Language in Glocal Cultural Context

Copyright © 2019 by author(s) and International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development Journal. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0) ABSTRACT The Paper tries to unveil the vital actions and counteractions of language and culture upon each other. A language neither can originate nor live without the culture. Language and culture, thus, are inseparable. Language rolls on the concrete passage of time encountering many alike and opposite processes like a culture, de-cultures and re-culture and gathers moss. Particularly, in postcolonial context [Odia] language encounters some radical changes and reaps new products with respect to words, morphology, prefixes, suffixes and many more things. In post colonial context, we encounter a special kind of language called ‘hybrid language’ or ‘glocal language’. The paper emphasizes the dimensions of language change with a global perspective as well as with local perspectives.


INTRODUCTION
Can one imagine a language but the culture? It is quite impossible in fact. One cannot taste the language unless s/he assimilates the concerned culture in her/his blood and brain. Language is completely a socio-cultural politics having multifold manifestations in profuse socio-genic customary praxis. The Greek term 'logos' from which 'language' has been derived means 'the power of thinking' or 'knowledge'. Again, the term 'lingua' is related to language which means 'tongue', the most functional organ of the human organ of voice. However, the culture is equally connected to the phenomena like 'the power of thinking' and knowledge, science and conscience. This yields the consequence of language mobility. There is no limit in fact to the structural assortment and functional dissimilitude of languages.

Language vis-à-vis Culture
In fact, the functional fragment and constituent of any language is no doubt a morpheme but again the elementary module of that morpheme is thoroughly guided by a cultural Pia mater. The culture, therefore, regulates the orientation of any language, may not why it be the lingua franca. Ergo, we encounter culture as the medullary matrix of language.
"Not only language and culture link together but also act as a significant feature in intercommunication so we can claim that language is a vital factor in cultural interaction." (Assemi 2012, p. 78) Chomsky claimed that "Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation." (2005, p.113) Culture embodies human society, societal systems, and behaviors, activities (cultural, social, political, economical, anthropological, and psychological and other phenomenal) and individual cum collective attitudes. Culture is really an artificial or man-made environment for all our thoughts and attitudes as well as activities. Again, we live in that environment that we make and modify according to our wills and para-desires. In fact, 'culture' and 'language' are the two sides of a coin. Both 'culture' and 'language;' are symbiotic to each other. But G. Yule in his popular book "The study of language" (Cambridge University Press. 1996), claims that "We use the term culture to refer to all the ideas and assumptions about the nature of things and people that we learn when we become members of social groups. It can be defined as 'socially acquired knowledge.'" Language is a man made technology meant for dissemination of human thoughts, emotions and cultural doctrines and instincts. "There is, first of all, the sense in which culture is more or less synonymous with civilization and, in an older and extreme formulation of the contrast, opposed to 'barbarism'. This is the sense that is operative, in English, in the adjective 'cultured'. It rests ultimately upon the classical conception of what constitutes excellence in art, literature, manners and social institutions." (Mahadi 2012, p.232) Language cannot survive without the help of culture. More particularly, language needs the culture for its form, structure and survival. Sapir and Whorf Hypothesis is a very important in this context. Linguistic relativity and linguistic determinism are the two significant ingredients in this regard.
