LANGUAGE IN INDIA

1. AIISH became the nodal agency for all speech and hearing work in India since then. AIISH was the only institute of its kind in the whole of South-East Asia at that time. This was a national Institute and the selection of students (for the under graduate and PG courses) entailed an all India zonal (North, South, West, East) and foreign countries (Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, etc.) quota for recruitment . The patient load however, came, at least initially, from Mysore city and adjoining areas of the state where Kannada is largely spoken. Obviously, most of the students enrolled in the undergraduate and post-graduate programs did not even have spoken language skills in this regional language. Therefore,they had to be trained in carrying out the assessment and intervention of SLH disorders in a language hitherto unknown to them. As a first step, thestudents were introduced to a Kannada language course in their first year of studies (Kannada knowing students would opt for a non-Kannada language course offered in the curriculum).
2. The students were often taken to Speech and Hearing disorder detection camps as an integral part of their training(and also for publicity for AIISH clinical services campaigns) in adjoining states like Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamilnadu, and also in some northern statues such as Madhya Pradesh, where the students were expected to cope with the local regional languages such as Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi. Also, a search for employment often took the graduates away from their home town or home state, and put them in a situation to cope with an unfamiliar language clinically.
3. To help such clinical services delivery, Dr.Rathna (the then professor of SLP and the Director of the Institute) proposed, in 1970s,that a common list of words, phrases and sentences in Indian languages that could be used with any language for functional purpose be prepared. While recognizing the need for a structured and tested lists of words, phrases and sentences specific to the languages of the individual cases, this informal procedure was encouraged, since the clinical services of assessment, counseling and intervention could be provided with the assistance of the caretaker(one of the parents of paediatric cases, spouse, sibling or children of adult cases).

3. MARCH TOWARDS THE PRESENT

In 1970s and 80s, the fruitful collaboration between the newly started Central Institute of Indian Languages in Mysore and All India Speech and Hearing Institute instilled interest in speech and hearing students for language-oriented SLP research in India. The linguistics researchers at the Central Institute of Indian Languages recognized, mainly through their participation as visiting teachers of psycholinguistics and linguistics courses in AIISH, how their structural description of Indian languages could be useful for speech and hearing programs in India. Although only a few showed greater interest and involvement in such a collaboration (for example, Professors M. S. Thirumalai, N. K. Sinha, K. Rangan, Ranjit Singh Rangila, and P. N. Duttabaruah)they certainly helped in our understanding of the complexity of Indian languages and the consequent bi-/multi-lingualism that prevails in India. Several Masters and Ph.D dissertations benefitted from this contact.

In1980s, other government institutions and centers like All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, and A.Y.J. National Institute for the Hearing Impaired, Bombay offering graduate courses in speech and hearing, and clinical services for North and Western Regions came up. Then came the Regional Rehabilitation Centers with their branches in Chennai (Tamilnadu), Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh), Cuttack (Orissa), and New Delhi catering to the clinical needs clientele speaking Tamil,Telugu, Urdu, Hindi and Oriya. Essentially the clinicians spoke the major language of the area and assessment and intervention was conducted in the language of the client.

At AIISH we had already set the tradition (from the very inception of the institute) of assigning student clinicians to clients based on commonality of language as we had started getting a major inflow of students as well as clintelle from the neighboring state of Kerala speaking Malayalam language. The practice continues even today. The other NGOs like ISH at Bangalore and Shetty's at Mangalore, started in early 1990s offering initially undergraduate courses and later Postgraduate courses. The GOs Like NISH and ICCONS at Trivandrum started in Mid 1990s and are yet to start such courses.

4. DEVELOPING STANDARDIZED TESTS IN INDIAN LANGUAGES

Three decades ago, there were meager normative data available for quantification of speech and language skills in monolingual population. In the absence of standardized language tests clinicians often relied upon informal approaches for identification and quantification of a speech/language problem such as a delay/deviance, misarticulation, etc. No attempt was made to arrive at a language age or magnitude of the delay. Conclusions as to the presence of a language disorder was left to the clinician's intuitive judgment and her/his knowledge of norms based on western literature. This procedure was useful in identifying gross delays and disorders. This, in addition to Professor Rathna's strategy detailed above, worked to satisfy the basic clinical needs.

