M K Bhan
All the languages of the world are equally important. Knowing a foreign language is no harm, but forgetting one’s mother-tongue, we lose life’s charm. Mother- tongue is the road map of our culture and broadly defines our past, present and future. Mother-tongue is more a help in the path of success and plays a vital role in the formative years of man-making process. Mother-tongue in general usage denotes not only the language one learns from one’s mother, but also the speaker’s ability to master its linguistic and communicative aspects. The language that narrates ‘self’ is the fittest language and never loses its popularity in the course of life and education.
Mother-tongue is a key to the treasure of life passed on to us from the generations together. Do not allow any allied key to open this lock of life’s prestigious treasure; otherwise we will be left with us the key of repentance and reproaches for losing the treasure of our grand cultural heritage forever. One should carry pride in one’s first language too far. We get defeated when we fail to save our mother-tongue and are conquered by the imposed languages barrowed from overseas. I, don’t mean any sort of linguistic chauvinism. We should be masters, not slaves of any foreign language. Adms Report in 1836 proposed and accepted mother-tongue as the only language to embrace education. In 1854, Wood’s Dispatch morally agreed mother-tongue as the medium of education. Hunter Commission 1882 and thereafter initiatives of Govt. of India for relocating mother-tongue as the instrumental weapon in Primary Education and Learning Methods. In 1948, Dr. Radha Krishnan Commission declared foreign language as thoroughly irrational if it is accepted as medium of education and in 1952 Mudaliar Commission favoured mother-tongue as the essential medium of education at all the stages of education.
It is a fact that we realize the worth of a thing when it goes out of our hands and control. Losing a language means putting our existence at stake. Languages are disappearing at a faster rate and it is estimated that within a generation or two, not more than 100 languages out of 51,000 languages that are existing and spoken around the globe will survive with us. If proper care and timely steps are not taken for the survival of these existing languages, entire cultures are going to vanish from the history of human civilization. Parents needs to come out of their dreams and preconceived notions and extend help in preservation of the first language and also encourage their children for perceiving and master a foreign language simply for official interaction and broader milieu in life.
A language has to be absorbed, and not learnt by rote. Language issues with parent get further aggravated when they start dreaming and grooming their children at an early stage in a mismatching style and fashion, taking them from one enchanting coaching centre to another for mastering new languages, which ultimately increases confusion and adjustment problems of their children. Do parents achieve the aspired results? There is no denying the fact that English is undisputed language of the world, the lingua-franca of modern world and international language of industry, science and technology. Fluency, understanding and writing skills in this language gives an edge to any professional in the international job market. Children have to be supported and helped to learn the skill of integrating mother-tongue and second language in their lives in such a way that it does not overshadow the other aspects of their lives and get alienated from the values they have been associated right from the birth.
The fascination among non-English speaking Indian parents to give their children the English advantage often drives them to try a substitute for their mother-tongue in order to make them equal with those who are born of it. In this unequal race of languages, parents fail to identify the crisis which wrecks a permanent damage upon fragile young minds of their children. This childhood stress later on turns into behavioral problems, changing them into oppressive angry adults and creates a negative impact which finally inflicts psychological damage on the very child whom they are trying to get all the ‘degrees of goodness’.
Primary concern for all of us is to ensure healthy mental and emotional development of our children and easing them to get fit into the second language. It will be unrealistic and unfair if we expect a non-native child to master a new language overnight. Need is to help him in such a way that he uses that language comfortably in his academic career and working environment and equally achieves peace of mind and happiness in their family life and native social setting. Both children and parents have to understand that mother-tongue keeps all the social bonds intact and never fosters misunderstanding between them. It is a communicative tool, a social institution of thought and an instrument of literary expression. It is a fundamental element that identifies and shapes the personality of the child.
We all know that Children acquire about 70% of their environmental and natural knowledge up to the age of seven. There is no contradiction in a child’s growing environment, but parents vitiate this environment by expecting schools to mould their children into English Medium
Culture- full of twisting tongues, stresses, intonations and acquired gestures. Such children ‘act’ in a foreign style and do not ‘live’ a life of their own. They are more concerned and careful about the skull part, forgetting a passionate heart and soul that dwells in it. What parents believe and what they finally achieve is a world of isolation and despair – designed and created by them. In the mad race of competitions, wisdom gets consumed by our unrealistic greed and over-ambitiousness. Sense of alienation develops in the children when they are deprived from learning their mother-tongue.
All the woven dreams get shattered when the last hope of old age, after mastering a foreign language leaves for unknown lands in search of the destiny. Ah! Destiny? After getting uprooted forever from age-old culture, tradition and mother-tongue, loneliness envelops the shrinking life, unending gloom searching a hope in the vastness of skies. On a foggy day in the midst of shrinking pulse, acquainted faces unconcerned about their roots do appear for few moments to console us, but, with return tickets in the wallet. We are left with unending regrets when our hopes fail to search in the depth of dried eyes on the pale wrinkled face – a frozen dew waiting for a ray to get melted away. The Roots- our mother-tongue, still hoping for a touch of some tender hand in the eternal journey of human race?
‘Mother-tongue gives us joy forever, and
Foreign Languages, never…never…never ‘.
(The author is Director/Principal SGGJ Model School, Sunderbani (J&K))
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