Mother Tongue

Read this insightful article :

http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/index_feature.html

It covers the gradual demise of a native-Indian language and the efforts which are on to document it before it loses all it's speakers. It is sad to see a language die but dominant languages can do that to the other languages in the region.

It reminds me of the reduced usage of Punjabi and how I find more and more people in Punjab preferring to talk in Hindi. The saddest part is when I see Punjabi people (especially who live outside Punjab) speak in Hindi to their kids but talk in Punjabi themselves. Pray why ? The children will learn Hindi/English when they interact with other kids and in the community, but they will not pick up their mother tongue elsewhere. I wish my daughter learns Punjabi, though I am not able to give her the environment to do so as I am married into a Hindi-speaking family. She is very good with Hindi and her vocabulary in English is also picking up since we moved to Bangalore.

I was told that kids can easily pick up and converse in three languages in their formative years. Apparently kid below the age of 8 can learn as many languages as they want. One can learn more languages later on, but it is not as easy and nor does one get as proficient. Which takes me to this article about Madonna and her family talking to her adopted son in three languages : English, French and Malawi

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1137606

Read a very interesting slogan today, for Indane Gas :

Cook Food, Serve Love

More later.

Comments

Anonymous said…
There are lnaguage learning sites online that can help adults and children learn or maintain languages. Livemocha.com is a free site that offers a large selection.
December 12, 2007 at 3:31 PM
Yamini Kaur said…
Thanks Wen. I'll check out this site.
December 12, 2007 at 8:59 PM
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