Is our mother tongue losing its sheen!

If I am proud to be a Kashmiri, then it is my responsibility to protect my language. However, nowadays most of the teenagers feel awkward while speaking their regional language. If speaking in a mother tongue is unwelcome, then all western people are rude, because they speak in their mother tongue. Anything spoken in one’s  own language has its own effect on the audience, which impacts their feelings and emotions. That is why the regional languages are considered as the most progressive languages with dramatic effects on the culture, social and literature of the generations.

People in rest of the word speak their own languages with a sense of pride. They also have knowledge about various languages too, however, to talk with one another they use their regional languages, due to which they have maintained their culture and civilization and also attract young people towards it. From couple of decades, our teenagers have set a craze for speaking in other languages, as they think they will be honoured; this actually  compromises  their dignity, as they cannot use the language as a native does.

   

I have myself a first-hand experience of various incidents where the person where a person faltered in translating himself properly in English or Urdu. It then becomes a cause of embarrassment. If our young generation can speak their mother tongue, hopefully they can be more confident and dignifies.

In well-developed countries like Japan, China, Germany, Korea and Russia there is a strict adherence to speaking their own mother tongue. If you want to work in these countries you have to learn their languages. Development does not means that everyone in your country is communicating in English, development can be achieved by generating an environment of local language. If we forget our mother tongue, then the day is not far away when we will forget our culture along with our language. I am not opposed to the idea that the person must have knowledge of other languages, which is not the thing to be worried about, but the phobia of not speaking the mother tongue is worrying. The status of our regional language speakers in our society is dipping. Neither they have a sound hold on English, Urdu and Kashmir. However they mix the words and sentences which later gives a bad taste.

I still remember that an article was published in this esteemed daily, of which the copy is still in my possession, where the author had raised the same concern regarding the wrong translation of English words into Urdu. Irony is that the Death Certificate in Urdu version reads “Certificate mouut” (certificate death) which is a weird mix of the two languages.  Actually it should be written as “Sanade-e-wafaat”. We make such errors every now and then, and thus embarrass ourselves. There is a consensus among professionals across the globe that children learn most effectively in their mother tongues. The data collated by UNESCO shows that “Children who begin their education in their mother tongue make a better start, and continue to perform better, than those for whom school starts with a new language”. It’s a no-brainer that using a regional language will have any wrong impact on our skills. it actually helps us to easily develop literacy skills and general cognitive abilities

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

one × 2 =