Language is just a medium of communication, many might say this but having said so you would definitely be at loggerheads over the opinion that I would like to draw your attention to.
Delving deep into the point where I got the understanding of language, well it has to be without any doubt the language that your mother speaks. No matter how well we guys try, it will always be " The Mother's recipe", "The Mother tongue" or "The Mother's lap". I was always attracted to the tunes that were original and timeless. Even without much technicalities music has survived ages and the tunes might have been carried on from generations to generations till somebody tried to document them. So for me the tunes had to have the essence of the soil, or " Mitti ki Khushboo". It was just the beginning of the revelation, for these tunes dragged me to the original lyrics that were associated with them. No sooner had I got hold hold of them than a new problem began. They were in different languages and at that moment I suddenly felt myself an illiterate oblivious of the world obscured in each of the the other languages.
As a kid I used to think of a science fiction scenario where anything that we say would translate itself easily to that of the listener and that would be the zenith of our evolution. Although Google Translate made that fantasy partly come true, but it remained true till I stayed on one side of it. The moment I learned a decent amount of German to compare the meaning of right and the left box I was thrown into a whole lot of confusions. As a person I can safely assume that many generations to come will keep on trying to solve this but would not ever achieve it totally, for there are many things in a language which doesn't and cannot be translated to the other. Forget about the grammar and all, even the simple concepts of yes and no, the way you address people, how you say Sorry and even the formal way of asking somebody to sit down by a request to put their butt on the chair, every language is unique because the way it originated, the life style it demands and so on.
Although it is such a vital part of a civilization I hardly believed it was something that could wage wars or had any big influence, I was wrong. The first part of the puzzle was there in my mother tongue itself. It was due to the martyrdom of some youngsters defending the language that we celebrate today "The International Mother's tongue day". It is just because of the language " Deutsch" that today's German nation is carved out from the Holy Roman Empire. The issues of Jaffna in Sri Lanka and even the indifferent attitude towards the people of North-east India by the rest of the country is primarily due to the difference of language or the lack of knowledge of the self proclaimed national language. Yes your are right " Hindi" is just an official language in India and to those who irritatingly try to correct the non native speakers by pointing out the trifles be it grammatical or related to pronunciation, just be thankful to the others that they put that effort to learn the language to communicate to you, it's high time you too take some initiative to return the favor.
Language is not just a way of communication but is an important facet in defining your culture and in the long run your identity. Your language is your identity at times and vice-versa. Confused !!! don't be. If you still wish to stick to your opinion, wouldn't enforcing a common language for all solve the problem? Think about it, well as one of the colonized nations of the British Empire at a period of time in the past, we also started to boot lick that aristocracy and imbibe the language in our daily lives. Sadly but true that we left aside the vernacular languages because with our country so varied in culture and languages we couldn't agree on giving one of us an importance rather take up an outside language to become the officially acceptable one in the workplace. Well do we speak English? It's quite hard to be the observer and the observee at the same time, I was lucky enough to look at my countrymen from the eyes of the western world and a whole lot of stories unfolded. Seems there is a new language in the making, something that can be called Indian English like the American English or probably many more. With respect to TBBT " Hey you sound like the guy Raj from the show" or " Hey, I thought your name is Ranjeet and you speak Hindu", such kind of comments are quite common when I hit the bar. Even they had the idea that there is a language called "Indian". Well I laughed at their ignorance until one day I realized there is no language called " Chinese". Perhaps they are not the only one filled with misconceptions.
A brief historical research would reveal that the other European Languages like French and German or Spanish are more rich and important to be considered for communication. Even here it is the same situation of self proclamation, because the native speakers of this language are very few. It's only because of the obsession of the Indian and Chinese whose acceptance of the language with a large amount of population to support, that English is pushed as a global language.
Citing a recent incident I spotted some one ordering in a store of McDonald's in Germany and was really amazed at the way the person was later complaining about the inability of the lady who was taking the order to understanding English. The argument was that McDonald's being an English company must make sure that the employees should speak English. On the basis of this logic I was assuming that any Germany company in any part of the world had the right to enforce German as the only acceptable language in their work place very weird right?
Many issues like this shall come up in recent times with the necessity of Globalization and it would be then essential to have as many feathers in his/her cap as possible, by feathers I mean the languages.
Instead of obsessing oneself in a language of comfort I would recommend to try learn something new. Who knows what it might fetch you. Perhaps you will than understand the zeal of a German craftsman, the beauty of a French Woman, the fiery celebration of the Spanish folks, the chivalry of an Italian , the aristocracy of an Arab, the tradition and mysticism of Chinese and Indian culture and the discipline of the Japanese Samurai.
