Globalization refers to the whole world being seen as an interconnected entity. It has become possible because of efficient and fast communication; lowering of tariff boundaries; fast flow of capital all over the world; production of goods by multinationals in many places in the world and the fast mobility of people and ideas all over the world.
As the United States is the powerful global actor---both militarily and economically---its language (English) and culture are seen as part of globalization. This is viewed in two ways: those who support globalization claim that a universal language is helpful for all concerned; Those who oppose it, however, claim that this is cultural and linguistic imperialism which threatens to kill all other cultures and language.
The aim of this paper is to find out what effects globalization is likely to have on the world in general and Pakistan in particular.
Although there is no fixed definition of language, some linguists estimate that there are ‘6,700 oral and 6,700 sign languages’ (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000: 298). Out of these there are some really big languages (i.e. spoken by 100 million and more). Only about ten languages fall in this list which means that, as a percentage of the world’s languages they are between 0.10 to 0.15 per cent of the world’s languages but about 49 per cent people speak them. Let us put them in order.
Name of Language |
First language Speakers |
|
Chinese |
1,223 Million |
|
English |
372 Million |
|
Urdu/Hindi |
316 Million |
|
Spanish |
304 Million |
|
Arabic |
201 Million |
|
Portuguese |
165 Million |
|
Russian |
155 Million |
|
Bengali |
125 Million |
|
Japanese |
123 Million |
|
German |
102 Million |
|
Source: Graddol 1997 |
|
However, the number of speakers is not the only factor which accounts for the power of a language. For instance, the percentage of the speakers of Pakistani languages out of the total population is as follows:
Pakistani Languages |
|
|
Languages |
Percentage of speakers |
|
Punjabi |
44.15 |
|
Pashto |
15.42 |
|
Sindhi |
14.10 |
|
Siraiki |
10.53 |
|
Urdu |
7.57 |
|
Balochi |
3.57 |
|
Others |
4.66 |
|
Source: Census 2001: 107 |
|
We know that Punjabi is the largest language in terms of numbers and all the other major languages---Pashto, Sindhi and Siraiki---are larger than Urdu. However it is Urdu which is more powerful. Moreover, if there is a comparison between Urdu and English---and English is hardly anybody’s mother tongue and very few urban people speak it fluently or write it correctly---then English is obviously more powerful than Urdu.
Power:
In short, we must confront the issue of power before we come to globalization and its effects. Power, then, is that quality which enables the users of that language to obtain more means of gratification than the speakers of other languages. These means of gratification may be tangible goods: houses, cars, good food etc. or, they may be intangibles like pleasure, ego boosting, self-esteem etc (for full explanation see Rahman 2002: 38-42). A powerful language is one which makes it possible for its speakers and writers to obtain a higher share of these gratifications than others.
This is mostly possible in settled, modernizing or modern societies where there are domains such as religion, education, the bureaucracy, the judiciary, the military, commerce, the media, research and so on. In primitive tribes the manipulation of language matters less; in agricultural societies it emerges and becomes pervasive but is not the only passport to power; in industrial, modern societies it becomes vitally important. Indeed, one simply cannot enter the domains of power without being able to manipulate language for entry into these domains. It is the language of employment (Rahman 2000: 41-42), and without employment one cannot possess much power in modern societies.
English is the language of the greatest power in the world. It spread as the language of the colonies of Britain in African and Asian countries (Brutt-Griffler 2002). Then, when Britain withdrew from its ex-colonies, English spread because of American economic power, American control of world media and international commerce. This has been condemned as linguistic imperialism by Phillipson (1992: 38-65) and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas calls English a ‘Killer language’ (2000: 46).
Globalization will increase the power of English because it will open up more jobs for those who know it. These jobs will be controlled by multinationals which are dominated by the U.S.A. They are also controlled by the international bureaucracy---United Nations, World Bank, IMF, donor agencies etc---which has started operating increasingly in ‘English’. This will increase the demand for English schooling which will make parents invest in English at the cost of their own languages. Let us look at these other costs now.
As movements for the preservation of minor (or weaker) languages in Europe tell us, if a child is told that his or her language is inferior, the message being conveyed is that he/she is inferior. In short, one is giving a negative image to a child by telling him or her that the ‘cultural capital’ ---the term is from Bourdieu (1991)---they possess is not capital at all but a stigma and a handicap. This makes the child reject an aspect, and an essential one at that, of his or her legacy, history, culture and identity. What is created is ‘culture shame’ ---being ashamed of one’s own true identity.
Incidentally, the poor and less powerful classes, gender and communities have always been ashamed of aspects of their identity. In South Asia, the caste system forced manual workers to live miserable lives. This was unjust enough but the worst form of injustice is perpetrated by the fact that the lower castes/or ajlaf, kammis, outcastes, Sudras etc) not only accept lower social status but look down upon people lower in the social scale and even upon themselves. That is why when people became literate and rose in affluence and power, they left their communities and even started using names of groups with higher social respect. Here, ‘the number of Shaikhs and the other categories’ ---Syed, Mughal and Pathan---increased phenomenally, while the occupational “caste” groups registered a sharp decline’ (Ahmed, R. 1981: 115).
Moreover, there are many literary works in Urdu and other languages---not to mention one’s own observation---showing how embarrassed the poor are by their houses, their clothes, their food, their means of transportation and, of course, their languages. In short, the reality constructed by the rich and the poor alike conspires to degrade, embarrass and oppress the less powerful, the less affluent, the less gifted of the human race.