Much research in the area of language disorders during 70s and 80s focused on developing tests based on data from monolingual population. When monolingual population was not available steps were taken to ensure that the language of consideration was mother tongue and the individual studied in the same medium of instruction. (In India, schools offer choices of a variety of medium of instruction. Often a student can choose between regional language, Hindi or English as his/her medium of instruction, depending upon the school he/she chooses to atttend. The regional language could be the mother tongue in several cases such as Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, Kannada, Tamil, etc). This was how the articulation tests, norms on articulatory acquisition and other aspects of language acquisition were studied. This was probably in line with the trend in the western world in 1960s and 70s (by Templin, 1957; Carrow, 1968; Sander, 1972; Brown, 1973).

The advent of purely linguistics-oriented approaches such as those of 'form, content and use' model by Bloom and Lahey (1978), and the various profiles of linguistic abilities by Crystal (1989) and others provided considerable insight into communication abilities of individuals with limited spoken language skills and those with mild/subtle language delays/deviance. It also became clear that a formal knowledge (of structures and functions) of a given language under consideration is necessary to administer and score the tests. We already had Phonological tests by Rathna, et al (1974) and LPT by Karanth (1986) and several monolingual language norms and studies on Bilingualism (such as Thirumalai & Chengappa, 1986), developed with the assistance of scholars from the adjacent Central Institute of Indian Languages at Mysore. The latter provided phonological and grammatical inventories on different Indian languages.

5. DEVELOPING AGE EQUIVALENT LANGUAGE AND ARTICULATION TESTS

Through the developments in psycholinguistics and related domains came the wealth of information which has facilitated not only quantification and differential diagnosis, but also intervention for specific disorders. Although the exigencies leading to Rathna's approach still remain, it would be grossly inadequate in the present context where language pathology necessitates highly specific treatment of issues. This led to several language specificity oriented programmes at the national level.

The first attempt towards developing age equivalent language and articulation tests in different Indian languages was a research project entitled "Development and Standardization of Language Profile Test and Articulation Test in Seven Indian Languages" jointly undertaken by the Regional Rehabilitation Training Center and A.Y.J. National Institute for the Hearing Handicapped, Bombay in 1990. The project aimed at developing LPT with reference to Phonology, Semantics and Syntax keeping in view the comprehension and production aspects in the lines of LPT developed by Karanth(1986) and articulation tests developed on the basis of Rathna et al (1972). From the raw scores it was possible to calculate the language and articulatory ages and levels of the children as well as adults. These have been useful in assessing language acquisition/mastery in mono- as well as bi/multilingual children in those languages. But considering that the normative data were collected on the monolingual population how far it would be assisting in faithful diagnosis and assessment in bi/multilingual clients would be debatable. To facilitate research in these related issues, a course on 'bi/multilingualism - cultural and ethnic issues' has been recently included in the curriculum at the Master's level at AIISH.

6. DEVELOPING TESTS FOR MULTILINGUAL CHILDREN

There is a general assumption that multilingual environment has an adverse effect on first language acquisition in children with language delay. The clinician often finds it difficult to help parents of such children to foster one language as s/he may find situations where the language spoken at home, extended families, neighborhood, community, medium of instruction in school they wish to opt for are all different. How do we take a decision when there are so many permutations and combinations of languages presented? Take a situation in Mumbai, a cosmopolitan city in Maharashtra as seen in AYJIHH (Mani Rao & Geetha Mukundan, 1998).

