Lost in Babel: A personal Tale of Wrestling with Languages

 

Lost in Babel: A personal Tale of Wrestling with Languages

During my school time, the medium of instruction was Malayalam—my mother tongue. However, from Class 4, I learned English as my second language, and from Class 5, Hindi as the third. People won't believe me if I say I read Macbeth and Othello when I was in 3^rd standard, so I must correct it—mine were Malayalam translations of the same. Kudos to my elder brother—he was a budding writer by that time—who gave these books to me. For me, my mother tongue was like a mother-in-law tongue, strong and assertive; I was really good at expressing my views using this fellow. 

Even though I was good at scoring marks in English and Hindi language exams in school, I couldn't gain confidence to speak these languages without a palpitating heart for two more decades. I think my mother (in-law) tongue must have occupied most of my brain and probably didn't allow the relative and foreign languages to raise their voice. I had a very good wrestling time with English in the beginning of my higher education as I was not at all familiar with the terminologies used in my science textbooks. Gradually, the ‘foreign aunty’ (English) made herself at home in my brain, and my mother tongue began to retreat by accepting the changing world of mine. Hindi was long forgotten somewhere in the old textbooks. 

At the age of 27, with fairly good English-speaking skills and bare-minimum Hindi, I touched my feet in the Hindi heartland as a teacher. The moment I reached here, I understood that the Hindi I learned during my school days was not even a distant relative of what people speak here. To make it worse, all living and non-living things have a ‘gender-biased approach’ in this language. I stopped opening my mouth unless there was an urgent need for communication. By this time, I was reasonably good at explaining my subject in the English language, and I used my tongue only for the sake of science! When students were on semester breaks, I wondered: will my tongue go vestigial and maybe be found missing one day? I miserably lost my mother-cum-mother-in-law tongue.

There comes the story of my little one... born with an excellent tongue that she started using fervently on any matter on her way from the 10^th month of her arrival. As working parents, we had to leave her in the hands of a home maid from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The maid was a very capable, illiterate, charming woman who otherwise would have become at least the chief secretary of the state! She had very active vocal cords, and she engaged the child with a heart full of love and a mouth full of Hindi words, the only language that she knew. To my surprise—and that of our housing complex—our little one, at the age of one-and-a-half, quickly switched between Malayalam and Hindi as per the limitations and weaknesses of the spectators. The moment she saw us on the doorstep in the evening, she switched to Malayalam. The next morning, at 8:30, she tuned herself to Hindi. At the age of two, we introduced her to toddler touch books with simple words in English. At the age of three, she started fluently reading short sentences (Pepper and Bubbles series are good at this age). At the age of six, she completely read a novel written for children—Matilda by Roald Dahl (thanks to my librarian friend who suggested this book to her) without any help. Within a year she finished fifteen books written by the same author. At the age of seven, she started reading the Harry Potter series. At the age of nine, she completed all the eight books in the series along with many other books and started writing her own stories. By this time, she had gained enough command in Hindi and Malayalam. Yes, she can crack jokes and take jokes in these languages. I think this is the true measure of your skill in any language. Of course, she can read and write in these two languages as well.

I wrote this in the context of NEP 2020—the trilingual approach (In fact it is not new for many Indian states including Kerala). I also had exposure to three languages as a school-going child, but I was a failure in handling languages in my real life. You can see the clear difference—my child got the ideal situation: a Hindi-speaking maid and community, English-speaking teachers and reading material, and mother tongue-speaking parents. Constant exposure to the language is very important. Her exposure to different languages began in her toddler age. The trilingual approach is undoubtedly good in principle, but my experience vividly shows that language acquisition thrives on early and it requires consistent exposure.

Often English is considered as a vestige of colonial past, imposed upon indigenous population. However, as long as it holds the lion share of scientific literature and the only means to participate in global discourse we can’t ‘say good bye’ to English. In Holy Bible (Genesis 11:1-9) you can read the story of the Tower of Babel. It describes a time when humanity spoke a single language and shared a common purpose. United by their ambition, they decided to build a city and a tower "with its top in the heavens" to make a name for them and avoid being scattered across the earth. However, this endeavor was seen as an act of arrogance and defiance against God, as it symbolized humanity's attempt to assert independence and elevate itself to divine status. And God said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language…Come, let us go down and confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech”. The Lord confused the language of all the earth and from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all earth!  Interestingly, the story acknowledges the potential of a common language to achieve great things.  A person who doesn't know the global language may be a king in his own place, but can't even beg properly in a foreign land! Surely Apps (AI based translation apps and tools) will help us, but at times you will cry ‘I didn’t mean that’.

Recently, I attended an FDP on NEP2020: Sensitization and Orientation Programme. The participants were from various parts of the country, with the majority having Hindi as their mother tongue. Every speaker generously began by asking a question- ‘should I speak in English or in a bilingual mode’ and of course the chorus was bilingual (which means Hindi!!). The reality was that many speakers delivered their lecture in Hindi with a few English terms sprinkled here and there- much like tutti-frutty in a cake. However, I should not forget to say that a few speakers did it in English, with a few Hindi words. Practically speaking, the bilingual mode of instruction proposed by NEP in schools might end up in this way: instructors will go with the language they are most comfortable with, knowingly or unknowingly. For NEP2020, take off is not easy, and may experience turbulence in the air too!

Dr. Blessy K. Alex