(On the credibility of Nagamese)
Halleluiah! Kwat jabo? Praise the Lord! Khiti jabo, ik! Sound somewhat amusing but rightly served the purpose.Yes, no blitzkrieg will ever kill the lingual franca Nagamese rather it is ramifying horizontally at the incredible speed that today even the most far-flung Naga rural folks speak and understand this pidgin Nagamese. Had it not been for this Nagamese we would be using sign languages to communicate with those people in the interior rural areas.
In a land of protest (Nagaland) everyone finds a negative point in every aspect of a new project which, in other word seem to be our biggest asset that’s where we are today and for tomorrow things look bleaker as I observed.
Look! If Nagamese is a mixture of many regional languages, the universally accepted English has been made up of several countries’ languages such as Latin, Portuguese, Greek, German, Italy, France, India, Anglo-Saxon etc. that’s why English is also called a potpourri language well accepted by the world communities and considered to be the most standard language. Do you know? Compiling and structuring the first oxford dictionary took more than 25 years and more than one metric-ton of paper was said to have used up as at that time there were no computer to help the compilers and where the proprietary was attached to the U.S.Finding the lingual hiatus among the Naga’s tribes, the hon’ble Prime Minister of India Shri.Narendra Modi empathetically hinted that Nagamese would be given a chance to be promulgated to the status of a scheduled language on 22nd Dec. 2015 which is not at all imposing upon us against our wills, rather the Prime Minister will be happy if we refused it for that will save extra expenditure on the national exchequer as you know that there are figurative monetary involvement to the tone of Rs. 150 crores beside administrative expenditures annually for every scheduled language in the country.
Remember, none of the existing Naga dialects are ever evolved by any research scholar but as the saying goes; “Necessity is the mother of all invention” these dialects are born out of necessity among the simpleton agriculturist or nomadic groups of people at that time.
Nevertheless, today there is Nagamese film industry doing roaring business, Nagamese bible, hymnal books, Nagamese news paper etc. that they are here in our midst not by any force of compulsion but on the principal of demand and supply equilibrium, then where’s the difficulty in ushering Nagamese as our Naga language. Yes, think positively and refine the very lingua franca into a scheduled language as to enable us live in dignity.
Whereas, in the face of such, there are some organization and intellectual individual who had the propensity to make paradoxical remarks and statements without ascertaining the fact and figure of the credibility of the Nagamese and thus thereby juxtaposing for alternative arrangement in lieu of the existing Nagamese is akin to putting the cart before the horse. This is, because I’ve never heard or come across any community or ethnic group composing a language without a base. Well, it will be a terrible faux-pas on the part of the intellectual bodies to behave tongue-in-cheek manner if at all they have the least concern for the Nagas.
More so, just imagine how the various tribes of Nagas would be communicating today had it not been for the Nagamese when each dialect is Greek to other tribes. Indeed, business is flourishing to some extent, sociopolitical ideology and spiritual message are effectively disseminating through Nagamese to the grassroots level of the Nagas.
Therefore, it will be prudent that we think and speak and not speak and think to land ourselves into the state of sorry. Yes, let us glorify ourselves with a language of our own “Nagamese”
Well, I am optimistic that there is a silver lining the midst of thundering clouds as to say Jindhabad Nagamese.
