Jaipur, Jan. 20 -- Overuse of technology may erase a language, while limited use may empower it, said poet and social historian Badri Narayan on Monday. "The use of technology and AI is quite paradoxical. The young generation appear to be more interested in regional languages, in their own mother tongues because of the instantly fair translation provided by the AI. However, on the other hand, AI making our language skill very irrelevant. I believe, a limited use of technology may precisely empower a language. But its overuse may erase our languages," Narayan said. He was joined by American poet and diplomat Indran Amirthanayagam, authors Rita Kothari and Paramita Satpathy in a session titled 'In Many Tongues' at the 19th Jaipur Literature Festival. Referring to English's global dominance, he added: "A larger part of the world is living without English. Countries like China and Japan are producing multiple texts, research papers in their own languages and getting global acclaim. I think it is majorly a problem of the colonised countries. For me, English comes in two levels and during the course I lose a lot of aspects because I think in my mother tongue Bhojpuri, then translate in Hindi, and then in English." He added: "Rather Hindi provides me a lot of space to negotiate with multilinguality. For example, Dalits majorly focus on their own folk dialects. It's very difficult to translate their experience and emotions in a different language. There is always a limitation. In many of the tribal areas, people are not familiar with the word democracy but they understand the idea of it through the word ijjat/barabari. It's very important to negotiate with such multilinguality." Kothari viewed translation as a 'political act'. "Each language fight with other languages. When I translate from Gujarati, I need to keep in my mind that the idea of society and different communities are very different in Gujarat. I am conscious about those ideas when I translate. It's an act that can be done unconsciously but it is rare."...