Community Radio Pledge (pdf) - amarc

of language used in national and international level boosts career prospectsand possibilities. While it is essential for each and every community to know itslanguage, to be proud about one’s language and cultural expressions, it isequally important to be clear about the standard form of the language of medium.The reason being language is inseparable part of social behavior.Language used by radio is narrative. Community broadcasters neednot waste too much time with grammarians who are bound to argue basedon the nearly a century old rules of grammar. The scope of language usageshould be expanded. Radio journalists should imbibe a fact that languageshould be contemporaneous, lively, progressive and versatile.Bengali Nobel laureate Ravindra Nath Tagore has said that thecompleteness of grammar is the death of the language. He could not be morecorrect. The language which is complete from the perspective of grammar isSanskrit. Grammar could not save Sanskrit language. This explains why lookinginto language from technical perspective is not enough. Being a traditionalist inthe usage of language does not serve any purpose. New words into the languagemust be accepted. Journalists should be open to the idea of using a word fromforeign language. Community radio journalists should be able to work to producesuitable linguistic atmosphere in society. A suitable atmosphere alone canculminate in the development of a language. Had society declined to switchover to new words we would still be using old world vocabulary going back tothe time of Bhanu Bhakta Acharya. Just in case we choose to be strict in the useof language we cannot be expected to wear the national dress. Our nationaldress is daura, suruwal, coat and the given cap. Looking into the issue from theview point of language daura, suruwal and coat were never the Nepali words.But they ended up recognized. Looked at in this light, we must be flexible in theuse of language. But this does not at all mean that a Nepali language programshould have broadcaster using words like "Daddy" or "Mummy" instead ofthe right words from Nepali language. Community broadcasters would do wellto play with the language by restricting their use of vocabulary within coat anddaura suruwal, while parents, to refer to the latest example, are best referred toin Nepali language.Broadcast language should be creative; not guided or of full of cliché.Creative language can impart novelty to subject matter, presentation andsentence structure. Creative language reflects personal identity and behavior.Letters addressed to one’s relatives and friends and letters written for officialpurpose can be cited as examples. Letters written for offices are guided andfull of cliché.Languages have their quintessential elements and identity. One must beable to find it and accept it. We are now writing sentences which put intoEnglish mean "we drink water". This is an instance of deflection in the use ofwords. The sentences like this are literal Nepali rendition of Hindi or Englishsentences. The use is not true to the structure of Nepali language. Nepali66