Formerly Kerala, soon to be Keralam, has recently passed a legislation to change its name to “Keralam” in all languages under the 8th Schedule of the Bharatian constitution. This would make it compulsory for the state to be called “Keralam” in the Malayali language. This, thankfully, challenges the dominance of the Hindi language in the subcontinent. However, the aim to make Keralam as “Keralam” in all languages sounds a bit troubling. Why is this, and how can we do better?
Table of Contents
History of Indic Languages
This controversy begins with the failure to pass Shri Ambedkar’s resolution to make Sanskrit the national language of Bharat. The proposal sought to make Sanskrit a language for all, and making it the national language would have broken barriers and stereotypes around the language of the time.
By making it the official language of the backward classes, as well as the official language of the ex-Persianate ruling Muslim class, Sanskrit was truly the common language for all. From South to North, almost every literary script, from the Brahmi scripts of southern Bharat, to the Nagari scripts (which are variations of each other based on types of paper used in the region), almost all these scripts once used to write Sanskrit have today found their place as the script for Tamil, Kannada, Bangali, Maithili, Gujarati, and “Hindi” as well.
It is also worth mentioning that the name given to Hindi, derived from the word “Hind”, is of Persian origin. The “Hind” also gives this language an aura of pan-Bharat appeal, something it clearly does not have, if inquired further into.
Many root languages were the origin points for “Hindi”, with the most popular language being ‘Apabhramsha’. Many other dialects such as Awadhi, Braj, Banjari, Khariboli, Kumaoni, Kurmali, and many more. Many used to have their own unique scripts (such as Mewari, today known as “Rajasthani”, used the Modia script for writing), but have lost this script and language for Devanagari.
It is also worth noting that while “Tamil” (commonly called “proto-Tamil” today, or what possibly could be the language of the Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization) used hieroglyphs and was the original spoken language of the people, written language emerged as a common medium of exchange between civilizations. These were mainly the Babylonian civilization, the Mongolian civilization, and the Chinese civilization. Common letters denoting common sounds were made, which became the first proper letter system.
This written script then traveled southwards through Rishi Agastya, who is still celebrated to date in Tamil Nadu. It is also why, different regions had different scripts, all of which were used to write in Sanskrit as well. Over time, language became decentralized, and arts with more refinement were produced in each region, all while the language of science remained Sanskrit. This remained until the Islamic invasions.
This is why Tamil and “Hindi” and Sanskrit share common animal names (like “pulli” and “billi”) but differ in numbers (although the word for “0”, aka “shunya”/”punnaya” is shared). This indicates a unity of lingual development during the hunter-gatherer stage, but a divergence when trading and numbers came into being.
In light of this, we get clarity on several policy matters. These include:
- Reviving regional languages lost to “Hindi”
- Renaming “Hindi” as Apabhramsha and retaining the regional identity of this unique language
- Amending the constitution to make Samskrit the official language alongside English
- Protecting all regional languages, and reviving those already lost to Hindi.
These matters become more urgent as time passes. Professor Gautam Desiraju speaks of something of a similar effect when talking of states that must be made smaller in his book ‘Bharat: India 2.0‘.
History of the word for “city” and word for “port”
The history of the word for “city”, and how accents manifest in modern scripts and in the English language must be discussed next.
The most common Sanskrit word for city is “pura”. We see this Sanskritic pronunciation in newer languages too, such as Kannadiga (in cities like ‘Vijaypura’), in Marathi (the old name for ‘Nagpur’ was ‘Fanindrapura’, where Fanindra meant “lord of the Snakes” or Vasuki, and the name of the city was subsequently changed to “Nagpur” after the Nag river, which itself gets its name from Vasuki ji, after Fanindrapura was colonized by the Islamic convert Gond Rajput who renamed the city; another historical story about true “Hindi imposition”. Anyways, in cities like Fanindrapura we use ‘pura’ for city), and so on.
In the languages originating in the North, we see the word “pur” used to denote cities more commonly, such as ‘Nagpur’, ‘Kanpur’, ‘Jaipur’, ‘Shantipur’, etc, denote the same thing. Finally, languages originating in the south use the word “puram”. So we have ‘Mahabalipuram’, ‘Thiruananthapuram’, ‘Mallapuram’, ‘Kanchipuram’, and so on.
It is also interesting to see words like “pattan” in Hindi mean port, which becomes “Patna” in Sanskrit and “pattnam” in southern languages like Telugu. We see this in the Sanskritized Bihari town “Patna” (although Patna was originally called “Pataliputra” in Sanskrit before it was colonized and “Hindi” was imposed on it), the town of “Pattan” in Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir (a port leading boatsmen down the Jhelum into Panjab, although the original name of this city was “Parihaspora” in Kashmiri), and Vishakapatnam (port of Vishaka, retaining its older name).
