Mother tongue day

Before we come to think of mother tongue it would not be out of place to consider the basic relationship between mother and child and relationship of child with mother tongue. Child depends on his mother for the very basic physical survival for nourishment. Though the umbilical cord is severed at the birth but the emotional cord of the child with the mother continues throughout life. In order to provide emotional nurturing to child mother expresses her deep emotions through words also and utters inane endearing words, sings lullaby to her child in which many words are improvised. These first sounds that child hears builds the reservoir of unconscious mind of an individual. The child also hears the sounds of those who are immediately in touch with him and absorbs the sounds and after certain growth tries to imitate those sounds as gibberish. Mother tongue is stage where mimicking the sounds and at the age of exploration of the objects child identifies those objects and relationships. Thus the first building blocks of the world for the child are built. The language is like a ‘samskara’ (I cannot find equivalent of this word in English Language) that conditions behavior throughout and eventually shapes the world view and the Value structure of an individual also. Without any doubt, the language of communicating with the mother is the bedrock for the first meaningful and intimate relationship in an individual’s life.

It would be important to bear in mind that the Language is oldest tradition of Man and linguistic areas are carved by nature that remains constant. Language is like a river that is enriched by many tributaries in its historical movement at the same time and turns into various flows. It would be fallacy to treat language as a biological process and say that a particular language is born out of a particular stock. The inhabitants of the area share the same historical experience and in a way language is a capsule of the Historical experience of that area. The literature and culture of that area reflects the ethos and value structure of that region. It becomes an important force to weld people together. A Language does not change with political boundaries and is not limited to any religion. Max Muller or William Jones had not to convert to Hinduism to learn Sanskrit language nor did Indians to be Christians to know English Language.

Particularly in the case of Sindhi Language in India the situation is quite exceptional. In the aftermath of the partition Hindu Population of Sind migrated to India and was strewn all across India like leaves of a tree after a severe storm.   In fact it was not the full society as it existed in Sind. It was in fact like a ribbon of society consisting mainly of middle class professionals, shopkeepers and a sprinkling of landowners. A vast population that happened to be Muslims consisting of Landlords, Peasants and artisans remained back. This resulted not only in a loss of vocabulary related to agriculture, flora and fauna of the land but also of the pastoral life and the words used in many trades like those of blacksmiths, carpenters, potters, masons and many other artisans. Thus the partition of the country in a way resulted in constriction of our vocabulary for the generation that has grown up in India. At the same time our creative literature is devoid of rural background. It must be admitted that the words of various languages where Sindhi population resides in sizeable numbers have adopted many local colloquial words and expressions but they remain limited to that region and do not form the part of mainstream language vovabulary.

In India, Sindhi speaking population is less than 0.5% of Indian Population and that too spread all over India not to speak of Sindhi Diaspora across the globe. In India the population is mainly settled in cities and towns and not in villages. The urbanization in its wake comes with loss of many facets of life. The joint family no longer remains norm and nuclear families come into vogue. In this situation the tradition of grandparents sharing the tales with their grandchildren in the courtyard at night in their mother-tongue are lost. A story of a prince riding a white horse with shining armor to save captive princes vanishes and with it lost innocence-imagination and eager expectation. Many such stories are lost. This phenomenon is common with all other languages but in case of other languages they have villages to support those and other oral-historic traditions. There used to be a tradition that family would sleep in open courtyard during summer and elders would show pole star and other constellations like ‘ Sapt–rishi’ to children. It is only a two generations ago that children of neighborhood would play out door games like “Gilli–Danda”, Hide and seek and many other games. In urban life we have not only lost the land but also part of our sky. It is not mere loss of language but entire mode of living. Now in cities we have a culture of closed gymnasiums and vast stadiums for the elite in the place of neighborhood open spaces for children to play.   

It is a fact the clock of History cannot be turned back yet we have to make efforts to preserve what is most precious to us. Do we want to preserve the childhood of our future generations.

It may be argued that in India Sindhi language has mostly lost its Utility aspect and its speakers have become indifferent to its survival. In this context I would like to bring out the fact that a person is born with two eyes, two ears, two Kidneys but if due to any accident one of these is lost a person continues to live with one organ alone but that is unnatural state of being.  The mother tongue is natural state of a being and now the most pressing question that stares at us is that by depriving our future generations of our mother tongue do we want to condemn our coming generations to such a un- natural state?

In a space age it the planet earth that is going to remain reference point to find their bearings for the earthlings in the vast space and while even in space a person would continue to be bound to a particular linguistic region like invisible umbilical cord of his mother and thus remain connected to it.

But that is like only a flicker of hope in the grim situation… 

I have hopes in emerging power of artificial intelligence where physical and Geographical distance would be rendered irrelevant and space age does not recognize National boundaries. As artificial and physical boundaries matter less and less, it may be emphasized that Man will have to remain rooted to the earth and mother tongue – to find his identity. Politics and political power has and will always remain transitory. History bears testimony to this fact.