbourhood, which resemble it more closely than they resemble Standard Hindi, are? There could be multiple reasons, but one factor is the wealth of literature that Bengali possesses. Its literature calls for its classification as a separate language.
But if literature is a deciding factor, what about the dialects of Hindi- Awadhi or Braj? Much of the initial literature in Hindi was written in these dialects. But, as time passed on, the importance shifted from Braj and Awadhi to Khari Boli, which forms today's Standard dialect. So, why did Awadhi and Braj, despite their vast literature cease to be languages in their own right? I believe the answer lies in the history of these languages. An accurate answer would involve a historical analysis, but the point I was trying to make is that literature is not a make-or-break point in a dialect's quest to become language.
At the end of it, I am still not convinced that the classification of mother tongues as languages or dialects is not arbitrary. So there isn't much hope that I have managed to convince you of the same either. But what I think I have managed to do is to add a little bit of sense to this arbitrary process. There isn't an exact answer, there are a lot of answers, and all I have done is given you some of them. So tell me, what do you think determines if a mother tongue is a language or dialect?
Yash
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