Language and Language Teaching, Issue 2 - Azim Premji Foundation

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variants or (3) an erroneously articulated ordeviant (apabhramsa) form. In this situation,grammar lays down a restriction - the standardform is to be preferred. As stated by Bhartrihari,while meaningfulness is common to all the threechoices, dharmajanakatva, the property of‘linguistic righteousness’, ‘being generative ofdharma’ belongs only to the ‘norm’. What isthis dharma? There is reason to think thatdharma here is to be taken in its civilised andcultured (sastraic) sense of consisting in suchactions as bring about a desired result which inlanguage transaction is the successful transferof meaning and it is the function of grammar tolay down niyama - this is dharmaniyama,restriction laid down for an efficacious transferof meaning. As Kumarila Bhatta notes,discrepancies may arise in the use of variants.This sadhu form one can infer from Bhartrihari’sdiscussion, is an extant form, is widely in use, ishistorically older being one from which theapabhramsha forms can be shown to havedeveloped. (Vakyapadiya 1.23, 148). In keepingwith the principle of ekatva, the many variantsare manifestations of one. Three kinds of suchvariants, apabhramshas, are noted (first byPatanjali) in the tradition: mleccha, apashabdaand dushta shabda. There is some division ofopinion about what they exactly stand for (see,Ganganatha Jha 1983: 270) and without gettinginto details one may define these as follows:(1) mleccha prayoga is the usage of the nonnativespeakers, the language of the foreigncountries, of the lands that lie outside thelimits of Aryavarta;(2) apashabda is any of the dialectal variants;and(3) dushta shabda is an inaccurate or deviantusage caused either by physical infirmity orignorance.Grammar establishes sadhu words as siddhaand asadhu words as asiddha for it is a learneddiscipline and as such it records the tradition ofusage of the ‘educated’, the ‘cultured’ and the‘learned’ , that is the sistas. This is the dharmaof grammar and of a good man. When one canachieve one’s purpose by both shabda andapashabda, the man of virtue employs shabda.It remains to be reiterated that this debate aboutthe function of grammar is strictly with referenceto the product of the rules of grammar, that isthe forms that are shown to be siddha. Thereis no dispute about the other function of grammar,namely to describe the structure of language orabout its pedagogical use.ReferencesBhartrihari. The Vakyapadiya, critical texts of cantosI and II with English translation. Trans. K. Pillai.Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1971.Kumarila Bhatta (1983). Tantravarttika of KumarilaBhatta. Sir Ganganatha Jha (Trans.). Delhi: SriSatguru Publications. (Original work publishedin 1903-24).Patanjali. Vyakaranamahabhasya (Mahabhasya),based on the edition by Franz Kielhorn (Bombay1880-1885), revised by K.V. Abhyankar (Poona1972-1996), with additional references to theeditions. Gurukul Jhajjar, Rohatak (Rohtak):Hariyana Sahitya Samsthan, 1961-1963, 5 vols.Subramania Iyer, K. A. (Ed. and Trans.). (1971). TheVakyapadiya of Bhartrihari. Chapter 3, part 1of V. Poona: Deccan College.______ (ed. and tr.). 1973. The Vakyapadiya ofBhartrihari with the Prakimaprakasha ofHelaraja. Chapter 3, part 2. Poona: DeccanCollege.______(ed. and tr.). 1977. The Vakyapadiya ofBhartrihari. Chapter 2. Delhi: MotilalBanarsidass.Vasu, S. C. [1891] rpt. 1980. Ashtadhyayi. 2 vols.Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.Language and Language Teaching Volume 1 Number 2 July 2012 46
Notes:1We have the world’s first book on statecraft,Kautilya’s Arthashastra (4 th century B.C.), the firstbook on prosody, the world’s first grammar of anatural human language, Panini’s Ashtadhyayi (7 thcentury B.C) and the world’s first text ofinterpretation, Yaska’s Nirukta (9 th century B.C.), thefirst to conceptualise the numerals, zero and thevalue of p, to count a few peaks.2The need to maintain the Vedic Knowledge textswas the original impulse for linguistic studies.Maintenance of texts in the oral tradition dependedon a complete understanding of (i) the phonetics ofspeech, and (ii) the morphology of continuousutterances (samhita), which in turn depended on (iii)an understanding of meanings of utterances/words.This accounts for the rise of the sciences ofphonetics, grammar and etymology (Nirukta)respectively in the pre-Paninean period.3So central is language to the Indian mind that fourof the Vedangas are devoted to one or the otheraspect of language— shiksha, phonetics, Nirukta,etymology or exposition of word meaning, chhanda,prosody