Prof K S Chandrasekar
Linguistics as a subject has grown of late in our country. Communication is the foundation for a person’s success. Language is considered as the means of communication. Language originated from attempts to imitate natural sounds. It has been considered that to be a great language, it needs to be informative, expressive, directive, aesthetic and phatic. There are many components of a language. They are phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, syntax and content. Based on this, linguistics has five components viz., phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. If we take that into consideration, linguistics is the scientific study of language. Panini, a great sage who lived in 6th Century BC is the father of Sanskrit grammar, when he wrote a treatise named Ashtadhyayi. After that the Greek took over the linguistics area. Many Universities in India had started the trend of having Departments in Linguistics. Earlier, those with English and Regional and National Language were considered for the positions in Linguistics. However, now we have many who have completed Ph.D. in Linguistics from major Universities. This would ensure that there is steady flow of teachers into the system.
University of Pennsylvania records that religious concerns underlay the study and preservation of texts, and with the spread of Buddhism to China and Japan, the concern for careful study of language spread to East Asia as well. Thus, Linguistics was originally a concern about preserving the purity of texts, especially the Vedic Hymns, so that they would be effective when invoked. This concern with being careful about language, has been perpetuated as a strong cultural value in South Asia, and by the spread of Buddhism, to Asia in general. This corroborates the narrative that linguistics is basically from the Indian sub-continent. Tholkappium by Tholkappiar in Tamilnadu also dates to 1500 CE. Linguistics therefore roughly follows the course of human cultural evolution, the emigration of communities and growth of interest. The study of linguistics and its history of growth and development has had to describe in depth to uncover historical facts through phonology and phonetics.
The oldest Department of Linguistics in India that offers a postgraduate program is the Department of Linguistics at the University of Mumbai and it’s known for its research-oriented programs and intensive training in the field. Many of the Northern And Southern Universities started the Departments. For Cluster University of Jammu, since its inception, Department of Linguistics and Literature was started and now this year onwards, the Department is offering the Integrated Programme in Linguistics. The response for the program is excellent. Earlier, the students used to travel to Punjab and Himachal for the program and now it’s available in Jammu itself.
Linguistics as a Department cannot function alone. There is a need to embrace technology since Language laboratories play a vital role in shaping the subject considering phonology and phonetics. Linguistics has the roots in the area of Anthropology. It deals with the place of language in its wider social and cultural context, and its role in making and controlling cultural practices and societal structures. Similarly, Sociolinguistics studies the social functions of language and the social, political, and economic relationships among and between members of speech communities. There can be more specialised fields which the students can opt including ethnolinguistics. Say in Jammu region of the Jammu and Kashmir, there is a need to assess the socio and ethnic aspects of linguistics of the Dogra community. Research in this field can throw light on their contributions and the societal development. The emergence of Dogri language and the script can be considered to be an area of research.
While studying the languages like Sanskrit and the older languages can help in their development and this study can offer Certificate Programs in Philology. These studies can throw light on the contributions and other development in various languages and also why some of the languages have since lost its relevance. Akhand Bharat had its own languages after every 50 km radius and many of the languages have been cut short either by the Mughal invasion or by the British rule. It is hence essential that the linguistic researchers need to unearth these aspects and bring it back to the records and set the system right.
Technology has a great impact on linguistics with the new developments in text to speech, speech to text and grammatical corrections through Grammarly. There is a growing trend for connecting the Digital to the Linguistics which is reflected in new programs to be offered like Digital Linguistics, Digital Phonetics etc., The impact of Internet is profound in Linguistics is such that the way the subject is being taught will undergo changes. Translational studies, Computational linguistics will be much sought after in near future. Already Cluster University of Jammu is involved in DLT programs and in addition the students are visiting local communities by our faculty.
They are getting the data needed for fostering the linguistic similarities and dissimilarities. However, I think the Universities across the countries have to brace for incorporating some of the areas like Artificial Intelligence in Language Analysis, Digital Pedagogy in Language Teaching, Cognitive Studies, Artificial intelligence Driven Literary Analysis, Neuroaesthetics along with Multilingualism. It is high time that Engineering discipline is also routed along this direction and linguistics through Artificial intelligence, Machine learning, Language processing etc. Translational Engineering has direct impact on the linguistic aspects and can be utilised. Now that auto correct, spell check, i-thenticate, Paper and others are there, languages are undergoing lot of changes. Oral communication has also undergone changes including the advent of Chat GPT, Perplexity etc. These have changed the way a person communicates. Hence there is opportunity in these areas for research and higher studies.Linguistic technology gets cross sectional and multi-disciplinary studies from linguistics, computer science, mathematics, and statistics. Natural Language Processing deals with the inter linkage of linguistics and computer science. It is considered as a subfield of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data processing on how to teach language to computers. All Universities need to rethink on the present status of the Linguistic Departments and align the same with multi-disciplinary subjects embracing technology so that the future is bright for the students opting for this unique and novel program.
(The author is Vice Chancellor, Cluster University of Jammu)
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