International Mother Language Day

"How was your day...." "Let me take the bag...." "Let's wait for your friend...."

Today my kid's school van driver was not available & hence I went to pick up my kid from school. Nearly every time I go to her school, I hear parents talk to their kids in English, whereas every time I see my kid I ask "Su Kairu Aaje?" meaning "what did you do today?" in Gujju, which is my mother tongue. Yes, we opted for an English medium school as against a vernacular one as that does give the kid an edge in a country where English is used commonly for work- related communication. When the kid was in pre-primary, the teachers told all parents to try and converse with kids in English so that their language improves which is a valid point too. What though is a bit surprising is that many parents prefer to speak to their kids in English almost all the time. In some ways, even I am guilty of speaking to my gujju friends in English (or Hindi) and when I think about it, at times we do tend to attach a stigma to using our mother tongue outside our homes, if not within it. 

Please note, I am in no way calling it a wrong or right behavior, but it is just an observation. I was just discussing this with my wife and, incidentally, I saw a post on LinkedIn which mentioned that today, Feb 21st, is International Mother Language Day and thought about sharing this. 

While I tried to Google why it is called "mother" tongue & not "father" tongue, the findings weren't conclusive, yet the theme that came out ( as found in a BBC article) is "In this metaphor, language is seen as coming from your primary caregiver, the person who looked after you most when you were young, and traditionally this was mothers."

Let's be proud of our roots and appreciate the mother tongue and not hesitate to use it openly in our personal spaces.

(The text in the image reads "Kem Cho" , meaning "How Are You" in Gujarati ).