"Words are the most significant tools of cultural symbols. That is to say, poems, stories, fictions, epics and myths are the main ingredients and components of a culture in a society. Myth, Levis Strauss (1976) believes, in a language expresses universal realities in symbols. On the whole, the elements of culture are the entirety of socially transmitted and common behavior patterns, prototypes, samples, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought." (Mahadi 2012, p.232) In order to define the symbiosis between culture and language, C. Geertz in his book "The Interpretation of Cultures". (New York: Basic Books. 1973) says that culture "Interprets symbols through 'thick description' with a goal of 'enlarge the possibility of intelligible discourse between people quite different from each other." Culture has its many manifestations. Religion is one of the products of culture. It establishes pervasive moods, naturalizes conceptions and holds the societal system tight. Here, in this context we can also focus on 'Sapir and Whorf hypothesis'. (Sapir, 1921;Whorf, 1956;Berlin and Kay, 1969;Lucy, 1992a, Lucy 1992bLevinson, 2000;Gilbert, et al. 2008) This hypothesis, which was propounded by Edward Sapir and was expanded by Whorf later on, comprises two consistent and unified ingredients, i.e., linguistic relativity (that determines the structural, semantic and morphological orientations or changing nature of foreign language by the structure of native language) and linguistic determinism (where a strong model of linguistic determinism is found guided by one's native language). 'Culture' is moreover close to 'civilization'. Some define it as synonymous to civilization. We can recall the statements of Herder about 'culture' with reference to the society here that: "nothing is more indeterminate than this word, and nothing is more deceptive than its application to all nations and periods" (Williams 1976, p. 79). Sapir-Whorf hypothesis clearly says that language is the expression of society and our 'thought' which also takes its dip in the same society. Similarly, the peculiarities, characteristics, literary terms and specificity of a language is thoroughly guided by the society. Hence, each society functions as an independent system which produces its language with complete reference to its own culture. However, it could not be compared with other language as the guiding and originating sources are different. Since, the cultures and traditions of different nations/countries vary from each other very often we encounter misconceptions through/in language. In fact, language is a carrier of all these things from very early point of time. But in the process of interaction and exchange a nation may accept the words/ linguistic objects of another nation as it is or with slight modification or by modifying that 'linguistic object' according to own cultural frame. The word or the term that is much familiar and much easy to understand, implies its familiarity and closeness with the 'culture' or the great tradition of the concerned nation. Again, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis emphasizes on the influence of language on 'thought' and they more or less agree to this opinion that memory functions in accordance with the relationship between language and culture. The language which is well caught and easily remembered by the brain is that much close to the cultural matrix of the region. Language is a code and commonly used expressions are therefore much closer to us (any member of that society). Hence, cod ability is very important in this regard and it is not simply a matter of existence or presence of single-word lexemes. Therefore, the understanding and speaking of any language is highly guided/ affected by the factor called 'nativity'. "Particular languages are associated historically with particular cultures; the languages provide the key to the associated cultures, and especially to their literature; the languages themselves cannot be fully understood otherwise than in the context of the cultures in which they are inextricably embedded; subsequently, language and culture are studied together. It so happens that English and the other major languages of Europe are, in many respect, highly unrepresentative of the languages of the world. English, in particular, has been used in the administration of an empire of great cultural diversity. It is spoken as a native language by members of many different ethnic groups and adherents of many religions, living in many parts of the world. It is widely employed by anthropologists, missioners and writers of all kinds, not only in the description of every known society, but also in novels, plays and etc., which have their setting in countries and societies in which English is not normally spoken. The above points indicate that English, to an even greater extent than other European languages, has been enlarged and modified by loan-translation in almost every area of its vocabulary. The correlation between the semantic structure of English and the cultures of its native speakers are therefore much more complex and diverse than are the correlations between language and culture in the vast majority of human societies." (Mahadi, p. 234) Therefore, language, in most of the cases, is contextual and conditional. Now, the hour in which we are using languages, are again not pure. These have undergone different processes of amalgamation and hybridization through different processes. We are living in a post-colonial era and using post-colonial languages being post-colonial products ourselves. It is not only applicable to the commonwealth countries or the third world nations but also each and every nation involved in the process of globalization and international and inter-cultural relation making. Since language is the vector of culture, by virtue of culture study and cultural analysis we can measure and ensure about the diffusion and displacement of cultural elements. Therefore, "it can be concluded that there is a very close relationship between language and culture in general, and a specific language and its culture in particular. That is, culture has a direct effect on language. In fact, the two issues are closely correlated and interrelated. Language is the symbolic presentation of a nation or a specific community. In other words, language is the symbolic presentation of a culture." (Mahadi 2012, p. 234) We encounter very often some peculiar and crucial cultural drifts in between states and nations. "Another very curious coincidence is found between a myth from the Pelew Islands and several from the North Pacific coast." (Boas 1940, p. 444) Similarly, we see various similarities between Indian (Odishan) folk tales and Russian folktales. There are few other remarkable similarities found in between the folk products of Pelew Islands and North Pacific coast. However, one can easily mark the distinctive similarities between the cultural aspects of two nearby places than a farther one.

