Only digitisation of Indian languages can protect their lives: Dr Birbal Jha

New Delhi, 6th Feb, 2020 : “India has become the largest ever a market for the internet and mobile services, given their utility and rapid public acceptance for better lifestyles and instant communications. But what comes into play is the English language which restricts the vast population from enjoying the bounties that they offer. In other words, 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 knowing population” said noted author and linguist, Dr Birbal Jha, who was addressing a conference on Bahsha Bharat held at The Lalit Hotel here.

“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 is used. However, English is making its inroads into every nook and cranny of the country with economically sound family sending their children to English medium schools. It stands to reason that English education is out of the reach of the vast population in the country. Given 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, who is the managing director of Lingua Multiservices Pvt Ltd.

“The content developers for the purpose will hardly be motivated for localization as their quantum of efforts will not be incommensurate with their counterparts and they are hardly ever remunerated on par with the professionals working in English. Such an economic de-motivation puts a spike in the wheels of localization of services and languages. The digitization of content in local languages will boost the economy of businesses involved and life of a language.” added Dr Jha.

Advocating the need for digitisation of the Maithili language, Dr Jha said, “Mithila has around 40 millions of people, who use Maithili as their mother tongue, which is bigger than the populace of many countries. Hence, it draws the attention of business classes with high potentialities”.