Devy in the details

There are those who are consumed by the ordinary business of living whose bandwidth is claimed by water cuts flight delays heat waves and imminent elections And then there are those who are driven by the business of lifemdasha higher purpose that puts their lives into perspective Celebrated linguist social scientist and Fulbright scholar Dr Ganesh Devy belongs to the second categoryAt 74 the author of 90odd books on indigenous languages and cultures is remarkably upbeat about the new Centre for Civilisation Studies he is shaping at Mumbairsquos Somaiya Vidyavihar UniversityThe itinerant septuagenarian will now shuttle between his Dharwad home and the city to work towards creating a comprehensive narrative of all ancient and modern civilisations spanning multiple periods and geographies He will team up with researchers and scholars across continents this study of civilisations will thus foreground collaboration and confluence rather than the clash and conflict of culturesldquoWe hope to create a knowledge base that will change the way civilisations are studied in disciplines such as anthropology linguistics cinema studies urban studies and literature We envisage 300odd titles published in a dozen foreign and Indian languages in the course of a decaderdquo says Dr Devy whose latest anthology The Indians Histories of a Civilization coedited with Tony Joseph and Ravi Korisettar published by Aleph Book Company traces the origin and evolution of the ldquoIndianrdquo people over a daunting 12000 years Like his other titles The Indians too stirred many discussions in universities and nonacademic spaces most recently in Mumbairsquos own Kitab KhanaTherersquos a back story to Dr Devyrsquos onandoff residence in the maximum city ldquoMumbai has a different vibe than Dharwad and Baroda where I spent my busiest years But I love coming back to it often now more so after becoming the Centre for Civilisation Studiesrsquo Directorrdquo Travel has been an integral part of life for the Professor of Eminence and his wife Surekha who was a Chemistry professor In their collective pursuit of bhashas the couple opted for voluntary retirements from their teaching careers at the Maharaja Sayajirao University Baroda The polyglot is an untiring champion of the linguistic heritage of nomadic communities in India Dr Devy is invested in every languagemdashscripted or oral widely spoken or endangered scheduled or unscheduled as per the Government of India the fisherfolkrsquos maritime English or Sikkimrsquos extinct Majhi dialectDr Devy maintains Mumbai is the ideal city in Indiamdashthe only one of its kindmdashto serve as the setting for a multilingual and multidisciplinary project like the one at the Somaiya Vidyavihar University which needs a diverse team ldquoIt is a truly modern cityrdquo he says ldquowhich has the resident talent and foreign language speakers for the study of varied cultures It is a city of imagination which inherits values from figures like Narsinh Mehta Saint Tukaram and Mahatma Phule Since its Presidency era its citizenry has been shaped in an extraordinary furnace of thoughtrdquoThe linguist values Mumbai as a coastal city which ldquogoes beyond the divides of language religion ethnicity and gender unlike other landlocked and pilgrim citiesrdquo Recently he expressed gratitude towards one of the cityrsquos key philanthropic organisations Tata Trusts He presented 30 statespecific volumes of the Peoplersquos Linguistic Survey of India Orient BlackSwan to the trust which endowed the survey with R80 lakh in 2014 when the first volume titled The Being of Bhasha was published A decade later the last volumemdashcentred on Karnatakamdashhas been releasedldquoI felt it was my duty to gift the trust the set of books which chronicle extant and dying languages of indigenous people minorities and the marginalisedrdquo PLSI maps the effects of largescale urban migration and decline of agriculture on regional dialects and colloquial usages it is a gigantic nationwide project putting 780odd Indian tongues on the world language mapBehind Dr Devyrsquos appreciation for the Tata Trusts is a special reason In 2005 the Central government appointed him to a committee tasked with visualising a New Linguistic Survey of Indiamdasha mission under government patronage By 2008 the Central Institute of Indian Languages expressed its inability to be the nodal body for carrying out the survey There also emerged a lack of harmony between the Home and Education Ministries over the subject of funding Eventually the linguist determined that the project deserved to be shouldered by the public under PLSI Dr Devy roped in 3500 volunteers language lovers folklorists translators individual donors and the Tata Trusts combing the length and breadth of the country to complete the survey with the help of faceless but passionate IndiansldquoNow that each statersquos linguistic makeup is captured in English and Hindi and in some cases regional languages too I have a deep sense of satisfaction in having fulfilled my obligation to Indian language diversityrdquo says Dr Devy whose only regret is that many language enthusiasts are no longer around to witness the collective wondrous outputAfter retiring as Professor of English MSU Baroda in 1996 Dr Devy created institutionsmdashentirely peopledrivenmdashlike the Bhasha Research Centre Adivasi Academy Denotified and Nomadic Tribes Action Group all for the furtherance of the language cause His grassroots connection with indigenous people puts him in a league of his own The academic continues to nourish an extensive ShillimtoShillong network of bhasha advocates who in turn contribute towards Dr Devyrsquos endeavours ldquoLanguages are made by people and they are kept alive or allowed to die by people Governments do not have much of a role to play in the processrdquo he saysHighly cognizant of the upcoming years when languages will be impacted by the use of technology Dr Devy sees it as one of many shifts in the ldquomediumsrdquo used for ldquorepresentingrdquo languages ldquoWriting itself is a representation an image of a language Like other radical shifts in the pastmdashthe use of paper and printingmdashthe digital conversion of language has made it move faster between one space to another But it has also made language expressions extremely shortlivedrdquo says the EnglishMarathiGujarati writer who recognises Artificial Intelligence as a major challengeldquoAI has posed a great challenge to the neurological dynamics of Natural Languages Due to the encounter between AI and NLs widespread dyslexia is likely to be a common epidemic in the near futurerdquo the scholar says referring to a time when machines will mimic human communication gadgets will drive the written and spoken word smartphones will take on daily chores and ldquohumans may go out of languagerdquoAs AI sets new rules for language comprehension Dr Devy is concerned about a gamut of issuesmdashthe future of 7000 global languages the subsequent collapse of the traditional family structure and its impact on demography not just in India but across the world Issues such as caste reservation politics in Maharashtra or the upcoming Lok Sabha Electionsmdasheven the demand for classical status for Marathimdashdo not occupy his mind as much as those to do with the future of languages which he calls ldquobigger worriesrdquoBorn in Bhor Pune to a Gujarati family raised in Kolhapur educated abroad married to a Kannadiga having worked in Baroda and now nestled in Dharwad Dr Devy belongs to many mother tongues and states ldquoI love Marathirsquos power of expression but wonrsquot lobby for a classical label Marathi is a breathing heaving living languagemdashthe third mostspoken one in India It is used in new tech domains it has a presence on social media It is definitely not dyingrdquo he says To him the classical category is best defined by Latin Greek and Sanskrit in India ldquoClassical shouldnrsquot be a fashionable tag merely because Tamil Telugu and Kannada are declared classical and the status begets certain benefitsrdquo Any language will live he concludes as long as people use it for the business of life and livingSumedha RaikarMhatre is a culture columnist in search of the subtext You can reach her at sumedharaikarmiddaycom