Multiplex Dimensions of Language Mobility
Language is a complex 'cross product' of time and culture. It is not at all a scalar quantity. It is a vector one since it has a International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 Page: 1274 specific direction with respect to the changing dimensions of time and socio-cultural praxis. It has proportionate relation with the time as well as the culture and acts as a Sinusoidal function [y= a sin (b x +c)]. Sometimes with the elements like morpheme, phoneme, word and mytheme etcetera language behaves as a logarithm function [y = a ln (x) + b]. Language hardly acts as a linear function but in most of the cases it behaves typically with certain specialties. Sometimes it functions like polynomial and/or rational function and in some other time it functions as an exponential one. Rapid industrial changes, post-colonial politics and post-modern philosophy of the society have made the language multidirectional and multi-divisional. Human language is well organized and well formed like a sedimentary rock underneath the sea. The huge ordeal and escapades and socio-cultural & socio-political passage of experience motivates the language to take a diversion and to bring about vicissitude and undergo the processes like reconstruction, transmutation, modulation permutation and metamorphosis. Language takes its shape by the processes of adopting and shedding various things with reference to its different aspects like phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Language needs following few things in general like: Language is of the society, by the society and for the society. Therefore its name is connected to the concerned society, e.g., French, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, English, German, Japanese, Odia, and Bengali, Gujarati etcetera of the respective geographical area like state or country/nation. The social form of language is 'Langue'.
Language is the representative of human consciousness expressed with collective efforts of the arbitrary sounds originating from the two different areas of 'dominant' brain(left hemisphere) such as Broca's Area (responsible for speech, speaking and writing) and Wernicke's Area (responsible for understanding language). Similarly the areas like visual cortex and auditory cortex are also significant in this light. By the process called 'cortical stimulation mapping' we know the speech producing area of brain called Broca's Area.
( Fig.1.1. Showing Broca's Area in the Human Brain fit in Human Skull) Again, minor damage in the particular area may lead to permanent/ temporary loss of speech of the person and/or grammatical disorder. Again, this is the area where we encounter grammatically and culturally coherent sentence producing capacity.

(Lateral View of Human Brain Pointing Broca's Area and Wernicke's Area)
We often encounter various sulci and gyri in a particular language during its evolutionary mobility. Disorders and damages in brain, especially in the concerned area, result in 'aphasia'. But apart from these internal problems many external factors are there which cause language to undergo mutation and evolution for a metamorphosis.
" […] it is commonly concluded that aside from a few rules of grammar and pronunciation there is nothing else to explain about hu8man language. But it turns out that there is a great deal to explain. If we "step out-side" language and look at it as an object to be studied and described and not merely used, we discover an exciting sphere of human knowledge previously hidden from us." (Akmajain 2006, p.03) Language is associated with the Limbic system of our brain which is the centre of our emotions, learning and memory. The cingulate gyri, hypothalamus, amygdale and hippocampus are those significant systems which indirectly help producing language and in its mobility.

Language in Post-Colonial Glocal Cultural Context
Language is a byproduct of culture and hence, in this so called post-colonial era it is a post-colonial product now. The processes like a culture, de-culture and re-culture are seen now-a-days. Post-colonial politics, thus, gets reflected by the amalgamation of multiple local terms, or by the fusion of multiple local and foreign terms, or by conversion of foreign terms in the similarity of local terms, or the conversion of local terms as foreign terms, or by direct assimilation of foreign terms and addition of the same in the local word stock etcetera are the various processes we encounter during this period.
