LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT. POETRY AND LANGUAGE

LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT

 POETRY AND LANGUAGE

Throughout history, and in all cultures till recent times, poetry has been the king of literature. Everything worth saying was said in verse. So called scholars may advance any number of theories, but we may take it that there was some universal wisdom operating. Verse  form was easy to compress ideas into, easy to memorise when the language was not written down. It required dedication to learn them and thus only those really interested were attracted.

Versification was difficult. Running prose could be flexible in length, but imposed "severity" (in the word of John Dryden) in expression to convey the exact meaning. (Those who read Sri Aurobindo would readily recognise this.) Poetry conformed to strict rules of metre, rhyme,syntax, diction etc but within these or in spite of them conferred certain liberty on the poet-called 'poetic license'. Under the influence of inspiration or vision, or merely due to great learning, poets could express themselves well in fewer words. We realise this when an old poem is translated or restated in plain language; interpretation or commentary would make it much longer and more complex. And in the process, some subtleties or nuances in meaning may be lost, as happens invariably in translating from other languages, or in trying to explain a joke, or even a urdu gazal. So both reading and understanding poetry calls for prior knowledge and so it remained an activity of the elite.

In Sanskrit, we have the extreme form of compression in the Sutra eg the Brahma Sutra. In Tamil, the example would be Tirukkural or Tholkappiam. In course of time, language undergoes change; the old ideas, meanings, concepts and even the social and cultural conditions which gave rise to that poetry - these get lost . Such poetry or sutras cannot be understood by the succeeding generations without commentaries and explanations on commentaries! Commentators from different periods need not  (and often do not)always agree, with the result no one is sure what was originally meant, and different schools arise based on the same text! This is generally the case with Vedic and Upanishadic poetry, and the Brahma Sutra, which are incredibly ancient. But even in respect of the more recent Kural, there is no agreement on many issues. Even with regard to Sangam poetry, we can not only not follow their language, but the life-style depicted in them does not any longer exist, and cannot be understood.Tirujnanasambandha was the last Tamil poet to employ more or less  the old Sangam language, but that is not studied from that angle. We can say that kind of Tamil has become extinct from practical use, though this truth may offend some. 

This is true of all languages, Indian or foreign. I take the example of English, because it has a continuous written record from about 500 AD. The language of the period 500 - 1500 is called "Medieval English" and the one before that is simply called "Old English". Old English contained mainly what is called 'heroic poetry' and that became "unintelligible both culturally and linguistically" even by the Medieval period. But neither the language nor literature remain stagnant. Living languages, which are used as medium of common communication, change and evolve with the times. In the whole world, Sanskrit alone provides the example of a fully evolved language, which is still used for practical purposes, even though it is not spoken by the general populace. It was never meant to be a means of common speech,or mass communication but a vehicle of special thoughts. But classical Sanskrit- ie the language of the Kavyas is a different category.

The Indian classical languages did not grow after the Muslim invasion, and no new significant work  arose in them. On the contrary, the languages of common speech (Prakrutam) grew, used mainly by the poet-saints who taught people the ancient truths held in Sanskrit in their own spoken tongue and thus kept the religion alive: their subject was ancient, but language was local; and they borrowed generously and adapted skilfully from Sanskrit to express technical ideas and subjects. This we see in all languages, including Tamil. Of course, Tholkappiam clearly gives freedom to borrow and adapt not only from Sanskrit, but from all adjacent languages too!

This is exactly what happened to English. England is one country which was affected by every new movement in the world in all spheres, at least for the last 1000 years. English wonderfully kept pace with this, absorbed from Greek and Latin and all other European languages and has achieved a marvellous international status, so that even China is required to learn and master it, without any physical colonisation! The works of the old English masters like  Chaucer,Dryden, Spenser, Milton cannot be understood by an average Englishman today, without restatement in plain language and annotations. Even Shakespeare cannot be understood without notes. But the language is still growing: just compare the dictionaries of today with those of say, 15 years ago! Compare even two editions of the same dictionary like the Concise Oxford, with which most of us grew up!  And every subject like politics and economics, philosophy and psychology, physics and chemistry is having its own giant dictionary, because they cannot be contained in the general one! Further, besides the printed form, the publishers have resorted to the Web for announcing further periodical revisions and developments.It is growing by giant leaps, and crossing all bounds imaginable!

