By Dr Ratan Bhattacharjee
Gulzar once said , “My mother tongue is Punjabi, but my first language is Urdu which was the case with the people in undivided Punjab.” There is a certain comfort level in using one’s own mother tongue. Nowadays our children are interested in foreign languages and they don’t even realise that they are missing some connotations and emotional depths simply because they think so poorly of their mother tongue. Jhumpa Lahiri regards her mother tongue Bengali paradoxically as a foreign language and perceives a disjunction between Bengali and her English language. Sometimes mother language is a necessity but Nobel laureates like CV Raman stressed that mother tongue is the best medium for learning science. Raman stressed the importance of teaching science in the mother tongue lest it should have become a highbrow activity in which all people can never participate.
The first International Mother Language Day was observed throughout the world in 2000. Promotion of native languages and efforts to preserve them are a need of our times. Multilingualism contributes to the development of inclusive societies that allow multiple cultures, worldviews and knowledge systems to coexist and cross-fertilize. Tagore long ago described mother tongue as ‘Mother’s Milk’. Like mother’s milk, mother tongue is also a nourisher, it nourishes the health of our culture. At least 40% of the more than 6,700 languages spoken around the world are threatened with extinction in the long term, due to a lack of speakers. Languages, with their complex implications for identity, communication, social integration, education and development, are of strategic importance for people and the planet. Yet, due to globalization processes, they are increasingly under threat, or disappearing altogether. Every two weeks a language disappears taking with it an entire cultural and intellectual heritage. When languages fade, so does the world’s rich tapestry of cultural diversity. In India the need for celebration of the International Mother Language Day is very much felt as divisive policies of some political parties are a big menace to the Constitutional principle of inclusion.
In Meghalaya there are two main mother languages – Khasi and Garo, spoken by the people and another is Jaintia. 575,000 (according to 1997 census) people who live in the region comprise the Garo speakers (including Meghalaya and the adjoining areas). Some of the important dialects that deserve special mention in this context are: Matchi, Ruga, Ambeng, Atong, Matabengs, Akawe (also Awe). Chibok, Gara-Ganching, Duals, Chisak Megam (also known as Lyngngam), Megam, which is known to be a sub-tribe of Garo, is also a dialect of Garo at Meghalaya. Besides, the Achik dialect is said to be a predominant dialect among the other intelligible dialects of Garo.
But Khasi is the official language of Meghalaya and is spoken by about 900,000 people residing in Meghalaya. The language spoken by the Khasi tribes hails from the Mon-Khmer family of the Austroasiatic society. Khasi in Meghalaya is spoken by the people in the surrounding areas of the Khasi and Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya. Khasi is rich in folklore and folktales. The language, in fact, reflects the socio-cultural vitality of Meghalaya. It is through a study of the Khasi language that we can trace the ethnicity, culture and traditions of the Meghalayan culture. As such it can be said that the Khasi language is an integral part of Meghalaya. Although the state language is English; but the principal languages of Meghalaya are Khasi, Garo and Jaintia. Pnar (Ka Ktien Pnar), also known as Jaintia is an Austroasiatic language spoken in India and Bangladesh Pnar language is the common language spoken by the people of the district. Promotion of these three languages can preserve the real identity of the Meghalayans- their culture and heritage.
Nelson Mandela correctly said, ”If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head . If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” Love for one’s own mother language can lead to historic movements and we have seen this in Bangladesh. On 21 February 1952 when police opened fire on rallies. Abdus Salam, Abul Barkat, Rafiq Uddin Ahmed, Abdul Jabbar and Shafiur Rahman died, with hundreds of others injured. This was a rare incident in history, where people sacrificed their lives for their mother tongue. It is unfortunate that people all over the world neglect their mother language, giving excuses for career and global communication. The states of West Bengal and Tripura in India celebrate 21 February as Language Movement Day. In Assam too, people fought long for the preservation of their mother language Assamese and this had a historical significance in the development of Assamese culture and heritage. In the South of India there was fierce movement against the imposition of Hindi and people protested against such efforts. For an Indian English or one mainstream language can never exude that magic of emotions which our varied mother languages can.
UNESCO in 2023 is taking a great mission by reminding the world of the need for safeguarding indigenous languages. More than 19,500 languages or dialects are spoken in India as mother tongue, according to census data. There are 121 languages which are spoken by 10,000 or more people in India. The 121 languages are presented in two parts – languages included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, comprising 22 languages and languages not included in the Eighth Schedule, comprising 99 languages. The UN reports that globally 40 percent of the population does not have access to an education in a language they speak or understand. Our global contexts are fast changing and it is needed to revitalize languages that are disappearing or are threatened with extinction.
A child educated in the rudiments of his or mother language can easily proceed to higher branches of learning.When any language is lost it means the pedigree of a nation is somehow lost .Oliver Wendell Holmes rightly said, “ Language is the blood of the soul into which thought run and out of which they grow”.
Dr Ratan Bhattacharjee an International Visiting Faculty USA and a trilingual poet and a contributor at The Shillong Times.