"Culture is also a matter of habit, and it is habit that becomes tradition and tradition that gives rise to culture. Local people begin with habitual actions and go on to create common stereotypes. Condon further explained that stereotypes assign group characteristics to individual purely on the basis of their cultural membership. The cultural stereotypes affect how people think, speak, act, and interact with one another." Sometimes we see we have lost some cultural fragments or the cultural unit as a whole. Some other time we encounter a denatured form of culture and similarly we see the fusion of two different cultures which result in a new culture. All these three processes have widened the dimensions of vocabulary, accent and other linguistic assets of a colonized language. Leonard Bloomfield has pointed out many directions of language change like: broadening, narrowing, metonymy, elevation, degradation, euphemism and hyperbole. All these forms of changes expect various socio-cultural, socio-political and psychological dimensions of language mobility. Language is a subject to change as it is associated with culture which means appropriate change as per the requirements of the time. The language which is more flexible and generous keeps the potency to live more and more in the head, heart and spirit of people, time and space.
"No human language is fixed, uniform, or unvarying; all languages show internal variation. Actual usage varies from group to group, and speaker to speaker, in terms of the pronunciation of a language, the choice of words and the meaning of those words, and even the use of syntactic constructions. To take a well-known example, the speech of Americans is noticeably different from the speech of the British, and the speech of the British, and the speech of these two groups in turn is distinct from the speech of Australians. When groups of speakers different noticeably in their language, they are often said to speak different dialects of the language." (Akmajain 2006, p.275) The culture inhibits a language in particular in order to express its private and inherited philosophy. Some differences may be seen in between British and American dictions. These dialectical variations and typical words used for a typical purpose and the difference between the two languages clearly shows that American Culture is more flexible, wide hearted, funny and more informal than that of the British one. Further, in this case "although the notion of mutual intelligibility seems like a reasonable criterion in defining dialects, the situation can be considerably complicated by social and political factors." (Akmajain 2006, p. 279) Therefore, the people of Northern China can hardly understand some of the terms of Southern China. Similarly, the case of Odisha, one of the rising and significant states of India, we encounter such problems in between eastern Odisha and Southern Odisha as well as in Western Odisha and vice versa. 'Chhenaa'(a milk product-food/ cow dung) term has hell and heaven difference in meaning in between eastern and western Odisha. The word like 'Tandraa' (sleeping / hurried) has that kind of problem in between eastern and southern Odisha. "Cultural learning helps us to discover that there are a multitude of ways of viewing the world. Understanding the relationship between culture and linguistics will help us to develop instructional strategies and pedagogies for teaching second languages.

BRITISH TERM AMERICAN TERM
In the information driven world, language ability gradually becomes an essential skill. According to Kramsch (1993), culture in language learning is not an expendable skill. For achieving true linguistic comprehension, culture and language should be learned together. After all, the more cultural concepts we learn, the more language abilities we gain; the more language we gain, the more competitiveness we have." (1940, p.9) In this process a rigorous exchange of culture has been experienced by both colonizer and the colonized and in this way English language, with different mechanisms, has harvested some words like: And many terms are there whose socio-linguistic nature and cultural importance still exists even after undergoing phonetic and linguistic metamorphosis and surprisingly even after centuries and millennia past. This indicates languages' interlink and adhesiveness. The Indo-European family is the biggest ever linguistic family of the world and hence many of the languages are interrelated to each other by different means. Similarly, in the multi-cultural and multi0lingual nation like India, we encounter similar situations. The case of linguistic exchange and similarity is seen in between Odisha, Bengal and Assam. The three languages of these three states are inter-related as because the origin of these three streams is one and that is 'Maagadhi Prakrit'. Again, many of the India languages have absorbed most of the Sanskrit terms and hence possess a similitude in between. In fact, this is not hybridity, but it helps a lot and plays a significant role in blending or in the process of sociolinguistic amalgamation. It can be concluded herewith that the 'generic similitude' or the resemblance in Phyla, Super-Class, Class, Sub-Class, Order, Sub-Order etcetera helps a step ahead in the procedure of 'specific hybridization'.
