Comprehension of concepts for policy awareness challenged by erosion of vocabulary in the native language

The Government of India has invited suggestions for Draft India Data Accessibility and Use Policy 2022. But comprehending the different types of behind the scene data trade concepts isn’t an easy task for a layman. I’d like to draw everyone’s attention, to discuss the trade of data as an asset, in layman’s native language. Trust me, it is not easy to comprehend the different aspects around the trade of data in layman’s native language given the explosion of digital technology and cloud computing in the last couple of decades. There is no shortage of scholarly talks and articles on this subject. At the same time, those who try to communicate a certain concept in local vernacular language soon find themselves taking assistance of scientific terminologies in English to explain the concept. The complex use of language impedes the anticipation of the layman crowd. The same crowd is the remitter of this data. Some of you are linguists, writers, and content marketers with a background in literature, mass communication, and communication design. The average crowd understands the colloquial language that is put into use for effective mass communication.

The maturity of every language is at a different stage. Similarly, the capability of people to interpret a concept also depend on the maturity of the local language. The dialect and language are related to the context of the environment in which the people are living. The concepts that are closely related to the context of the environment can be easily comprehended by the people living in an area speaking the local language. It is like explaining the idea of the internet by comparing it with the fishing net would make the fisherman comprehend the concept.

The vocabulary capability of explaining the newer concepts and phenomena in our local vernacular languages is eroding because we communicate professionally in English for accomplishing tasks. We often witness while explaining a concept that English words have made their way into the vocabulary of our native languages. This gap in the vocabulary of not creating ground-up words by contextual treaty severance and indigenous etymology in our local language is growing. Some of you might have already noticed epistemological consequences that will grow in the near future. Accent, dialect, grammar, language, acoustic phonetics, and our breathing have a relation with cognitive science, psychology, and neurology. Language’s semiotics and acoustic phonetics are also connected with our mental model and belief system. Further, our social belief system defines our cultural iceberg model. The cultural iceberg model is the essence of ethics and law of the land for the people & society living in demography.

This is the reason we may require plenty of articles and videos to explain the concepts of Digital Technologies that have exploded in the last couple of decades. We would require more videos in each native language than English to explain a concept due to the erosion in vocabulary that our native languages have gone through as a repercussion of using English for professional studies. We have to discuss it with the same simplicity as the gadget experts explain new mobile phones features.

It is important to look at both sides of the coin to create a system of check and balance. We need to keep an eye on progress as well as the byproduct, to sum up, the outcome. Everything that we are doing is affecting us indirectly. User Experience professionals have the primary accountability toward the Users. Users are nothing but Humans as we call it in Human-Centered Design.

The reason for reaching out to the International community is because the multinational global organizations are going to be the beneficiary of this data where people like you and I work together.

I’d request everyone to table the discussion of Draft India Data Accessibility and Use Policy 2022 with your office team formally. This is our data, we are the users, we are the human and we are working in the corporations that’ll be the beneficiaries of this data. The User’s data will be used by Healthcare, Insurance, Banking, Retail, Heavy Industry, Energy, etc. to provide various kinds of services back to us. It is important for the Center of Excellence in Corporations to understand the policy and get involved by providing inputs in the form of an official statement through the official channel. (link)

It seems the Government of India has made similar attempts in the past to create a policy for Data as a trade asset.

Also watch, Shoshana Zuboff on surveillance capitalism | VPRO Documentary.