New teaching term, new paper, new students; my introductory lecture to the paper, ‘Literature and language’, discernibly commences with an informal discussion on what is language? Interesting elucidations follow and finally we concur that it is the medium of communication. This virtue segregates human from animals. The obvious trail leads to the need of English language and consequently our congregation in this class. We strive to acquire the lingua franca as it opens new vistas and elevates our social status.
But the first language we learn by birth is the one we hear our parents speak. Mother being the primary caregiver it is metaphorically termed as our mother tongue. We effortlessly pick it up and seldom require tutoring. Abundant exposure and frequent communication opportunities consolidate a strong foundation. It becomes the medium of our thought process and embodiment of our cultural heritage.
But the colonial baggage still hangs heavy on our shoulders and we switch to English in an endeavour to appear trendy. We converse in English at work and even at home. We develop a command over Queen’s English. Perhaps, we are grammatically more correct than the natives. But many a times we struggle to find the apt word to convey a particular connotation and more often than not we resort to our mother tongue. Even the green grocer sells apples, mangoes but ‘mithaas’ oozes from only a jalebi. This chutnification, to borrow Salman Rushdie’s coinage, gives a distinct and unique flavour and is integral to our expression.
No words can do justice to a street brawl than typical Punjabi superlative interjections. Similarly, all rehearsed choreographed performances fail to match the exuberance and buoyancy of the no-holds barred moves as our favourite songs blare at a wedding function. The formal façade falls off instantly as we come across people who share our language. We instantly chatter joyously in our mother tongue. Come what may for all our ceremonies be it child birth or wedding or death rites, we turn to the mother tongue. However, modern we may be, we follow the rituals to the T.
In our rat race for modernity, we ape the West blindly. Our conversation is replete with slang and a conscious accent. Language thereby is a badge of being progressive and up-to-date. But it always is a pleasant experience chatting with expatriate cousins. Unlike our salt and pepper language, they converse in the chaste mother tongue. One is transported to the good old days, no pretentions, no artificial image consciousness, just our true self.
Our childhood had a liberal inclusion of idiomatic expressions. At a family gathering while we oldies laugh ourselves crazy, our youngsters give a flabbergasted expression. The moment is lost if we resort to paraphrasing and somehow explanations do not do justice. Wary of being labelled antiquated, we have deprived our children of a wonderful experience. Let us drop this illusory shield and ensure mother language proficiency in our progeny.
The writer is an associate professor of English at Hindu Girls College, Jagadhri, and can be contacted at [email protected]