Tongue Tied: Why more people are reconnecting with their mother language

For Chennai-based Archita Raghu, who was born and brought up in Bengaluru, learning to read and write Tamil always seemed elusive growing up. It is because her family never went beyond speaking the language, along with English and a bit of Kannada. While she can converse to some extent in Tamil, she was never able to achieve the level of fluency she hoped for. "It never seemed necessary to learn just one language properly as I would move through friends' houses where Kannada, Urdu or Telugu was spoken. While I picked up a few words of all these languages, I had never completely learned my mother tongue."

The fact that she studied at a Protestant school did not help at all, she says, because they were encouraged to only speak English. "I remember at some point, we were even fined for speaking regional languages at school," says the 23-year-old media professional.

Raghu isn't alone in her quest to learn her mother tongue, as there are many others who are looking to reconnect with their roots by learning their mother language, or simply put, the language they have grown up with. Earlier this week, the world celebrated International Mother Language Day like it has done on February 21 every year since 2000. The event was designated a year after India's neighbour Bangladesh pushed for it at the UNESCO General Conference in 1999.

With the English language becoming a major means of communication within schools, like Raghu experienced, and colleges and workplaces in India, several Indian languages have taken a backseat for a variety of reasons. While Hindi is among the more popular ones known and spoken widely, others are only familiar to those who communicate in it for cultural reasons or because they grew up in a region that uses it. For those who are away from the land of their language, it is often forgotten and a challenge to pick it up successfully. The pandemic, however, gave many like Raghu the opportunity to get back to learning their mother tongue, and now they aren't looking back.

Baby steps towards the mother language
For Raghu it started early on because she remembers her grandmother teaching her the letters as a child but they only got to half the vowels. Since there was no more practice, the Chennai-based professional forgot the little that she had learned. Since Raghu already knew how to converse in the language because of her mother who spoke to the family in Tamil, she consciously started to learn the language only while she was studying in Chennai, after procrastinating for a long time. "I started to learn to read Tamil on the boards of buses, share autos and shops. That was my first attempt at learning to read the script and writing came easily with that. I write down some words that I have seen at some point in the city," she adds.

After seeing 'a' from Amma Canteen or Anna Nagar around Chennai or the 'b/p' in Bata, she would practice writing the letters out and form words with what she had learned. For the times she got stuck, Raghu would ask a friend to fill the gaps for letters like 't' and 'd', which she found slightly confusing. During the pandemic, she would ask her mother for a word and then write it out and then try other combinations. The process was easier because she knew how to speak the language. However, these are still early days for her because Raghu still grapples with the challenge of reading longer sentences as she has no formal education in the language.

For now, she is looking at the bright side of learning the language and even getting fascinated about how the Tamil spoken in Chennai is different from the dialect spoken in Madurai. "It's definitely helped me navigate Chennai, the city I now live in, much better. Reading things makes it easier and in a city that insists on everyone knowing Tamil, it does make things easier," she observes. On a much deeper level, Raghu believes it is a way to learn where one comes from including family history, caste and region.

Navigating cities and careers made easy
It is no different for Kerala-based Vikram Harikumar, who took up learning Malayalam for practical purposes like Archita Raghu but has developed a deeper relationship with it. Harikumar, who did his schooling in Dubai says he was only exposed to Hindi and Arabic during the time but was proficient only in English, and that made it difficult for him when he came back to Kerala. "I always had this difficulty in getting things done - like navigating around in the buses, as the sign boards were in Malayalam. So, I had to always ask somebody around to help me." It wasn't only commuting but also dealing with government related work, which had forms that were only in the Malayalam language.

"I started with the alphabet two years ago and it was quite difficult at the start but since I knew how to speak Malayalam it was a lot easier once I picked up the alphabet," he says. A school teacher, who was a family friend and lived nearby, taught him using a 1st Standard textbook. While Harikumar was busy earlier, the pandemic gave him the opportunity to try learning the language, as he had just completed his post-graduate degree. Now, he can read Malayalam successfully and write in a rudimentary manner, where he might make mistakes but can manage to fill forms more easily. "Now, I can travel on my own and I don't have to ask the bus conductor for help. It has also made things easier for me at the government office if I have to go to the panchayat or block office to get things done," he adds.

Harikumar admits it was to learn the basics and write a qualifying paper in a government exam that proved to be a catalyst for him. Learning the language has opened up prospects for him because of important government exams like the UPSC, which has a requirement for a regional language like Malayalam. While the 26-year-old has stopped learning Malayalam from the tutor now, ever since he got the hang of the language, he has been itching to do more. He is now reading Malayalam literature and local newspapers to get better and says that it has even helped him understand his culture better.

Preserving native culture and history
Kolkata-based Namrata Pandey initially started learning Bengali because her mother forced her to do it but soon, she took a liking to it. Pandey decided to seriously take up the language in 2021 with the help of YouTube tutorials and has been learning how to read and write since then. She explains, "My interest piqued when I realised the importance of reading literature in your own vernacular language and the tragedy it would turn out to be to miss out on that."

Like Raghu and Harikumar, even Pandey found learning the language to be beneficial especially while taking inter-city transport and communication. "It has helped me speak more confidently in formal familial settings. I used to have trouble understanding a lot of the directions and maps in Kolkata when I had first moved here from Andaman. All those problems have lessened to a great extent now," she adds. In the process of trying to learn her mother tongue, Pandey says she has also noticed a lot of similarities in the way the language is spoken in formal and informal settings, apart from the changing dialects depending on the change of geographical locations.

However, the 24-year-old English teacher points out that there is a challenge in her attempt to learn. "I come from a family who don't really talk in their native language at home as fluently as a typical Kolkata-dwelling Bengali family would, so because of that, most of my practice seems rather futile after a point," she adds. Like Raghu, Pandey believes that one's native language defines their culture, literature and history and learning the native language can only help preserve that. "I think with rapid urbanisation and Creolisation of so many mother tongues, the quick disappearance of languages is very evident. It's imperative that this generation as well as the subsequent generations make it a point to stop this from happening," warns Pandey.

As the world boasts of their proficiency in the English language at every attempt, it is the likes of Raghu, Harikumar and Pandey, that are making a conscious effort to learn their mother language. While it was something that may have not been the centre of their focus earlier, it has surely found a place in the homes and vocabulary over the last two years and they hope will continue to do so in the years to come. It is a certain encouragement for those who have been wanting to learn their mother language but haven't got to it till now.