The beauty of one’s own mother tongue is immeasurable. The feeling of home, the oneness that you feel with other people who speak the same or sister-dialects alongside you, and the pride you get from being able to claim your part in the existence or preservation of a language is a marvellous feeling. You might not think of it as huge or grand at first, but if you just take a moment — even a single miniscule second—you will come to realise that it is easy for a language to become extinct, a vanished or an endangered language.
English, one language which most people around the world can speak, is far from being endangered or extinct; however, it could also come to have the same fate as Latin, which, as we all know, was once spoken around the world. Maybe not as much as English currently is, but it still had its time. Being from India, I know of my friends or people I talk to face-to-face who narrate their stories on how much they dreaded the language of Sanskrit being taught. I could relate, except, instead of Sanskrit, the language I wasn’t much fond of was Hindi. And it wasn’t until much later in my life that I came to realise how much I missed out on by not practising my Hindi regularly, mostly due to the fact that I do reside in India.
However, in my defence, I can easily claim that I don’t have much use for Hindi, as I know English to the extent of use in official purposes. And it isn’t even my mother tongue. But is it the case for people who use it in their homes, and have it as their mother tongue? For me, the problem arises when one lets go, or a person forgoes their mother tongue. I had this thought while watching a YouTube episode — A TEDx talk by Ms. Zorinzuali Bawlchhim on “The Importance of Endangered Languages.” While I recommend the YouTube video as a sort-of reference to what I am writing about, I also highly encourage personal research on how languages which were once widely spoken are now considered ‘endangered’ or even ‘extinct’.
Vernacular languages are languages which were once spoken by a specific group of people, or still are. Importance in that sentence should be given to the word ‘specific’; it isn’t widely spoken. It has never been a global language. Therefore, if a global language could see such drastic decrease in users over a span of a few hundred years, or maybe even less, then how much easier would it be for a ‘vernacular language’ to become extinct? Does a person who speaks such an ‘endangered’ or ‘regional’ language not have the fear that one day their language could just disappear, and have no more speakers? I, for one, didn't fear it before writing this part, but now that I think of it, I can imagine the ease with which such an event could transpire.
And as mentioned in the opening of this writing, shouldn't a person feel pride knowing that they are part of the reason a language they have such connection with, is still being spoken today? It is the same language used in your homes; the same language which had been used to speak or converse with your grandmother, your grandfather; the same one you use to talk to your relatives, your close cousins, your friends from your home towns!
Knowing English and being able to speak and write it might give you the ‘crown’ of being well-educated amongst your peers or in your social life, but does it make you satisfied if it comes at the price of losing your abilities to converse in your own language?
I, for one, did not have such a fear before I realised how hard it had become for me to converse with my father and my mother fluently without the help of English. And I do not consider myself to even be that good at English! That struck me as weird. At least, if I was really good at speaking English, or even spoke it regularly, I could understand where this came from, but no, I do not speak English regularly. I do not use it for anything other than talking to people online. Maybe that is the reason? I am usually inclined to take part in chats with people who use English rather than other languages. Maybe this is a huge cofactor of my slowly worsening skill. But I take no blame in it, again, because my language, my mother tongue, doesn’t have as many speakers as English. If I wanted to speak to someone in my mother tongue, the only place I could do it is with people I know in real life.
And I tried; I started texting my friends and family in our own language, and my family mostly reciprocated, but my friends did not. They, just like me, were not much inclined to speak in a language where they had no experience in typing. And even when we talked face-to-face, the problem of using English as a way of expressing our point arose, yet again. My attempts failed, not bringing anything to fruition.
