The first sound that a newborn child utters is a cry—‘Koham’. In India, we say that it is as if the confused child is asking, “Who am I?” because in Sanskrit, ‘Koham’ translates directly to “Who am I?”—an ultimate philosophical inquiry to discover one’s true nature. ‘Koham’ often leads to the self-realization of ‘Soham’, meaning “I am that.” Once one's true self-identity is established, it becomes easier for a person to live and communicate with the world. And for this communication, we need a medium—either verbal language or sign language.
What is language? It is a way of communicating with each other while living in the world. A linguist defines it well: “Whatever we utter are just sounds. They become words when arranged in a particular sequence, and further, when meanings are attached to these words, a language is formed.”
As we celebrate International Mother Language Day, let us acknowledge that it is the mother language that a child first learns before becoming acquainted with another language, whether taught in school or spoken by people around them. Every nation understands the importance of the mother language, which forms the basis of our understanding of the world in early childhood. Our emotional expressions find their way through it, and our inner thought processes are built upon it.
As we grow older, we are introduced to multiple languages, which we learn with the help of our mother language by connecting new words to familiar meanings. Our brain has compartments where words, meanings, and languages are stored. Most Indian languages have words that sound similar. For example, “water” in English is ‘Udak’ in Sanskrit, Marathi, and Konkani. Hence, teaching related languages is always easier.
A child born into a mixed-language family, where parents have different mother tongues, may often feel confused—especially if both parents insist on speaking to the child in their own language. Such couples should decide which language the child should learn first before introducing a second language.
“Today’s education demands learning more than one language, and all of us have learned at least three languages in our school days—the medium of instruction, a second language, and an optional third language, which was sometimes Sanskrit or a foreign one like French or Portuguese. Some of us even had a completely different language spoken at home and another local one spoken outside,” recalls a retired principal from a higher secondary school.
Thankfully, learning multiple languages was easier then, because students were encouraged to read books from the school library. There were no gadgets, no television, and limited modes of entertainment. It was mainly through books that children gathered knowledge. Reading books in different languages introduced children to words, grammar, spellings, meanings, cultures, and the beauty of each language, adds the principal.
Today, languages are accessible through online classes, and even Google can help you learn a new language. With such aids at hand, learning multiple languages is easier now compared to the good old days. And the more languages you know, the better your chances of finding employment abroad.
“Students opt for Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, German, or Russian because this opens doors to opportunities in these countries,” says Piyush Bajpayi, whose son Shubham had to learn German while studying in Germany for his master’s degree in robotics. Currently in France on a Marie Curie scholarship for his PhD, Shubham speaks workable French, as it was his third language in school.
“My son, Dr Saish Prabhu, had to learn Chinese during his eight-year stay in China while studying alternative medicine and specializing in acupuncture therapy,” remarked Dr M. B. Prabhu, an acupuncture expert at SARC-Goa Hospital in Porvorim. He maintained that most medical books in China are written in Chinese, and a student who wishes to study medicine there must first learn the language before gaining admission to a medical college.
A similar case is that of Mrinal Shinde, a Goan working as a 5G Mobile Conformance Test System Support Engineer at Rohde & Schwarz in Munich, Germany. Though she communicates in English, she believes that knowing the local language is an added asset, as languages are not barriers—they are bridges that connect cultures, communities, and societies.
Lastly, we have observed that languages enrich human interaction rather than hinder communication. Unlike in southern India, where languages such as Telugu, Tulu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada dominate, taking pride in mastering one’s mother language is justified—as long as there is no compulsion to communicate only in one particular language. Otherwise, being closed to learning other languages results in more loss than gain.
