The growth and prosperity of an individual, society or nation is a function of esteem and affinity one has for nativity that includes the language that parents taught us. We have already paid heavily for neglect of our mother tongue. This International Mother Language Day (21 February), let us see how best to re-align ourselves with a language that shall culturally and otherwise enrich us and help us live truly.
What makes a society, community or nation great?
It is something beyond resources, vibrant economy, technological superiority, military power or its talent pool. Along these attributes to varying degrees, at back is the umbilical bond of its people with nativity and sense of belongingness: parents & kin, native land, their own language and ethos. Among all entities you owe gratitude one’s towards parents, mother land – and by corollary – mother language stands atop. Without sense of gratitude no individual, community or nation can reach higher echelons. Staying rooted to one’s nativity imparts enormous strength because the mother tongue or the language learnt in the childhood environment is close to one’s ethos and pathos. Such individuals better face the odds of life with confidence due to a sense of belongingness to a value system and values, something not available to those with scant concern for nativity. Disgusted at the people with little or no regard for nativity, Walter Scott remarked: “Breathes there a man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, this is my own, my own native land.” The same rationale is true of those with strong family ties; many studies have shown that those hailing from joint families are better at resolving their conflicts and challenges than those from nuclear families. They are also more accommodating and generous towards their friends, relatives and others they come in contact with.
At work place we routinely find senior officials communicating in mother tongue when the action brooks no delay. Admittedly, use of language that our mother taught us provides us ease and felicity that no other language can. It is in this background that Nelson Mandela said, “If you talk to [someone] in a language [he or she] understands, that goes to [the person’s] head. If you talk to [somebody] in [his or her] language, that goes to [the] heart.
Although UNESCO believes in promoting indigenous systems and languages, declaration of 21 February as International Mother Language Day has interesting origin. With Bangladesh becoming part of Pakistan after the India-Pakistan partition in 1947, Urdu was declared as the sole national language in 1948, despite Bengali speakers in majority. The ruling led to widespread unrest, rallies and protests involving students at the University of Dhaka with demand for national status for Bengali language. On the black day of 21 February 1952, the police opened fire on public rallies entailing hundreds of casualties. In November 1999, UNESCO declared 21 February as International Mother Language Day to be observed globally to protect mother languages and to commemorate the martyrs who sacrificed their lives in Bangladesh for their mother language.
Advantages of bilingualism or multilingualism
Espousing mother language does not imply grudge or hatred towards other languages, it is just not to accord pariah status to mother language. As repeatedly demonstrated by linguists, learning of second or third language does not impinge upon growth of mother language. In fact, learning of language other than native language uses unused parts of the brain so that two or more languages can be learnt simultaneously especially in formative years. Learning other than mother language also tends to shed prejudices against speakers of other languages that set in unawares.
Learning another language provides exposure to a different culture, the ethos & pathos of another community or nation. Thus it widens our mental horizons and understanding of people from other parts. There are reasons why from about 6000 languages in the world still in vogue, 43 percent of the languages spoken in the world are at risk of extinction. Only a few hundred languages have actually been given a place in education systems and in public domain; further fewer than a hundred are being used in the digital world. Every two weeks a language disappears taking with it whole cultural and intellectual legacy.
Diluting the English hegemony
So regrettable that worldwide “40 percent of the world’s inhabitants have no access to education in the language they speak or understand best, which hinders their learning, as well as their access to heritage and cultural expressions”. To spread multilingual education for children, “mother tongue is always an asset”. Hegemony of English that is becoming a threat for growth of native languages and linguistic diversity. The theme of International Mother Language Day this year, ‘Multilingual Education – A Necessity to Transform Education’ underscores the concept of teaching them young. Indeed, unless timely measures are taken to re-establish faith in indigenous values and in the preservation of languages, the development of our children shall remain skewed.
In this context teachers shall obviously have a great role. It is good sign that the current leadership imbued with spirit to reestablish the many positive aspects of native cultures and values is making amends to set to rectify the aberrations set in for several decades.
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It is an improved version of the article, “Neglect of mother language has cost us a lot’ published earlier by Orissa Post. Page link: http://odishapostepaper.com/edition/3577/orissapost/page/6
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