Family pattern % of children with communication disorders (total sample = 74)

1. Monolingual family, Language of home and medium of instruction at school are same. But the neighborhood is bilingual 7.2
2. Monolingual Family in bilingual neighborhood which includes home language. However, medium of instructionat school is different from that spoken in the neighborhood 13.4
3. Monolingual mother, bilingual father with mother's language as one of these along with another language which may or may not be the medium of instruction in the school. Neighborhood is frequently blingual but is occasionally multilingual 4.1
4. The parents and the neighborhood is bi/multilingual; both the parents are conversant with the medium of instruction at school 28.9
5. Fully monolingual situation 22.7

The family pattern given under 4 appears dominant. The second largest group appears to be the monolingual (Marathi) having the regional language as home language too. Besides Marathi and Hindi, 15 other languages were identified: English, Bhojpuri,Gujarati,Kannada, Konkani, Kutchi, Malayalam, Marwadi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Tulu, Urdu and Sign language. The children had SLPs like Delay and Language deficits with Hearing Loss, Misarticulations, Stuttering, Voice disorders, etc. In such situations, selection of one language as against the others for speech training is indeed difficult.

7. MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT IN INDIAN LANGUAGES FOR SLP

This has been one of the primary and continuous goals of AIISH clinic. The student assignments include works necessary for assessment and management in different Indian Languages known to them. We get cases of child language disorders with SLI, Autism, Aphasia, Learning Disability, besides others like Mental Retardation, cerebral Palsied, etc., (in addition to cases like Voice, Articulation and Fluency disorders) and adult disorders like Aphasia, and Dyslexia/Dysgraphia. Patients could be monolingual/bi/multilingual, literate/illiterate population. They would usually be handled using their mother tongue/most familiar or fluent language/both the languages/all the languages for assessment and therapy in that order! Accordingly the clinicians in consultation with the supervisors prepare the reports and therapy programmes/home training programmes in the given language/s.

8. DATA BASE IN INDIAN LANGUAGES

Several of the Masters dissertations include database from Indian languages. They include development of a test, standardization of a test, an assessment protocol, a therapy program on monolingual or a bilingual/multilingual subjects. We have had several dissertations/research projects with cross-linguistic/bi/multilingual focus such as the following:

1. Language disorders in Indian Neurological patients; A study in neurolinguistics in the Indian context: An inter institutional departmental project by Prathibha Karanth (1988).
2. Development of Language training materials in different Indian languages. A departmental project by Karanth (1990).
3. Aphasia in multilingual: Clinical evidences towards several organization of languages by Rangamani (1991)
4. Crossed Aphasia in Bilinguals By Rangamani and Karanth (1988)
5. Code-switching in an early Bilingual by Shyamala Chengappa (1984)
6. Simultaneous Acquisition of Two Languages by Shymala Chengappa and Thirumalai (1986)
7. Sentence Interpretation in Normal and Kannada-English Bilingual Aphasics By J.Vaid and Shyamala Chengappa (1988)
8. Developmental Milestones in Language Acquisition in Indian Languages by S.Chengappa and Basanti Devi (ongoing).
9. Language Processing in Bilinguals: A Tachistoscopic Study in Adults
10. Trace Deletion Hypothesis and Its Implications for Intervention with a Multilingual Agrammatic Aphasic by Y.Faroqui and Shyamala Chengappa (1998)
11. Neologisms in Child Language; A case study of a Bilingual by Shyamala Chengappa (1999)
12. Language Processing in Mono- and Bilingual Children: A Tachistoscopic Study by S.Chengappa and Jayanthi Ray
13. Comprehension Deficits in Bilingual Aphasics by Sreedevi(1998)
14. Naming Deficits in Bilingual Aphasics by Arpitha and Shyamala Chengappa (2000).

The list is by no means exhaustive but just a sample of the kind of work being done.

