Linguistic Diversity as a National Resource: The Role of Linguistics in Contemporary India

Abstract

India has world's richest Linguistic and cultural diversity which is its real strength. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 rightly lays emphasis on mother tongue education (regional, local and home language) so that students can gain knowledge and understand the subject matter in a more effective way. The policy also serves the purpose of saving many endangered or lesser known languages of India from extinction. The study of Linguistics is the scientific and systematic interpretation of the structure and evolution of human language, and its use in every aspect of human endeavour. Linguistics as a discipline focuses on theories of language structure, their variation and usage, the description and documentation of contemporary languages, and the implications of theories of language for an understanding of the mind, human culture, social behaviour, and language learning and teaching. It encompasses not only the study of sound, grammar and meaning, but also the history of language families, how languages are acquired by children and adults, and how language use is processed in the mind and how it is connected to race and gender. The discipline more recently has embraced advances in computational Linguistics and is active in understanding the relationship between humans and computational devices.