I read the article “Our Language Horror” (GK Dec 5) with interest. Author initially rightly implies that multilingualism is not only essential for success of individuals but is also required for the progress of nations. The author then goes on to suggest that multilingualism is a burden. There are several points in this article that are based on pure speculation. Author’s statement that Dr Altaf Hussain told him that urban kids in Kashmir start talking later should be taken as an opinion of one individual, which may not have any scientific basis.  If this observation is valid there could be other factors contributing to this and blaming this on multilingualism without any scientific evidence is not fair.  Professor Jared Diamond a prominent American anthropologist makes a case that multilingual kids develop better executive control which helps them adapt better in rapidly changing circumstances. He goes to the extent that learning several languages early in life can have lifelong influence on mental health and perhaps some protective benefit against Alzheimer’s disease. Author’s point that successful nations have focused on teaching single language in schools is valid but there are exceptions to this rule. Denmark is among the richest nations in the world and an average Danish speaks 3 to 4 languages suggesting that multilingualism is not a determent to success of a nation. Learning mother tongue and being proficient in it brings a sense of identity and solidarity to an individual and stability to the society. Second point that author raised is that perhaps children should grow up before learning 2nd or 3rd language.
Here I will like to quote Noam Chomsky a prominent linguist who states that by puberty people lose what he calls “language acquisition device mechanism” that lets people acquire new language. Third point was raised as to how much we should “burden” our children with learning more than one language. I agree that we should not overwhelm our children but in my opinion teaching Kashmiri language in schools should not only be encouraged by enforced. Finally author mentions that there is nothing in syllabus for kids in school about Kashmir’s geography culture, history and literature. I will argue that we need to put horse in front of the cart. Unless we start teaching Kashmiri language at school level we will not develop these fields and in worst case scenario Kashmiri language will be one of the thousands of languages that are predicted to perish within next century.

Ayoub Mirza
ayoubmirza@gmail.com

Lastupdate on : Sun, 12 Dec 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 12 Dec 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:00:00 IST