Discuss the difficulties that arise from the existence of more than one language in a country.
The essay implies there are real difficulties existing in a country where there is more than one language. The way out is not sought, so let us confine to the difficulties alone.
The first difficulty will arise regarding the court language or state language besides, of course, the language to be chosen for international communication. Each language may compete for the coveted post of becoming a court language. When many languages are spoken by different people in one country, picking out one of them and say that is the state language will lead to conflict and more often than not as witnessed in some countries. The safest course would then be to have all the contending languages as court or state languages.
Though this arrangement is possibly the best, it is wrought with practical difficulties, In the offices, more forms will hove to be printed, more officials will have to be appointed, very often proficiency in more than one language will be insisted upon. In that case, people who learn languages easily may get into the offices to the chagrin of others. Since all records will have to be in all languages, more paperwork will be involved. Many useful hours will be spent in translation, though the simultaneous translation has become practical with the advancement of technology.
In official business, each language may claim superiority to the resentment of others. In legislatures, such controversies may surface very often and this is detrimental to the unity of the country. Though simultaneous translation has obviated the difficulty today, still translation may not be correct because the idioms and nuances peculiar to o language will be lost in translation.
Perhaps the greatest difficulty that may arise refers to what is called the linguistic minorities. In any area, the people speaking different languages may not be of the order of percentage. The number of those speaking one language may outnumber those speaking another language and thus they claim a numerical majority. Those who speak the minority language are looked down upon. Very often feelings get strained and there may flare up language riots. To keep the people speaking different languages under restraint and make them live amicably is difficult. What is called linguistic chauvinism has not become a thing of the past.
The real difficulty will be with education. Any government or state cannot brush aside the claim of a section of her people to educate their children in their own mother tongue. That means more schools, more teachers and above all more textbooks in different languages. The question of language comes up in conducting public examinations, As many papers will have to be set up in different languages, this adds to the administrative burden.
In such a country the study of literature becomes hard because each language may be having good literature and unless due recognition is given to literature it may not grow. A practical difficulty will be felt in travel and communication. A person from one area of a predominant language will find it difficult to go and do business in another area having a different predominant language.
When all these difficulties are viewed dispassionately one must agree there must be one national language. It is worthwhile to think of a national language. Purists may quarrel but the national language may absorb good words and idioms from other languages. This is a way out of language difficulties.
