Friday, October 5, 2012

There is no ‘The Language’


All linguistics think that their language is the refined, well polished and ‘The Language’ whereas there is nothing called ‘The Language.’ Everyone’s language is culturally and politically polished so each one’s language differs. The language we speak has been polished and shaped by the culture and political scenario of the land where we have been living.


We have our set of vocabularies, phrases, idioms, style that we employ in our language and our language work within our frame of reference. As we have synonyms for a particular word, a few of us are fond of using a particular synonym and others different so we can’t make an authoritarian rule that only a particular synonym can be used in a sentence in a given situation, it is mere a choice of the people who use the language that which synonym should be employed in a given sentence.  

As long our spoken and written language is within the ambit of grammatical structure and syntax, it is perfect. So long as we don’t make any grammatical and syntax mistakes our language is commonly acceptable and intelligent for the audience to understand and respond accordingly, our language is also equally perfect. 

As the ultimate purpose of any language is to communicate the ideas and thoughts with others, the purpose of language is served once the communicator is being able to communicate with his/her audience in the commonly accepted frame of language. The native speakers of the language strongly feel that their language is the language because the language has emanated from them, but as language is not anyone’s property, ardent lovers of the particular language too can learn the language as that of the native speakers use it.   

A set of people would be using simple and informal language to communicate whereas other set of people might be using poetic language with simile, metaphor and at the end of the day both the parties are doing one and same thing that is to communicate the thoughts, ideas and feelings with others.  

As we have different scholastic of thoughts and each one needs to have different style of language to covey its message. To articulate its theory and idea each school of thoughts employ its own style of language bringing variations in the commonly accepted language system.  

Even if an editor is asked to edit a particular article written in a particular language, the only thing the editor does is to put the content, facts and figures in his style of language and represent the article to the audience. The content would remain the same only change the article has undergone is that the article is colored with the vocabularies, phrases and idioms of the editor.              

Therefore, I strongly believe that there is nothing called ‘The Language,’ ‘The Language’ that every one should follow. As long as we are able to work within the generally accepted rules of the language and communicate our ideas, thoughts and message with others our language is perfect and very well serve the purpose.      

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