(a) Analyse the effects of Globalisation on languages. (10 marks) (b) "Shifting global trade patterns create new opportunities"…

(a) Globalisation and languages

Globalisation acts on languages through market, media, migration and digital networks. Its first effect is homogenisation: English and a few lingua francas gain prestige in education, business and science, while smaller languages lose domains of use. UNESCO estimates that about 40% of the world's roughly 7,000 languages are endangered, and its 2009 Atlas listed 197 Indian languages as endangered. This can accelerate endangerment and extinction, especially when mother-tongue schooling is weak and urban migration pulls speakers toward dominant languages. At the same time, contact produces hybridisation and creolisation, as loanwords, code-switching and new urban dialects emerge; in India, Hinglish and regional-English mixes show this. These effects interact: dominance weakens transmission, while hybridisation and digital use can create new vitality. Digital platforms can spread minority languages through apps, social media and online archives, but they also expose them to algorithmic dominance of major languages. Policy can cushion these effects: in India the NEP 2020 push for mother-tongue instruction and the Bhashini platform for Indian-language digital services aim to do so.

(b) Shifting global trade patterns

The statement is valid because trade is no longer confined to North-South flows. South-South trade, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and re-routing of supply chains have opened new markets, corridors and investment channels. Nearshoring and friendshoring, accelerated by geopolitical tensions and pandemic shocks, encourage firms to diversify production bases, which can benefit countries with reliable power, ports, skilled labour and policy. India’s opportunities lie in services, electronics, pharmaceuticals, defence and manufacturing, supported by production-linked incentive schemes (smartphone assembly for export under China-plus-one sourcing is the clearest case), while its ports, SEZs and new trade agreements (the UAE CEPA and Australia ECTA of 2022, the EFTA TEPA in force from October 2025 and the UK CETA signed in July 2025) can capture re-routed trade. For landlocked or smaller economies, access to new corridors can reduce dependence on a single market. They may also encourage technology transfer and higher value addition. Yet opportunities are uneven: they require logistics, skilled workforce and institutional trust.

(c) Morphological factors in towns

Town origins and growth are shaped by morphology, meaning the physical setting and spatial form of settlement. Site factors such as water supply, drainage, defensible ground, soil fertility and mineral wealth determine where a town can first emerge; river confluences, hill passes and coastal inlets often produce early towns. Situation, or relative location, matters equally: towns on trade routes, ports, rail junctions or administrative boundaries grow because they connect places rather than merely occupy a good site. Over time, urban form evolves through models such as concentric zones, sector growth and multiple nuclei, showing how land use, transport and social groups organise space. In India, Varanasi’s river site, Mumbai’s harbour situation and New Delhi’s planned radial layout illustrate these forces. Site and situation interact, so a good location may still fail without connectivity.

(d) Transportation accessibility and regional development

Transportation accessibility is a core mechanism of regional development because it changes the cost of moving goods, people, capital and information. Improved connectivity can reduce core-periphery gaps by bringing hinterlands closer to markets, ports and airports, enabling local specialisation and higher incomes. Corridor development, such as India’s Golden Quadrilateral and the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, shows how highways, railways and industrial nodes can create linear growth poles, attract investment and generate employment. Logistics hubs, inland container depots and port-led development under Sagarmala further reduce transaction costs and integrate agriculture, manufacturing and services. In India, airport connectivity, expressways and inland waterways can link agricultural belts to urban markets, raising farm incomes and reducing post-harvest losses. However, accessibility can also concentrate benefits in well-connected nodes, leaving bypassed regions behind if land, skills and institutions are weak. At the rural end, PMGSY all-weather roads have widened village access to markets, schools and health care.

(e) Geometrical boundaries

Geometrical boundaries are straight-line or arc boundaries drawn along parallels, meridians or surveyed lines, often for administrative convenience rather than physical or cultural logic. The Canada-USA boundary along the 49th parallel, the Egypt-Sudan boundary along the 22nd parallel, and the Chad-Libya boundary in the Sahara are classic examples. Such boundaries are easy to map and legally define, but they can cut across ethnic groups, pastoral routes, river basins and resource areas, producing disputes over identity, grazing, water or minerals. In the Chad-Libya case, the Aouzou Strip became a flashpoint because a straight-line boundary did not match local political claims, until the ICJ upheld Chad's title in 1994. They may also ignore physiographic features, making border administration costly in deserts, mountains or river valleys and requiring periodic demarcation. Many African boundaries drawn after the Berlin Conference (1884–85) are of this type.