We see the same in words like “nagar” (Apabhramshi), “nagara” (Sanskrit) and “nagaram” (Telugu).
As we can see, there was a trend of colonizers reducing very culturally significant names to merely ‘ports’ by “imposing Hindi” on them. Sadly, this practice has continued over the years.
This change in language is also reflected in the lingual letters of the languages, with the letter “ம்” or “m” being used in Tamil to denote “puram”.
Other words like “Shri” become “Thiru”, and names like “Agastya” become “Agattiya”.
Further, when it comes to the northeast, in tribal languages like that of the Ao or Konyak, the word “lim” is used to denote a city or state. Meanwhile, the word “khel” is used to denote a village, instead “gaon” (however, in Arunachal the word “Gam” is used). Other Northeastern languages like Meiteilion and Assamese also use “pur” for city, like the rest of Northern Bharat.
Keeping all of this in mind, we should respect each region, whether north, or south, or northeast, we should respect the language of origin. And it is in this light that we should understand the name change for “Keralam” back to “Keralam”, the local name, over the Sanskritized name “Kerala”.
But where did Keralam go wrong?
The problem begins for Keralam when it demands that it be called “Keralam” in all Indic languages included in the 8th Schedule. This means the uniqueness of the Malayali language will be imposed on all languages.
While I truly oppose the use of “Hindi” as an official language, and the name “Hindi” itself, I do not like the idea of Keralam being called “Keralam” in all languages. Would it not be better to call states like Karnataka “Karnatak” and Keralam “Keral” in Hindi? Similarly, when referring to the North, Kannagidas can call Uttarakhand as “Uttarakhanda”, and Malayalis can call it “Uttarakhandam”.
Further, wouldn’t it be nice to call Thiruananthapuram as “Shri Anantha Pur” in Hindi? Or Vishakapattanam as “Vishaak Pattan”? Similarly, the Tamil can call a city like Patna as “Pattnam”, or Bhatinda as “Bhatindanam”, and so on?
Would it not be nice for a Telugu tourist in Rajasthan to hear the names of the cities of Rajasthan as “Japuram”, “Jodhpuram”, “Jaisalmeram”, and so on? Or for a Nagamese tourist to call Fanindrapura as “Fanindralim”? Shouldn’t Uttar Pradesh in Tamil be “Vadaka Nadu” and Madhya Pradesh be “Natuttara Nadu”, and Tamil Nadu in Hindi be “Tamil Pradesh”?
Shouldn’t Andhra Pradesh be “Andhra Pradesham” in Telugu? Or an Arunachali calling a Telugu “Telukay” or a Nagamese calling them “Telulim”? Or maybe the southern states can start calling Ababhramsha language “Apabrahmsham”, and Kannadigas can call its speakers “Apabhramshiga”. That would be the Bharat I would want to live in, personally.
Conclusion
Culture should, in many ways, be equally imposed on all people and by all people, in Bharat. Everyone belongs to this entire country. There is no region that should be given a one-up over the other. The problem began with Samskrit losing to the Creole called “Hindi”, which spread its fangs across Bharat Mata. Most of Bollywood today is in “Hindi” and not “Apabhramshi”, most music is the same. We missed out on 75 years where we could have built a “mega language”.
Sanskrit was known as the “meta language” back in the day. It could borrow words from other languages, morphing them while retaining its own superstructure. But it lost its popularity as, outside of the priestly and mercantile class, no one traveled across the country. Eventually, adopted the writing systems and a few loan words from their priests (the Brahmins) but eventually fell back to their local language for arts and literature.
Today, with the internet, we communicate across the country and globally both. Many translation technologies, including those that use AI, have given us the ability and potential to build such technology entirely on Indic languages. This can also include a “Sanskrit” language which takes in words from across languages and can change according to region. Not just priests and merchants, but everyone travels today, and as Bharat becomes more prosperous, both domestic and international travel will increase even more across class denominations.
Suddenly, this seems like the right time to bring back the Samskrit meta-language, while also reviving and preserving the regional dialects, many of which have already been lost to colonial “Hindi”, to give a boost to both the arts and science. Gaali galoch in Sanskrit can be borrowed from across the country. It is time we start taking the preservation of our languages and regional identities more seriously.
And while Keralam reclaiming its name might seem imposing, those who believe that “Hindi” should be the official language of an independent state should not have any say in this matter.