How much was my dependency on English increasing that I had to substitute words in my own language, with their English equivalents? Was I nothing, or at least, in the loose sense of language fluency, nothing? So, I tried, and I would like to believe, was quite successful, but then I came to a realisation — my vocabulary in my language was now filled with words that were out-of-date, and when I spoke, sometimes I even surprised myself with my loose usage of words, and how the words I used didn’t make sense in the context of what I was discussing with others. I believed that I was actually improving in my use of my language, but a day came when one of my sisters visited us, and I had a moment alone with her while sitting in a taxi. I realised that we both used random phrases in English to give more detail to our feelings, and that surprised me quite a bit when I reflected back on it.
It wasn’t only me?
I came to a conclusion. One that might feel like I'm blaming another or not owning up to my own shortcomings. But I promise I have my reasons.
What I learn in my language largely comes from my family, my father and mother. I won’t even put my brother in the same class as my parents, because the both of us are on the same drowning boat in the retention of our language.
The globalisation of language and popularity of English was present in the previous generations as well. So, it is not just this generation that does not have a clear guide to our mother-tongue. I will mainly be giving an example of India, as I know most about it compared to what I know of countries I have never been in.
Especially in the previous generations, speaking Hindi and English was seen as an ‘educated’ thing to do. For example, having the ability to converse in Hindi and in English would mean that you went to ‘school’, graduated and could apply for government jobs, which was, in some way of thinking, a shortcut to having money. It granted you social status as well.
Your language proficiency equated to your education, or your knowledge. Elitism was, and still is, hugely connected to language. These days, this can be seen from a new movie in India called ‘Archies’ and its reviews; the actors are being heavily criticised for not having a fluent ‘Hindi accent’. I cannot relate to it; my ‘Hindi accent’ is as abnormal as it could be—that doesn’t mean it was always like this; rather, my lack of use has made it as such. But coming back to the topic, the actors were being heavily criticised for something they probably had no control over, something that naturally came to them. And yes, it could have been prevented, to an extent. Accent coaches do exist for a reason. I won’t delve deeper into this topic, because it is a rather controversial thing to defend, and anyways, I do not even have much of an interest in it to form an opinion. All I have is merely surface knowledge to keep up with things that are not in my line of interest.
If the actors had been educated or spoken to in their own language, which I presume for most of them is Hindi, then they wouldn’t be getting such criticism. But just by seeing their profiles or past histories, we can see that education for them was mostly completed in the ‘West’; hence, it is quite normal for them to be more comfortable with English, and to have a sort of ‘Western’ twist in their Hindi. I do not claim to be an accent expert nor to be proficient in Hindi as a language, because my mother tongue is not Hindi. And for me, Hindi is definitely not endangered, but it is still vernacular to a certain extent.
As can be seen from Ms. Zorinzuali Bawlchhim’s episode, globalisation is a major factor in the danger faced by the vernacular languages. There is definitely an increased movement to promote the vernacular languages among the people who speak them; however, it is hard to imagine where this will lead. Will this help preserve the language? Will this promote the language to more learners? Or will such ideas remain as such, mere ideas? Predicting the future is hard, of course, but you can also guess the way things may end up from the current situation.
My personal belief is that everything will remain the same. As strange as it might sound or how different my tone with this line might seem compared to the previous writings, the promotion of the language likely won’t have large-scale effects. They will probably result in the same people who have used it continuing to use it,and not leaving it as a foregone language. But I can’t see the vernacular languages becoming widely used or being a language that a lot of people would want to learn.
And I don’t think it is a bad thing — the language isn't dying out, it is still being spoken by the people who have been speaking it for ages, and maybe in some odd way, I feel proud about it. I feel proud that the culture is being maintained, that the language is still being used. Maybe some chose not to continue teaching the language; they have just gone the opportunistic way, and that's a wonderful thing too. If I had the choice, maybe I would too. But I am at ease knowing that despite my lack of proficiency in my own language, there are countless other people who feel the same as me, and are trying hard in their journey to preserve and retain their culture, just as I do. And I say culture, because for smaller specific languages, the language is as deep-rooted as the cultural practices itself, and that too, I find, is another beautiful thing about smaller languages.
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