No one can kill regional tongues

While the language issue goes on like the popular hot and sweet sauce advertisement endlessly nobody is paying much attention to the smattering of conversation that we hear around us. Wherever we turn around we find people talking in a strange mixture of languages. All of them seem to be chattering quite confidently and also appear to be communicating quite well. On close observation we find that their lingo is a hotch -potch of at least three languages. This syndrome exists without any disparity in both the educated classes and their uneducated counterparts. If this trend continues it is quite likely that these languages and their exclusive dialects will eventually phase out of the lives of people and finally cease to exist in the future.

Residues of colonisation
Every self-respecting Indian worth his salt considers the knowledge of English enhances a prestigious feather to his cap. We may have driven out the British Rule politically but the residues of the colonisation like our fascination for the language, clothes, and lifestyle are still with us. Every Indian language has accepted a generous dose of English in it. Many Indians speaking different languages genuinely consider that words like plug, bucket, tomato, godown to mention a few are words in the vocabulary of their regional language.

Nowadays, we cannot discount the fact that the parents of a child could belong to different ethnic or lingual origins in such cases most of these parents use English as the common language in order to avoid confusions. Tiny tots of working parents who spend their time in creches probably get exposed to one more language quite different from the mother tongue. Parents who migrate to different regions in search of a livelihood or a career expose their children to different tongues.

In such a scenario the moot question is how do we get to protect and sustain these languages with their ethnicity? Well the answer lies in the textbooks of social science at the first standard level where we learn that the family is the smallest unit of society and the mother is our first teacher.

Well this concept cannot be really considered as an anomaly basically because it is the mother and child who spend a lot of time together under normal circumstances especially during the formative years. In fact it has been scientifically proved that language-learning skills in children can be rated the highest between the ages of two and five.

Parents need not worry about their children losing sight of English or other official languages, for Indians have a penchant for being multi-linguists sooner or later in life.
Schools could also contribute to the learning of mother tongue by a student by occasionally keeping tab of their pupils’ progress in the language. Moreover students could be encouraged to feel secure while using their mother tongue in public. They will learn not to look down upon any language if they are respected when they are allowed to speak their mother tongue with dignity.

 If parents and teachers understand their role in conserving the mother tongue by imparting it to impressionable young minds, they will be contributing towards maintaining the ethos of the society we live in. This is the best way to avoid ruing that for the sake of the horseshoe the horse was lost.