or metrics and vyakarana, grammar. Ofthese, says Patanjali, vyakarana, grammar is primary(Patanjali, Mahabhashya I.1), because as Bhartrihariasserts, grammar is the grand ladder, siddhi sopana,to a true understanding of language.4Bhartrihari, Vakyapadiya I.1235Speech rests in a human speaking voice and assuch no truth-claim is asserted about what is said asthe source of utterance is always identifiable as theindividual consciousness. The speaking voice is anindividual voice and not the Voice, there is no oneGod and there is no one Voice. This enables amultiplicity of points of view. This is linked to thesecond postulate – language is a cognitive systemand not just a system of communication. Asexplicated by Bhartrihari, language is the form thatknowledge takes and therefore language isindistinguishable from intelligence (sanjna) andconsciousness (cetana) (Vakyapadiya 1.126). Whatgrammar, Vyakarana, studies and describes is the‘language in the mind’, the system that is shared byall the speakers of that language. Thirdly, and finally,language is a constructivist system. As all cognition(bodha) takes the form of language, reality that iscognized by us is, therefore, necessarily a linguisticconstruct. Language is not a system that ‘names’some pre-existing reality, but one that constructs thereality that we claim to be out there. The grammarianssay that it is through naming that the objects, outsidethe mind and inside, are cognized as separate ordifferent 5 from each other creating for us thisitiamnaya, ‘this enumerable universe’(Vakyapadiya1. 120).6The science of etymology or exposition of words,nirvacana, is an interface discipline betweenphonetics, grammar and meaning as it studies/fixesthe meaning of words in terms of their derivationfrom given verb-roots in the course of which thesound form undergoes changes. Going to the rootof words to get what they mean is an establishedpedagogical practice.7Considering all this, look at the decline in publicspeech these days, the violence, the abusivenessand the untruthfulness that we hear all around.Language is used now to conceal the truth andpromote discord.8Mahabhashya Pratham Ahnika, Pashapashahnika.9That is the configurational process of knowledgein the oral culture.10A shishta is defined as “one whose worldly goodsare constituted by a jar of grain and who, without aworldly goal or purpose, devotes himself to a branchof learning and excels in it”.Kapil Kapoor is Former Professor of English,Concurrent Professor Sanskrit Studies, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, JNU; Adviser India Studies, TrinityDublin; Editor-in-Chief Encyclopedia of Hinduism(11 Vols.) published 2012; Chief Editor Encyclopediaof Indian Poetics (Sahitya Akademi); been a teacherfor 52 years; several books and articles, Bharata KiKatha Parampara Mein Rati-Bhakti, wriitten as BirlaFoundation Fellow, published 2011 being the latest;currently Visiting Professor, BPS MahilaVishwavidyalaya Khanpur Kalan, Haryana.kkapoor40@yahoo.comLanguage and Language Teaching Volume 1 Number 2 July 2012 47
Page 3 and 4: Language and Language TeachingVolum
Page 5 and 6: marking. The judgment is not a ‘l
Page 7 and 8: All classroom experiences are insta
Page 9 and 10: for us. In this article I focus on
Page 11 and 12: However, we were not successful in
Page 13 and 14: observations are very similar to th
Page 15 and 16: ensure that they get a solid founda
Page 17 and 18: of Marathi. The remarkable thing wa
Page 19 and 20: Popularizing any language is a two-
Page 21 and 22: Cartoon Shows: A Tool to Facilitate
Page 23 and 24: Comprehension is a two-fold process
Page 25 and 26: 4) What did they do to solve the pr
Page 27 and 28: Then we sat down, and I told them t
Page 29 and 30: Democratizing the Classroom: August
Page 31 and 32: I) Ask for different ways of handli
Page 33 and 34: change. They are ready to flout eth
Page 35 and 36: observer. In the context of the pre
Page 37 and 38: poverty and lack of alternative sou
Page 39 and 40: ConclusionAgain, sometimes papers h
Page 41 and 42: (SLAP), which materialized a shift
Page 43 and 44: LandmarksTheory and Practice ofLang
Page 45: What are excluded are asadhu forms
Page 49 and 50: Mesthrie does not sound convinced w
Page 51 and 52: in using English for teaching diffe
Page 53 and 54: use of lesson plans, etc.), and pra
Page 55 and 56: Practice in a Second Language: Pers
Page 57 and 58: students that these words occur in
Page 59 and 60: themselves increase their interest,
Page 61 and 62: ReportWorkshop on Continuous and Co
Page 63 and 64: The workshop, in general, created a
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