Are Languages Relevant in Today’s Globalized World?

Asoke K Laha, President & MD, Interra Information Technologies

I sometimes derive a lot of excitement from pondering over trivial, unlikely events or things that I cannot comprehend. One such thing has occurred to me. That is about the theory of languages. It may sound odd to my esteemed readers since I normally deal with subjects related to information technology.  

I can assure you that I am not veering too far from my frequently treaded path. Language and the digital economy are not poles apart. There is an organic connect. I am not referring to different languages that are used for doing the programs in computers including Java, Cobol, LISP, SiMSCRIPT, Python, and things of that ilk. Those who are in the sixty or seventy years old,  would recall how much time they would have spent learning computer languages to master computer programming. I feel that it is also a trajectory of the growth of the languages. If conventional languages are used for people-to-people contacts, computer languages are meant for communication between man and machine. That way, it is also a medium of communication and belongs to the genre of languages.  

Let me deal first with the conventional languages. The more I ponder about it, the more I get intrigued. How such things are originated, developed and perfected. How words have been woven up, distinguished, and perfected? Is there any root language from where the languages are evolved? Language experts claim the origin of languages can be considered pathbreaking since the tryst of mankind continues to create new paradigms in the expanding horizon of languages.  

I read somewhere that sound equipment installed in well-appointed laboratories in the US and China sometimes captures strange and unexplainable sounds from the outer world. Some interpret these as languages spoken by aliens, while those who are core rationalists term these sounds as noises produced by orbiting planets and stars when they traverse certain terrains. No one has conclusively proved their reasoning. Assuming that it is the vocabulary of aliens, should we come out with a device to decipher that language, which can give us valuable insights into things we have not explored yet?  I perceive that the next breakthrough in language will be a lingo franco to decipher nuances of alien sounds and evolve a digital platform akin to the AI Pin to translate that language into a medium that can be understood by mankind. My esteemed readers may decide whether my prediction is a hallucination or a near possibility. Only time can vouch for that. It only shows that languages can undergo tectonic change and incrementally evolve themselves to capture conversations that are not familiar to us, like what has happened in the case of machine language.  

I do not know how or where exactly the language originated. Cutting across differences in interpretations, it can be surmised that different cultures have evolved their unique forms of communication over time and what had led them to do so. Let us take India. Two main language script variants evolved in India-Devanagari and Dravidian Script.  That is a simplistic explanation. But both scripts are the end-product of evolution over millennia to achieve the present form and format.  

The origin of languages is caught up in debate and differing views.  
The evolutionary theory suggests that language evolved gradually over time in response to environmental changes or evolutionary pressures such as population growth. According to this theory, language evolved slowly and incrementally rather than suddenly appearing out of nowhere in its current form. This means that it would have taken thousands of years for the evolution of human language to emerge from earlier stages of communication such as hand gestures or simple words and phrases. 

Be that it may, the future linguists, I feel,  would mark the evolution of a shift in the theory of languages since the advent of the internet. A superficial analysis would reveal how many new words have been coined since the introduction of the internet. The word ‘Internet” is a case in point. Across languages, that word is pronounced the same. I do not know whether any variant of that exists. So also is the words like software, electronics, screenshots, WhatsApp, and Facebook. Instagram, Youtube, and the list is expanding. The advent of the computer has set in motion a sort of integration of languages into a common platform.   That trend is going to be the vogue aided by the numerous software that can instantly translate languages.  

In today’s world the frontier area of technology is Artificial Intelligence. I have written in some of my previous columns about how that will transform technology, lifestyles how people think, how people interface, etc. Simultaneous translations, which were done manually for big conferences where people from different nationalities attend are now done by machine, with the use of chat boxes and other devices.  Even I am told the conversations between heads of state over the telephone or across the board are using technology for translating instead of professional translators.  

Does it mean that individual languages are losing their importance as content can be transmitted and translated with the use of technology?  I wrote a couple of months ago in this column about how ChatGPT and its clones are being widely used for several things, such as preparing communications, writing speeches, and even for writing books. I even predicted that sometime down the line essayists, novelists, biographers, etc would have to re-skill themselves to catch up with the competition from such variants. Even while writing this column, I am intimidated by occasional appearances of corrections from embedded software in my system. Frankly, I do not give much importance to their corrections unless it is a major grammatical or spelling error. But how long I will be able to go in that mode overlooking the suggestions that prop up in the system without asking? I sometimes feel technology is silently invading into our private moments and creativity also.  

Amidst these developments, I was pleasantly surprised when South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was caught up in a controversy, over using ChatGPT for preparing his speech which he delivered in Parliament. The controversy died down only when the President’s office stated it had never used ChatGPT for the preparation of the speech. It may be a stock response from the President’s office but conveys to the public at large the value of original speech prepared with human inputs and ingenuity over a machine-made one, although it is a moot point how one would subscribe to that view.  

If the findings of the Club of Rome still ring in your mind, it is incidental since their predictions, are to be proved to be apocalyptical. Let me rephrase their seminal works in my way: Limits to Technology. Unabated growth of technology and over-dependence on technology to solve our terrestrial problems may be wishful thinking, especially when we assume technology is money and power and those who master them can wield ever-lasting powers.  We need not pay heed to the religious leaders or moralists to understand the nuances. History is replete with examples of how unrealistic growth models lost their shine and sheen. Let us calibrate technology for the common good and not the good of a select few. 

Let me end this piece on language with a trace of hope. I feel language is a cultural legacy and identity of people who speak and converse. That identity is etched in their DNA and technology cannot take away that ethos but can accentuate that bonding. There can be platforms where languages can converge. But each language has its own identity, whether one believes in the theory of the House of Babel or any other conundrums that are more scientific.