Nelson Mandela said, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes into his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart”. Language is thought to be a mere medium of communication, but the impact it leaves on the individual and the community it belongs to, is an emotion intangible.
There is a new trend in the modern western educated people of India. The trend of speaking in English language with the little ones. Parents’ consider it to be elite for someone to have spoken in a language which was forced upon us, as a part of cultural hegemony. English that has succeeded in dominating majority part of the world was once a tribal language. The language, which was the tongue of proto-Indo-European Nomads.
For British, having established their colony in India, it was a cultural shock to witness the shift in languages with each passing miles. Indians who were then mesmerised with the way of English man’s colour and lifestyle got attracted to it. Simultaneously, for English men they had no other way to interact with the masses of India than to teach them English. The enforced ruling class became a matter of pride for the Indians, which is still continued.
The one, side-lined and most underrated culture now is Indian languages. The people of the land alone are indirect reason for the same. Like Italy, India do not have barriers on speaking any tongue. But when thousands of dialects of the country is ignored because of the age old colonial dialect, it is concerning. It is never wrong to learn or speak any languages. Neither is it appropriate to enforce any language. But the fact that requires analysis is, individual’s intentional ignorance of mother tongue.
When a tribal language, English, could sustain in the world, why should we hesitate in inculcating the usage of mother tongue is something to be pondered.