We may pat ourselves that ours is a classical language . But can it meet today's requirements? The most commonly used English word today like 'computer' is derived from Latin through other languages, including French! (Let us remember, the English and French fought many wars.)Any thought in any field of human activity can be expressed in English, in various ways. Can it happen in Tamil? I remember while in school I used to attend public speeches by E.V.Ramasamy Naicker. He used to ridicule those who spoke  about 'pure' Tamil and Tamil medium; in the middle of a speech, he would reel off some English words and challenge those people to translate them! Today, the govt. is doing it (in Tamil , and Hindi too) through committees but by the time they translate one, 100 new words are coming up! And the untranslated and untranslatable words Will fill ten dictionaries! All the while, people are taking to English medium even from primary classes, and Tamil studies are neglected.  And even those who are engaged in translation, and those who direct them to do so, are sending their children to English medium schools!

Let us face the fact: all Indian languages have remained merely literary languages;  thoughts in any modern academic discipline cannot be expressed in them. Books that are being translated from English are mainly works of fiction (ie literature); books translated in other subjects are at a very elementary level, and will only lead the reader to a blind alley or dead end. The English when they took over administration simply took over the Persian or Urdu words used by the Mughals ( though they were from the language of a defeated people) like: zilla, taluka, kacheri, munsif, sirastadar, jamabandhi,sepoy (sipahi), vakil,vakalat,zamin, zamindar,jamadar, subedar, etc. They used their word only when they created a new office: eg.collector, commissioner etc.We today have all the scientific and technical words in English  but are attempting to find pure Tamil equivalents! We are trying to reinvent the wheel! No wonder, the English ruled half the globe!

I know I have digressed from the subject of poetry, but the logic of the situation led me on. Any way, this is also something that deeply concerns me. I am simply baffled by the absurdity of the situation, and its implications for the younger generation. I am also appalled by the silence of the people. It was Rajaji who  said English language was the gift of Saraswati to us. He gave us some ideas on how to adapt English technical  and scientific words for teaching those subjects.

 But today, even those ideas will not work, as knowledge and information have simply exploded in the last 40 years. Buckminster Fuller estimated that up to 1900, knowledge doubled every century; by the second world war it was every 25 years;Alvin Toffler said it was every7 years, that was in the 70s. Today it is estimated that on an average human knowledge doubles every 12 months. IBM has calculated that with the explosion of Internet usage, it will soon be every 13 HOURS! Let us not kid ourselves or let others fool us with this gimmick of finding pure Tamil words and translation and Tamil medium for education. This can be good pastime for retired gentlemen , like crossword puzzles or Sudoku, but not rational idea to be entertained by serious people. With this craze for pure Tamil for educational purposes, or even general communication, we will reach not the golden age but stone age!

There are thinkers who say that our knowledge has exceeded the wisdom needed to manage it!.This is a larger philosophical issue.T.S.Eliot wrote in 1934:

The endless cycles of ideas and action,

Endless invention, endless experiment,

Brings knowledge of motion, not of stillness;

Knowledge of speech, but not knowledge of silence;

Knowledge of words, but not of the Word.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,

All our ignorance brings us nearer to death.

But nearness to death, no nearer to GOD.

Where is the life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries

Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.


Note:

English is of Germanic origin.After the Norman conquest in 1066, its relation to Dutch and German got even closer.Over 50% of English is derived from Latin. And nearly 30% of English is of French origin! Latin has contributed to areas like administration, law, politics;Greek has contributed to areas like mythology, philosophy, religion,science. Italian has contributed to areas like arts, learning, while Spanish has given vocabulary relating to military war,etc.  It is thus a truly international language in more senses than one.Excellent resources are available on the Web on this subject. Advocates of 'pure' language should study how a living language 'lives' or evolves and why and how old Indian languages have stagnated.  The factors are historical and cannot be wished away. Those who do not see the hand of Providence in this see nothing.