What Is Your Mother Tongue’s Personality?

(This post was sent by Priya Muthukumar. Priya is a storyteller and runs Storipur. As a student counselor and educator, she enjoys all her interactions with kids. Writing, telling stories and simply being with Mother Nature are few of the many things she loves to do! Storipur intends to fill up the gaps, through the ancient art form, storytelling. Sharing stories about environment, countries, societies, cultures and about all ourselves: it’s Storipur’s humble attempt to build responsible communities.)

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“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his

head. 

If you talk to a man in his language, that goes to his heart’’. ~ Nelson

Mandela.

Experienced this? I am not giving you examples, do a quiet rewind.

You will realize how true the above words can be. So, what’s all the fuss about

one’s own language or mother tongue?! Simple. Languages and emotions go

hand in hand. One’s mother tongue language, that is the language first

introduced when in childhood is an indicator of one’s cultural identity. Hence

when spoken to or exposed to one’s mother tongue, very subconsciously, the

feeling of being at ease, at home, and a sense of belonging are re- evoked.

So, coming from a culturally vibrant country like India which has few

hundreds of native languages, how many of us, really use our mother tongue

to communicate?

My mother tongue is Tamizh. I remember, all my friends calling their

parents as Amma and Appa. But, fancy me, one fine day, I decided to call my

parents as ‘Mummy’ and ‘Daddy’. Initially, our neighbours in the colony, gave

me those looks which said, ‘ooh.. she must be one modern girl!’. My mother

tried to change the Mummy to Amma, but it never worked. I remember her, in

a desperate attempt, yelling at me saying, “Even a cow which is born in

England will say maaaa, look at you, you are born in Chennai and call me

Mummy in English!” I found the example silly and irrational, then. Logic

blinded the emotion associated with her nagging to call her Amma and not

Mummy. Today, as a mother of an extremely preoccupied teen whose

conversations are studded with words like cool, super, awesome, hot, s*** etc.

the sentences begin with Maa and end with another Maa. There is a certain

warmth that fills my heart. I do understand why my mother wanted to hear a

maa from me and not a mummy.

At school, Tamizh was one of favourite subjects. Though considered to be

difficult, I enjoyed everything about it. Ilakkanam (grammar) and illakiyam

(literature). But, I was’nt able to immerse in the sheer beauty of the language.

Because, I was in the race. I had to sustain my first place, right! ‘First rank’ ~

my elixir. Then came a time, I won the first prize for a story that I wrote in

Tamizh. And the prize was a thin , unattractive book. A book of poems , by the

then new-age poet Vairamuthu. Tamil poetry became my first love. Gradually, I

began to see the hidden beauty in my mother tongue. Was it the language or

my connect with the language which helped me appreciate it better? Well, I’ll

never be able to answer that.

Today, when my husband who is all engrossed in English & Hindi and is

forgetting ‘the reading and writing part’ of Tamizh, I take my sweet revenge!

All my grocery lists, little romantic notes, reminders …I make sure to write

them in Tamizh. Though he might struggle to read them, I know, I am doing my

bit for my mother tongue. His mother tongue.

Some of us, educators, while introducing a language generally, English in the

pre-primary years, follow the mother tongue approach. Children are

introduced to the language not through the reading, writing, the mundane ‘a

for apple, b for ball’ way, but just like how a mother tongue is introduced at

home. Through casual conversations, simple songs ~ have you observed the

blissful interactions between a mother and her child…then you’ll understand

what I mean. It’s not just the language, it’s the way the language is introduced

which also makes one’s mother tongue even more special.

As a storyteller, I try to incorporate words, tongue twisters, simple rhymes,

proverbs, riddles, poems etc. from different regional languages into my story. I

never to fail to ask my audience what a particular word in the story would be in

their mother tongue, for eg. what would a tree be called in their mother

tongue ? Though I realize many blank faces may look back at me, I know, that

the question would work as a trigger to go home and ask their parents or

grandparents what a tree was called in their mother tongue. Also, I give simple

reminders to take pride in developing literacy in our mother tongue languages.

One’s mother tongue carries a whole lot of unlabelled emotions. Alex

Rawlings, a famous polyglot (a person who knows and is able to use many

languages) said in one of his interviews, ‘Every language has a personality.

There are languages that make you confident, there are ones that make you

feel shy’. Well, I am not quite sure whether I believe in those words

completely, but, I know, languages .. especially, mother tongue languages and

emotions go hand in hand. So, here’s my question for you, what’s your mother

tongue’s personality?