Survival of languages at stake

Each language is a distinctive mark of a people anywhere in the world. Animals are also known to have their own set of limited languages. Even trees have their means of communication which they use in order to defend them, help each other with food and nutrients in need. Whether those means used by them can be called language or not is however a riddle yet to be settled. But the fact remains that the higher it is the stage of development of the mental faculty of any living being the larger the stock of languages. Even different races and tribes have a limited stocks of language not suitable for conveying complex and intricate feelings and emotions on the one hand and the subtleties of mathematics, philosophy, science and technology and other branches of knowledge on the other.
So the journeys of different modern languages and some of the famous ancient but now dead or almost extinct languages are a clear indication of the rise and fall of human civilisations. The Greek and Roman civilisations reached an enviable stage development so did the Indus civilisation in the East. Without matching languages, the thought processes of the sages of ancient India, Greece and Rome could not be captured. Ever higher intellection and mental probe within pose a challenge to the existing set of languages and thus there is a need for creation of words. Thus the vocabulary of a language continues to get enriched by way of addition of new words either borrowed from other languages or created by people of genius in order to meet the special need.
When languages fail to meet the demand for newer ideas, innovation and know-how, a language either makes way for another in a limited way or simply courts demise over a period. Latin is the best example in this regard. The case of Sanskrit is no better. Of the 6,800-6,900 distinct languages of the world today, about 94 per cent of languages are spoken only by six per cent of the world population. What is alarming is that most languages are spoken by fewer than 1,000 native speakers. K. David Harrison, an eminent linguist predicts that 90 per cent of spoken languages will be dead by 2050.
Does this indicate a hegemony of language? Death of a spoken language means a wing of it has been cut off. Languages retained only in written form embrace the fate of Sanskrit or Latin. Only a few scholars study those in order to extol the virtues of literature, religion, ethics, science, philosophy, astronomy and other branches of knowledge the languages dealt with. But the handful of languages that now rule the roost have no problem carrying on their research and experiment with those no matter what the subjects may be. Mandarin, Japanese, Russian, German, Spanish and French are capable of going it alone without English when it comes to scientific and technological advancement.
One wishes the same could be said about Bangla, the language that has given the world the International Mother Language Day. English has the largest stock of vocabularies because it has liberally accepted words from other languages. Acceptance of words ought to be smart and to the point. Or else, it does not get currency. There is need for discretion and scholarly insight for such induction. Otherwise, it can do more harm than good. How? When there are nice words in one's own mother tongue, the thoughtless use of words from other languages signals not just the mental bankruptcy but also a lack of love for it.
The practice of random interpolation of English words in a Bangla sentence presents such an inferior mentality. Even an illiterate person now uses problem instead of 'samasya'. OK is common instead of 'Thik achhey'. The list will be long and perhaps endless. Educated people are habituated to using an admixture of English and Bangla sentences as if without the English import their status will be dented. Conversation thus punctuated by English represents nothing but poverty of mind. This dwarfishness of mentality is blatantly reflected in the use of naming educational institutions, organisations, commercial enterprises etc. Nothing less than Pedagogy, Holy Child, Dallas, Las Vegas satisfy sponsors and entrepreneurs. In certain cases, the option is for the bizarre such as Vampire. The neon sign even has a picture of a vampire with the protruding canine teeth and blood streaming down. It is an eatery, mind it!
Cultural dissociation has a limit. An upstart section of the population of the country right at this moment could not care less if it delivers a rude shock to Bangalee psyche by flaunting its filthy money and still filthier taste in so flagrant a manner.