New Delhi, 6/2/ 2020: “India has become the largest ever market for the internet and mobile services,
understandably so as apart from being the second most populous country of the
world, she has also witnessed great surge in the public acceptance for better
lifestyles and Quick Communications. But what comes into play is the English
language which restricts the vast populace from enjoying the bounties of the
digitization of languages”, said noted author and linguist Dr Birbal Jha, while
addressing a conference on Bhasha Bharat held at The Lalit Hotel here.
The Paagman of India further added, “Localisation of
the vernacular languages for the internet and mobile services opens the doors
to those involved in such businesses considering that India has as little as 3%
English-speaking population and only 10 per cent English-acquainted population",
averred Dr Jha, who heads British Lingua, an institute of international repute
for English communication skills.
"The beauty of India lies in multilingualism and
multiculturalism that attract the world no end. India is the only country in
the world where the largest number of languages (1652) is used. However, English
is making inroads into every nook and cranny of the country with economically
sound family sending their children to English medium schools”, opined Dr Jha.
“On the flip side, it stands to reason that English education
is out of the reach of the vast population in the country. Considering all
these, localisation and digitisation of Indian languages are needed and only
such steps can protect their lives. Otherwise, many of the Indian languages
will meet the fate of extinction in days to come" enlightened Dr Jha to
the august crowd.
“However, the content developers for the purpose will
hardly be motivated for localization as their quantum of efforts is unlikely to
be remunerated on par with the professionals working in English. Such an
economic de-motivation puts spoke in the wheels of localization of services and
digitisation of languages. The digitization of content in local languages will
certainly boost the economy of businesses involved and life of a language”, Said Dr Jha while speaking at length about the
role of content developers in this regard.
Giving an example and advocating the need for
digitisation of the Maithili language, Dr Jha said, "Mithila has around 40
million of people, who use Maithili as their main mode of communication as the
language happens to be their mother language, which is bigger than the populace
of a number of countries put together. Hence, it draws the attention of
business classes for its high potentialities".
Mr Jha was widely acclaimed, acknowledged and appreciated by
the audience.
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