Some of the similar Non-English hybrid terms are: bitkhopnist, khamunda-le, kiso-logya, maarav-izatsya, miluimnik,(examples of 'hybrid of Hebrew descent word and nonsemitic descent suffix'); anti-hitnatkut, post-milkhamti, proaravi (hybrids of modern Hebrew and international prefixes); shababnik (hybrid of Arabik 'shabaab' and 'nik' of Yiddish and Russian descent). Some Japanese words may be International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 @ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID -IJTSRD23304 | Volume -3 | Issue -3 | Mar-Apr 2019 Page: 1277 produced with 'Chinese pronunciation' and accents (on'yomi from 'Chinese morphemes') and some others are pronounced with 'Japanese pronunciation' with 'Japanese morphemes' (kun' yomi). These are called 'jubako' or 'yuto'. Specific and well organized pronunciation techniques are associated with it. These are, therefore, called 'autological' words. The first character of jubako is pronounced with Chinese morpheme/ pronunciation and the second is pronounced with kun' yomi, i.e. Japanese pronunciation. Similarly, the reverse thing happens in 'yuto'. Some hybrid terms are there which fall neither under the category of 'jubako' nor in the 'yuto' category. We can observe the same thing in Odia language which has widely been affected by Hindi and English today. The terms like basa> bas, chaala > chaal, rakha> rakh, utha> uth, kara> kar, and almost all verbs are affected with this tendency. This also reaps new kind of meaning or slight deviation in meaning in the term. Because one gives respect/love and honour to the 'respondent' while the next (second) one doesn't. This is the basic difference we feel after this change/ hybridity at accent/ phonetic level.
Language is a potential social institution and it is thoroughly guided by the concerned society. It is, again, "shaped and being shaped by the society." Therefore, second language learning is more or less a process of culture learning. "Without culture, we cannot understand the lives and motivations of others and connect with their concerns and interests. Culture is inherent in our being and a powerful human tool to develop our society, add to our knowledge, and establish the relationships between people. However, culture is fragile. The traits of culture are constantly changing and easily lost. If we do not value it, we will lose it eventually." (ibid-p. 2-3) Each language is unique itself with its various elements. Ergo, language changes in its following four tires like: 'Phonology/ 'Phonetics' which is the basis of every language and which deals with the sound system of a language, 'Semantics' which involves the meaning of word patterns and sound patterns and organization, 'Grammar' of a language which is a cross product of morphology and syntax of a particular language and the fourth one is 'Paradigmatics' which is quite significant as it deals with the context of the text (language) and therefore keeps the potency to change the whole orientation of language.

