It is now much easier to study German and French in Chennai than Malayalam or Telugu

In his 23 years of teaching Kannada at the Madras Christian College in Chennai, K Vishwanatha has never had fewer students than he has now. With only three undergraduate students having enrolled for Kannada classes, Vishwanatha feels that the department is likely to shut down altogether in a few years.

“In the whole state, this is the only college having Kannada at the undergraduate level,” he said. “In Presidency College and Government Arts College, it was closed many years ago. Here, after I retire, the Kannada department will most probably not survive.”

This is not the only case of a minority language department in a Chennai college on its last legs. The colleges offering undergraduate majors in minority languages are now far and few between. For BA programmes of all streams, choosing a second language like Tamil, Hindi or Sanskrit apart from a general course in English is a requirement. Now, even to fulfill this, minority languages like Telugu, Kannada, Urdu or Malayalam are seldom taken up by students, leading to some of the city’s oldest colleges shutting down these departments.

Dying departments

A 150-year-old Urdu Department of Presidency College is – for all practical purposes – shut, as the only Urdu professor retired in 2015, reported The Indian Express. The lone student who had taken the BA (Urdu) course was asked to join take up Physics instead. The Urdu department at Presidency college, which is now faculty-less was the only academic department in Tamil Nadu to offer a co-education undergraduate Urdu major, said the report.

In the 91-year-old Loyola College of Chennai, the Telugu and Malayalam departments were gradually phased out over the years. While the Malayalam department was closed almost 20 years ago because of low student enrollment, the Telugu department was terminated only five years ago with the retirement of the department’s only professor.

“Actually the minimum strength in any college for a course is 25 students,” said G Logeshwar, the Head of Department of Oriental languages at Loyola College. “But only four or five students took Telugu. If a good number of students are there, anyone will be ready to revive the department.”

On the other hand, the Tamil departments and foreign languages departments seem to be growing in several colleges, in both student and faculty strength.

Shift to Foreign languages

Although Tamil dominates the language scene in most Chennai colleges, with Hindi and Sanskrit departments managing to keep themselves afloat, foreign languages have been picking up in demand in leaps and bounds.

At Loyola College, the number of French students is growing every year. This year, there are more than 1000 students in the college who have opted to study French. The Head of Depart of Foreign languages of Loyola College said that since there are a number of French companies in Chennai like Renault , it is easier to get a job.

Even private training institutes have seen a growth in the number of people enrolling for foreign language courses, especially in French, German and Spanish.

Sandip Dang, Director at INaWORD, explained that while French always had a large number of takers, German was growing very strongly in Chennai because of its education system and relatively strong economy. He said that the German education system was wired towards attracting overseas students with its low-cost tuition. But most colleges are clear that they prefer students who have completed at least an A2 level course in German.

“This, combined with the fact that Chennai is a huge center for engineering graduates is the reason for German growing strongly,” said Sandip Dang. “South India generates a lot of student traffic for Germany.”

Emphasis on Tamil

In several colleges, including the Madras Christian College, a two-semester course in Tamil is compulsory for all students who have opted for languages other than Tamil. Meanwhile, the Tamil students can elect any other subject ranging from medicine to botany in its place.

The choice of the students’ second language usually depends on what they have chosen to study in school. In 2014, an order was passed making Tamil a compulsory language in all schools to comply with the Tamil Nadu Tamil Learning Act of 2006. The Kannada professor Vishwanatha said that with this order, Kannada and several other minority languages have an even bleaker future in the state.

Now fewer students will take Kannada at school level, he said. Students living in areas near the border of Tamil Nadu and its neighbouring states which may be bilingual or trilingual areas will be worst affected.

“You can’t bifurcate the states saying this is Kannada, this is Telugu or Tamil,” said Vishwanatha. “The child must be given an opportunity to be able to read and write his mother tongue. That is not being given.”