DailyPost 131
LANGUAGE – LAPSE OR COLLAPSE!
Being a historian by training, one is aware of the fact that the zenith of a rule; monarchical, despotic or democratic, is its manifestation of literature, art, architecture and culture. It presupposes the growth and consolidation of the empire and good governance. Language at its core and literature in general, happen to be the real indicators of both well being and progress.
We as a generation seem to losing the grip over the language. The generation of ideas thus at the backend also becomes questionable. It’s been seen all around; in the haltingly conspicuous expressions on the electronic media, the quality of our regular official and personal communication & more interestingly the quality and quantum of literature being churned in different areas of knowledge, more so the upcoming ones. There are not many practitioners around.
The software screens initiated the first level of comfort to forget about language skills, Google has been a watershed, it helped create a humungous cottage industry called cut / copy / paste. Moving further SMS itself got transformed into a famed SMS language and finally the new form of media; the Twitter, Facebook, Wahtsapp et al became the proverbial last nail on the language coffin.
It’s a general refrain amongst senior managers in government & other organisations of the acute shortage of personnel competent enough to handle regular official communication & document creation, emails, letters, notes, proposals, tender documents, analytical documentation and the like. It’s difficult to fathom out as to when it started but the rot has for sure fully set in. Objectivity, precision & clarity automatically gets a go by. Most of the emails today don’t have any workable value while it remains to be the main mode of communication.
Time to take stock & make a new beginning. In a communication age, language is primordial to our existence.
SHARPEN LANGUAGE SKILLS TO BE A SUCCESS IN THE COMMUNICATION AGE.
Sanjay Sahay