Hybridity in Music: A Post-Colonial Harvest
Music is also a language like dance and other performing art. But music is also much closely related to verbal language or the language related to the human organ of speech. Bruno Nettle, a professor of anthropology and music at University of Illinois defines the range of 'ethnomusicology' from the "folk and what used to be called "primitive", i.e. tribal or possibly ancient music to "all human music". (Nettle, pp.2-3) He states with a deep realization with regard to the musicologists that "at some level of conceptualization, they regard all music as equal. Each music, they believe, is equally an expression of culture, and while cultures may differ in quality, they are bound to believe in the fundamental humanity, hence goodness, of all peoples."(ibid, p.10) The colonial practices of the colonizers have affected the colonized people and hence, they are called as the products of colonialism that are, in fact, giving pace to the wave of post-colonialism. The colonial wave has put immense impact over the economical, societal, political and educational matrices of the contemporary society. In addition to this, cultural has manifested them in different societal forms, art, language, literature and music undergoing transformation and reconstruction. Different elements when brought together may repel or fuse or both repulsion and fusion may occur. Here, form a hybrid product. That product may be a product of language, literature, philosophy, political idea, music, dance form or a new kind of culture itself. Particularly, in the process of mutual interaction, the diaspora of migrants play a significant role in this process of socio-cultural-fusion where music and musical instruments are also coming in contact with each other and participating in the process of mutual interaction. Thus, structurally and functionally, we reap a kind of hybrid sound/music which forms a semi-new world according to nature of the product and a completely new one as the world cannot be trammeled with the marges of language, land, political territory or any other boundary. There are three types of motivations found in the non-western societies which are closely related to colonization which has given birth to hybrid cultures and hybrid music thereby. Nettl has well discussed marked these three things in his essay 'Cultural Grey-Out'. The syndromes are: "the desire to leave traditional culture intact, survival without change" (Nettl, 1983, p. 347). Another individual/ societal desire is entire Westernization, "that is, simple incorporation of a society into the Western cultural system." (Nettl, 1983, 347) And the third one is very peculiar and hybrid in nature too which is moderate compared to the first two and is the stimulation, incitement and rationale of "modernization," to which Nettl expounds and explicates as "the adoption and adaptation of Western technology and other products of Western culture, as needed, simultaneously with an insistence that the core of cultural values will not change greatly and does not match those of the West" (ibid, p. 348). Since 1960s we encounter a trigger of change of orientation in culture and language as a reaction of colonial action. Then only we face a hybrid culture in music. Therefore, the bands like "the Galiwin'ku pop group, Soft Sands … accommodated familiar Western music styles by playing a mixture of Country and Western and Gospel songs" (Stokes 1994, p. 146). It brings a kind of Glocal culture to this land. Therefore, we not only encounter, structure, destructure and restructure of sounds, music, cultures and traditions but also we see multiple melting and fusing hearts of two different hemi-spheres. The "restructuring of song texts by incorporating a mixture of ritual symbolism and concern with colonial-hegemony builds further resistance against European musical values" (Stokes 1994, p. 147). In musical instruments, on the opposite end of a spectrum we see another band such as Cibo-Matto which reflects the fusion of both the cultures of the colonizer and the colonized. Thus, we encounter culture as a post-colonial hybrid product. Since, 1960s, Ravi Shankar is one of the experimental classical musician who has tried to fuse classical Indian music with western sounds of Harrison. The dance tracks like 'Soundz of the Asian Underground' are the perfect examples of this hybrid culture. Singers like Ashwin Batish and other present Indian singers, directors are well acquainted with these practices. Batish has show hybridity with the help of Sitar and Tablas with Synthesizer and Guitar. The album "When I Was Born for the Seventh Time" is a significant and conspicuous collection of hybrid music and musicology. It not only played a significant role in this field but also inspired the forthcoming generation with much hope and possibilities of blending Eastern and Western matrices of music, musical instruments, languages and musicological ideas and ideals. Tjinder Singh is one of the finest examples of those singers who have some hybrid musical practices. He sings lyrics in English, Panjabi language with some French linguistic apparatus. Another example of hybridity is album 'Lambarena: Bach to Africa'. Similarly, in Odisha, many singers have experimented in this field beautifully as they have interacted with multiple cultures and their music. Ruturaj Mohanty, Sona Mohapatra, Ananya Sritam Nanda and Sniti Mishra are some of the prominent names in this regard. However, this has brought a new and glocal musical taste to the time.

Conclusion
On the basis of above discussions and analysis it may firmly be confirmed that language in post-colonial era has brought significant changes in its forms and features. Sometimes we encounter roots, sometimes prefixes and some other times suffixes are the causal entities which act as post-colonial linguistic agents as they mingle and amalgamate to give birth a newer term to which we say a hybrid one. These hybrid terms are the consequence of so called glocal culture as language is culture-genic by nature. More and more through studies should be done in this filed in order to understand the cultures and civilizations involved.