Text 10A1-III

Language is not any arbitrary fact of colonialism. We ought to consider it as another form of violence imposed upon cultures by colonial rule, as devastatingly treacherous as any other. Of course, there is an obvious distinction between physical and linguistic subjugation, and the previous claim is not to erase this in any element. Linguistic violence itself persists long past the departure of the colonist, it is a violence committed against a very culture, one from which it may never fully recover. Language is not merely a group of symbols or words; this is clear from the fact that we see it as having been the object of colonial assault. Imperial powers recognized it as anything but arbitrary, or else it would not have even been seen as necessary to subject to the same ravage. We ought not to let the role of language in colonialism slip into the background. Language as a means of colonial dominance has too often been seen as a symptom of a larger colonial pathology, as a side-effect which does not require to be dealt with urgently or with equal dedication as with more wide-spread and common conceptions of colonial violence.

As a defining aspect of culture, language is not only the means by which we pass on culture or share it, but in order to do so it must, and does, carry on its back the entirety of a culture and civilization. Further, it acts as a collective memory bank of a culture"s historical existence and experience. Because of this, the erasure of language is necessarily also the erasure of pre-colonial history. By systematically and aggressively burying a language, also buried with it is every historical event and every person who existed through it. Something as fundamental as it becomes, or rather, has been a way by which we perceive ourselves as well as where and how we exist among others. When one examines the colonial circumstance, they can see the ways in which the linguistic take-over by colonial powers posed an existential threat upon the colonized. To take away one"s language is to take away their means of making themselves visible and perceiving themselves. The forceful imposition of colonial language on the colonized is not simply a matter of easy communication and convenience, it is to impose upon a group the task of supporting the weight of a culture which refuses to recognize them as human.

Ananya Ravishankar. Linguistic imperialism: colonial violence through language. Trinity College Digital Repository, 2020. Internet: (adapted).