In Pakistan linguistic oppression works through both the informal network of ascribing value as well as the formal structure of the distribution of power. The former works through images, impressions and prejudices. For instance, people will joke about Punjabi, call it an uncouth or inadequate language and will generally assume that it cannot be used at the highest levels of the domains of power i.e. government, administration, judiciary, military, education, media, commerce, research etc.
At the formal level, the public and the private sector combine to exclude certain languages and ration out certain others to the elite. The ones which are excluded are Punjabi, Balochi, Brahvi, Siraiki and, except in certain basic kinds of schooling, also Pashto. Urdu and Sindhi are used in education but they too are excluded from the highest of the domains of power. The languages which are rationed out are the ones which are used in the highest domains of power. These are elitist possessions and they have been Sanskrit and Persian but now there is one---English. Schooling in English creates a person alienated from his or her culture, who is often more tolerant of religious minorities (as my survey in Rahman 2002 and again in Dawn 23 Feb and 09 March 2003 shows), but is contemptuous towards the lower classes. English-medium schooling, because of its elitist nature, violates the rights of others who cannot afford it; stigmatizes indigenous cultural norms and imposes a foreign cultural self upon us.
As globalization tends to increase the power of English it also tends to disempower all the speakers of indigenous languages (including Urdu) of Pakistan. As globalization also makes the elite more mobile and richer, this trend deepens the gulf between the classes. English was already a badge or symbol of the ruling westernized elite in colonial India and post-colonial Pakistan, now it is also a badge of the global haves in the ex-colonies of Britain. And as globalization increases, the chances of getting rid of colonial linguistic burdens---the apartheid of language English creates---decreases.
In short, globalization plays indirectly into the hands of the powerful; strengthens the powerful; and makes resistance to this power difficult and costly.
Some linguists claim that languages die because they commit suicide. By this metaphor they mean that the speakers of a language themselves stop speaking it. This is true but if one examines why speakers stop using a language in the first place, one finds out that it is not used in the domains of power. Generally it is also a small language and its speakers tend to learn the language which gives them goods jobs. So, a language dies because the market conditions imposed upon it are such as to turn its speakers away form it. Moreover, the speakers might develop shame or even contempt for their language if they find that it is not the language of the elite and is, therefore, associated with the ‘inferior’ classes. All this suggests is that there are conditions which kill a language. And, because these conditions favour another language, the other powerful language can be called a ‘killer language’ as Tove Skutnabb-Kangas argues (2000).
In Pakistan there are small languages which are in danger of becoming extinct. Domaaki, a small language spoken in Mominabad (near Karimabad in Hunza) is spoken by about three hundred households as the present author discovered upon inquiry in August 2002. Gujrati, though spoken, is not read much by the younger generation as a survey of Karachi revealed to this researcher in 1999-2000. Balochi and Brahvi are much influenced by Urdu but they are small in terms of numbers and the Balochi language activists, who have created pride in these languages, have given new life and vitality to them (see Rahman 1996: chapter 9).
However, Punjabi, Siraiki, Pashto and other Pakistani languages not used in the domains of power are too big to be killed so easily. Besides a large written literature, they are often the languages of songs, films, dramas, jokes, intimacy and so on. Moreover, they are often the sole means of communication in agricultural communities tied to the land. As such communities are too huge to be ignored and too slow-moving to be influenced much by globalization, change is slow. What is possible is that globalization will demean the languages: it will reduce their already low worth; it will make them cultural deficits rather than cultural assets. In a sense, then, this may not be linguicide but it is a process as cruel as that. After all, if a conqueror comes and kills all inhabitants it is terrible but nobody lives to remember it. But if a conqueror comes and convinces the conquered that they are inferior creatures, then he sub-speciates them (makes them a species lower than his own) and ‘other’ them (makes them ‘other’ than himself and defective too).
Globalization has increased the penetration of the West---specifically of the United States---in the whole world. This has increased the pressure of English on all other languages. While this has also created an increased awareness of language rights and movements to preserve languages, it has generally resulted in more people learning English. In Pakistan this means that the poor are under more pressure than before because they cannot afford expensive schools which ‘sell’ English at exorbitant rates. As such linguistic globalization is anti-poor, pro-elitist and exploitative.
While it may not be possible to reverse the trend of globalization, it is possible to promote the concept of additive bilingualism rather than subtractive bilingualism. This means that we should add to our repertoire of languages to gain power while retaining skills and pride in our own languages. In order to do this the state and our education system should promote the concept of linguistic rights.
There are tolerance-related and promotion-oriented rights. In Pakistan we have the former but not the latter. This means that, while we keep paying lip service to our indigenous languages, we create such market conditions that it becomes impossible to gain power, wealth or prestige in any language except English and, to a lesser extent, Urdu. It is this which must be changed and the change must come by changing the market conditions. They did so in the case of Catalan, a language while had been banned by General Franco of Spain, and which has been revived. What they did was to make Catalan the language of jobs and the government of Catalonia (Hall 2001). This changed the power equation and people started learning Catalan.
What we need in Pakistan are such promotion-oriented rights for our languages. What will go with such rights is a good but fair system of schooling which will teach English and Urdu but equally to all children and not as it is done now---very well to the elite and very badly to all others (for details see Rahman 2002: Conclusion). Such steps might save us from the more harmful linguistic effects of globalization.
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Rights London. Lawrence Erlbaum.
Dr. Tariq Rahman