9. FUTURE RESEARCH

Need based investigations such as the following need to be addressed:

• Indian languages with their varied structures and their interrelations across the different levels of language organization (Phono-morphological, Morpho-syntactic changes) can be exploited fruitfully for testing the validity of Anglo-centric generalizations, both theoretical and applied. One of the major trends in modern linguistics has been the application of such models developed in the West to description of Indian vernaculars. While it provides a starting point, such dependence on theories and models developed in the context of languages other than our own can't help us in building up much needed linguistic data base for different application purposes like language teaching, translation, language assessment and therapy.
• Aphasia groups in non-English population have to be studied for their language symptoms/deficits and recovery patterns in each bi/multilingual combinations in the Indian subcontinent. It is well established now that language specific impairments and recoveries take place as evidenced by growing literature on Agrammatism. For example, agrammatic patients tend to err by omission in English and by substitution in richly inflected languages. As a result, English agrammatics appear much more severely impaired than their non English speaking counterparts. These qualitative and quantitative differences need to be further explored as already glimpsed in several Indian Languages like Telugu (Usharani, 1998), Kannada (Rangamani, 1991), Tamil (Srividya 1990), Faroqui (1998), etc. Similar parallels have been observed in Dyslexia research.
• Even in the use of English, there are variations as to how it is spoken in different states of India. So, one can think of having region-based English norms when studies in English are done in India either singly or as a part of bilingual groups.
• While there may be similarities, there could be variations too, across mono- and bilingual language acquisition/learning/relearning in individuals with or without brain insult. These need to be explored with the help of cross-linguistic studies.
• In SLP, should we look at language knowledge/mastery of language as a part of communication process as a whole when we look at children/adults with language disorders? This has implications for language assessment as well as patterns of language recovery (Paradis, 1989). Differential recovery has been observed in bilinguals (Rangamani, 1991). While translation and standardization of WAS and BDAE have served the purpose of diagnosis to an extent we are not sure whether they measure the different aspects similarly even when they are culturally modified/adapted. BAT (Paradis, 1987) test appears a better option to several other tests. Kannada, Hindi, Tamil and Gujarati versions of BAT are available, though norms are not available for other Indian languages. Testing procedures are also not standardized in many cases. Do both/all languages need to be assessed always? In what order should languages be tested? What is the impact of having same examiner test both languages? Should she/he be a native speaker of the language/s in question? Isn't it too idealistic to expect this? These are some of the questions that still linger around us.
• Bilingual phenomena as code mixing and code switching have to be studied thoroughly for each bilingual set up/group/pair. Can we have norms for these? If yes, can we take a decision as to whether or not we can consider/accept language mixing/language switching as normal bilingual variations? If so how much of it is acceptable/not acceptable in bilingual aphasics? These have implications for therapy.
• The investigations relating to reading, models of reading, theories of reading, acquisition and disorders of reading seen in the last two decades based on alphabetic scripts like English need to be verified and cross validated with data from non-alphabetic Indian Orthographies. For instance, Karanth in her quite extensive research suggests that pure surface dyslexia or deep dyslexia could be very rare in Indian languages like Kannada and Hindi while it could be very common in English. Such studies are necessary in other groups of languages too.
• Literacy and Language specific studies providing detailed linguistic analysis of materials used and the results obtained in a wide variety of psycholinguistic tasks are needed in order to understand not only the brain organization of languages and their deficits but also devise adequate intervention procedures in Indian SLP.

10. TO CONCLUDE

India offers a great opportunity and challenge to enterprising students of speech and hearing discipline. The problems we face in India are manifold. We know that we have not enough trained manpower yet to deliver clinical services to all. We live in a nation that is historically multilingual and multicultural. Our cities are becoming increasingly multilingual and multicultural. In the diversity, however, lies the challenge and our strength. We have broken new grounds to meet the exigencies and I do believe that given the short history of speech and hearing as a distinct discipline in India we will succeed in devising tests, other diagnostic tools and delivery services that will specifically take care of the special needs of Indian languages and multilingual patients.

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Shyamala Chengappa, Ph. D.
All India Institute of Speech and Hearing
Manasagangotri
Mysore 570006, INDIA
shyamalakc@yahoo.com.