Surprisingly, this problem afflicts a number of countries. This one perhaps takes the cake: a conservative American Congressman (Paul Broun) introduced the “English as the Official Language Act” of 2008, ironically, on the principle of e pluribus unum (out of many, one). With 18 regional languages and no ethnic group willing to surrender its right of language to another, Uganda’s predicament is close to ours. English thus unified the official part of the country. An interesting study conducted by an American academician sought to develop a mathematical model by imposing costs on the linguistic groups, and comparing these costs with those of an efficient and fair language policy. The Canadian government also achieved its delicate linguistic balance after such a painstaking exercise.

The final word on the language imbroglio must lie with the European Union. With as many as 23 official languages, the EU had an estimated budget of $1.3 billion towards translation costs. The statistics are staggering — 2000 translators, 80 interpreters, and tens of thousands of tonnes of paper. The official language exercise perhaps benefits only statisticians and politicians. Things got quite unmanageable when discussions were stalled when a British member described the EU Constitution as “gobbledygook” and the interpreters were “flummoxed” — words that bewildered those interpreters.

Policymakers have failed to appreciate that superfluous multilingualism can exacerbate problems in India. An exclusive official language policy may cause a sense of disenfranchisement, but today no one is making an objective case for such a problem. As for the courts, one shudders at the perils of translation in the context of court proceedings. Legalese is complicated enough and, with the additional constraints of translation and interpreters, a Pandora’s box is waiting to be opened.

... contd.