LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 17:8 August 2017
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
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         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
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         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
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         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
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Kannada versus Sanskrit: Hegemony, Power and Subjugation

Dr. Meti Mallikarjun

Abstract

This paper explores the sociolinguistic struggles and conflicts that have taken place in the context of confrontation between Kannada and Sanskrit. As a result, the dichotomy of the “enlightened” Sanskrit and “unenlightened” Kannada has emerged among Sanskrit-oriented scholars and philologists. This process of creating an asymmetrical relationship between Sanskrit and Kannada can be observed throughout the formation of the Kannada intellectual world. This constructed dichotomy impacted the Kannada world in such a way that without the intellectual resource of Sanskrit, the development of the Kannada intellectual world is considered quite impossible. This affirms that Sanskrit is inevitable for Kannada in every respect of its sociocultural and philosophical formations. This is a very simple contention, and consequently, Kannada has been suffering from “inferiority” both in the cultural and philosophical development contexts.

In spite of the contributions of Prakrit and Pali languages towards Indian cultural history, the Indian cultural past is directly connected to and by and large limited to the aspects of Sanskrit culture and philosophy alone. The Sanskrit language per se could not have dominated or subjugated any of the Indian languages. But its power relations with religion and caste systems are mainly responsible for its domination over other Indian languages and cultures. Due to this sociolinguistic hegemonic structure, Sanskrit has become a language of domination, subjugation, ideology and power. This Sanskrit-centric tradition has created its own notion of poetics, grammar, language studies and cultural understandings. These particular thought processes reinforce the discourses of caste and religion hierarchies that have entered into mainstream Kannada intellectual world.

The present paper attempts to organize all of these different threads into a coherent picture by focusing on native distinctive sociocultural and epistemic patterns of Kannada culture and its intellectual world. That is, this paper affirms the need to revisit the interconnections between Kannada and Sanskrit languages.

Keywords:

Introduction

The history of humanity is not only a history of socioeconomic activity, it is also a history of semiotic activity (M. A. K. Halliday:2003, pp 210)

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr. Meti Mallikarjun
Associate Professor
Department of Linguistics
Sahyadri Arts College
Kuvempu University
Shimoga
Karnataka
India
meti.mallikarjun@gmail.com

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