Yesterday I happen to view my favourite show combined with my favorite topic. Its Neeya Nana, a talk show in Vijay TV and the topic is ‘Should the Tamil people know to read and write their Mother tongue (Tamil)’. The sense of Déjà vu always prevails whenever I think about this issue and there fore I have managed to sit and watch the whole 1.5 hours show.
There were 2 groups.. Obviously, one supports and others oppose. I was strongly with the group who supports the topic. I found this whole show useful and observed interesting extracts. Doesn’t matter if its tamil or hindi or telugu or any language… You have all rights to learn any language considering the communication needs involved in the era of globalization. However, there should be no way you can link these reasons to know your mother tongue to the extent of reading and writing. Learning to read and write your mother tongue is the pride factor and not make-money issue.
I found few of my friends feels posh if they say ‘I am a tamil dude but no clue to read and write… therz no point’… I jus feel pity on them…. Coz, the top countries in electronics like japan, china, korea etc… they all learnt the whole technology through their own language…. They din even know what is mean by electronics … I mean the term in english…. They can excel so well coz they can communicate and study the whole technology through their own language and that made them to understand things so clear which no other language can teach em….
The next basic problem of ‘why people don’t know to read and write tamil’ comes from their parents… I understand their concern on their kids to know English better to survive anywhere in the world… agreed… that doesn’t mean you should ignore the mother tongue… even kids choosing second lang. as hindi or French jus for the sake of getting good marks in high school… so kiddish… Learn any number of languages… that’s healthy… but don’t ignore your own language… thaz shame !!!
To be honest, I took hindi as second language from my Standard 9 (purposefully avoiding French as it was a non-indian language).. However, I studied Tamil from primary till 8th Std…. In my middle school, I managed to learn both hindi and tamil parallely… thanks to the school having made this mandatory and my parents encouraging me to learn both… However, in Tamil Nadu, I blame it mainly on the society which ignores Tamil … rather, they prefer other languages instead of Tamil for their kids… on top of it, scoring good marks in Tamil is most toughest thing… its coz the language got so many letters and complex grammer… Think of Iruketta ethir marai peyar echam… you go mad… I agree… but if u give me 2 situations where
I got good feed back when I did a marvelous (English) presentation in my work place that might lead to good rewards and
the other situation being my Japanese friend embarrassing me for not knowing to read and write my mother tongue and I can not spot any of their countrymen in that factor……
I feel the later one will impact me than the pleasant first situation….
The highlight of the show is the German dude who was there and spoke such a lovely tamil for his background was a stunning eye catcher…. When asked, what made you to learn this language… he answered in tamil, ‘See, I came to Chennai to preach Christianity but I was so fascinated by the language history and the heritage… that now made me to learn and am currently working on translating Thiruvasagam to German… The language has so much beauty and knowing mother tongue well is the only way you know your people well…’ I dunno, his words landed as sphere…
I am in mid 28 now.. I know many of the readers of the post are just parents or will be parents in near future as most of them being in my own age group… my request is that don’t let your mother language (not necessarily Tamil) become an extinct when it comes to reading and writing… lets set up a proper platform for the next generation so they wont complain us telling ‘my parents never encouraged me’… again, am not against any other language but the pride of knowing your mother tongue ‘well’ is immaculate….
