Urdu Community Contest/S2W2| Languages and their Role by @drqamu

Greetings to dear friends . We are getting opportunities to share our views on diverse range of topics in this session of steemit engagement Challange. Today, I choose to write about homework task set by Urdu community which is about language and its role in society.

Language - introduction

Language refers to various modes of communication/conversation/expression among humans. Although animals can communicate among themselves but the system is not that much developed in animals as is seen in humans. Humans have well structured system. The core structure of language is formed by grammar and components of language include vocabulary.

We have well structured and complex system of communication unlike animals but animals have diverse modes of communication modalities or signalling means. Humans interact among themselves either through spoken or through visual means. Animals do not have written means of expression. They signal through visual, auditory, olfactory, electric, seismic, thermal and touch also.

We are concerned about human languages. The verbal mean is self-understood as exemplified by your interaction with your family. Written mean can be examplified by your capability to understand my post here. Visual means include facial expressions and gestures etc. For example, sad face emoji is not the same as a smiling face emoticon. We can understand the response from facial expressions.

Specifics of language

In our country, 22 languages are mentioned in the constitution and I believe we have more than that as variations in dialects sometimes give rise to new languages. Globally 5K to 7K languages are spoken.

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My mother tongue is Kashmiri and we spoke Urdu, Hindi and English as well. Kashmiri was learnt through social interaction from childhood. English and Urdu were taught in schools as well besides being used in day-to-day interaction. Hindi is a variation of Urdu to a great extent and there is a slight difference between the two languages. Although I haven't learnt Hindi in school, I can speak Hindi for conversational purposes but i cannot read or write it properly.

As for my posts on Steemit are concerned, I use English only as it seems an easy and widely understood language. Through English, I can convey my message to the masses. I don't prefer writing in my mother language because I have no means to write it properly. Kashmiri is an altogether different language while writing. Moreover, we have only a handful of people who can and understand the Kashmiri language and therefore my posts will be limited to a particular group of people.

In schools or universities, besides the native languages of different states, English is widely the primary language used throughout India. Reasons for widespread use of English are :

• English is the most commonly Subcon language throughout the world and therefore to be successfully able to explore other countries, one must be familiar.

• English is widely used in our country too and to seek employment opportunities within India, one must be well-read.

• English is the only language in which tons of material to study anything in the world is available and therefore one has to learn it.

As for the question promotion of my native language is concerned, I would love to promote it through various means like social media , print media and electronic media. I haven't promoted it yet and there's not much scope to learn it as it is not of much utility

Role of language in the development of Society.

Man is a social animal and cannot live in isolation. We depend on each other for our day-to-day needs. To survive in a society, we should have communication skills. Through language, we develop social relations and if our language is good, w will have good relations and vice versa.

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We know that humans prefer to reside in areas where we meet people of our interest. It is not uncommon to see that people of a particular social class are often assembled together in colonies. It is because they share similar social attributes and want to sustain and transmit them without dilution. We often see that we have colonies of doctors, businesses, film stars etc separately. It is because each of these classes is comfortable in sharing a particular environment with like-minded people and society and thereby grow in sync with a similar culture.

The other perspective is that, through the language we share our knowledge of rules and regulations, culture etc through literature and therefore develop our society. Similarly, to bring any social change, we must be able to convey our message in native language.

Language and Culture

Language and culture are seemingly different perspectives of human life but if we cleanly introspect these concepts, we will realise that they are interlinked.

Language helps us to demonstrate our culture. Culture is an umbrella term that encompasses different aspects of human life in a particular region like customs, beliefs, traditions, habits, festivals, dressing style and laws etc. We know that people living in a particular geographic region speak a particular language and share a common culture and also transmit similar cultural values to their progeny. Similarly, through written blogs here, if I talk about our culture like dressing style or eating habits without showing images, still you will get a Frank idea of our culture.

Language is also a means of preserving the culture because when we write novels, essays or short stories or other forms of documents, they became written records of culture because most short stories or essays do describe culture etc.

Spoken language helps in preserving culture by unifying or assembling people of a particular language into a particular place. On the other hand, if you can sp am multiple languages and you choose to move to some other nation which is not your native, you have to adaptat to their culture to avoid being alienated. It is a natural tendency of human to acquire the culture of a particular region where they live for a longer period.

Conclusion

Language is a primary means of communication between a particular group of people living in a particular geographic region and sharing a particular culture . Moreover, language has role in development of society and prevention and transmission of cultural values as well.

Thanks

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