I wonder why I am not able to speak a full sentence in Tamizh nowadays? I find myself at crossroads between Tamil, English and Hindi and thank God I am fluent only in these three languages. If I had known some more, what sort of dialect would I be speaking now ??? As popularly everyone terms it 'Tanglish', for me it needs to be renamed 'Hitanglish'.
There are different slangs of Tamizh spread across Tamil Nadu depending upon the district one hails from. About three decades back, a person can be identified of his district by his spoken Tamil. But now, at large all are tuned to the so called 'Madras Tamizh'.
In Tamil Nadu, except for a handful like our Kalaingar Karunanidhi and Vairamuthu, how many of us can speak chaste Tamizh for 5 minutes without bringing in an English word. In one of the private channel Makkal TV, there is a programme which encourages the public to play with them for instant gifts if they are able to answer their questions in Tamizh and only Tamizh. It was odd watching the participants struggle to get the appropriate words.
In the Tamil TV channels and Radios one can see the DJs and VJ's literally murdering the language with very coloquial words, Kochai Tamizh. The sanctitiy and the sweetness of Tamizh has disappeared and wonder if there is any hope for the pure language to get revived among the future generations.
Has the above happened with any other language, I wonder ??? The damage is already done. Even if one is interested to speak in chaste 'Tamizh', how many of us would be able to understand? In this fast moving world, would anyone care to take time to learn the vocabulary all over again and do justice to the language.
With this note I decide to begin at home trying to speak senthamizh and could hear a chorus "MOM stop this, we are unable to understand :):) " and my hope gets diffused instantly and poor tamizh ? NO CHANCE !!!!!!. My children are not to be blamed as they were born and raised in the Northern part of India in the Hindi belt. Although, we made a point to speak in Tamil at home, still they are comfortable conversing in Hindi or English among themselves. I am sure, many of you would agree with me with the issue and would be having similar thoughts in you too.
With more generations leaving the native state and settling across the globe, it is unlikely that the newer generations would pick up the language in its originality. Any solution to the above issue????
"The loss of languages is tragic precisely because they are not interchangeable, precisely because they represent the distillation of the thoughts and communication of people over their entire history." - Marianne Mithun
I can speak those three languages fluently, lived at many parts of India. Now myself(U.S) and my brother (Australia)...we both made it a point' not to include English or Hindi words/sentences in between the conversation. Same applies, I call my school days friends regularly(who are still in Tamil Nadu) and converse with them, exactly the same way we used to do before...but they have switched to 'Kochai Tamish'...but mine is still good:)
ReplyDeleteSolution: The Tamizh family that I know from here...made a pact' to talk only in Tamizh to their kids at home...kids are allowed to use English when they are at school/public.
Congrats for the Blogadda pick !
ReplyDeletenice work.hope to be more regular.
haha wonderful post yet true
ReplyDeleteeven i know those three langauages and tanglish is really cool laa....
MAKKAL tv encourages ppl ..exp their hosts speak in 'suthha tamil' but sometimes it is funny like ' tamil vannakam' and all nice post...superb
romba romba nalla eruku
Congratulation for the pick by BLOGDDAD and reward for your blog titled “Mother Tongue = Native Language = ??????”. Excellent thinking, shows how much time and deep thinking you applied in raising a true concern of common in nature. In fact the concern is true for any language as the people migrate out of their native place and more so the native living people forget the true essence of their own language. Thanks for the thought provoking blog.
ReplyDeleteNat
So True!! I saw a Tamil Talk Show in Vijay TV.. Oh Wow. What wonderful words can we use in our daily conversations. I think the problem of damaging the language comes from the society as a whole. If you know English / any other language apart from your native language, you are treated as a special person with special incentives (atleast the way they get treated by others). This is what was happening for the past 5-10 yrs. However, in today's world, I see a lot of people pondering about saving the language the way it was before though I think its very difficult to acheive looking at the extent of the damage. Neverthless, Its better to try instead of ignoring it completely.
ReplyDeleteCongrats for the BlogAdda pick.
ReplyDelete@ Malar, Thanks for those comments. Good to note that u are still able to speak chaste Tamizh.
ReplyDeleteChitchat
@ Gyanban, Thanks for visiting the site. Hope to see u more often.
ReplyDeleteChitchat
@ V, Thanks and happy to note that you liked the blog.
ReplyDeleteChitchat
@ Suganya, Thanks for visiting the blog. Happy to note that you too share a similar view as mine. You are true that it is better to try than ignore it completely. Hoping to see u more often.
ReplyDeleteChitcaht
This is such a wonderful and thought provoking write-up. Congratulations on ur post being selected by Blogadda. This is a huge problem/issue for us as well, when we parents are 1st generation immigrants. My son who's 6 picked up a lot of Hindi when we were in Mumbai couple yrs back. Since then he's really getting better. Now we are want him to learn Tamil (my husband's side speaks tamil).Thats going to be a task..as i don't follow Tamil at all..and my husband speaks Tanglish as you mentioned..Hoping my kids will learn from their grand parents gradually over the summer vacations in bits and pieces. Also this is even true for HIndi as well. Since I'm from MUmbai our Hindi is so influenced by a little of Marathi and gujarathi words as well..
ReplyDeleteLanguage evolved over time, borrowing and lending from whatever existed before it reached the present. It will continue doing so as time goes however much man might want to arrest its growth and keep it prisoner in the present mode! :)
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the Blogadda pick.
Hey ChitChat... u based in delhi is it?
ReplyDeleteI have never studied my mother tongue but i know to speak/manage to speak abt 6 languages thks to my father who has a transferable job..it is only now i am actually talking more of my mother tongue to ensure that my daughter speaks it correctly..
ReplyDeleteTimepass
http://nicetimepass.blogspot.com
It's absolutely true.Our language is taking a downward slope.It's shocking to hear hideous phrases used.Younger generation finds them really fancy talking that way.From my recent visit,i found out that "VADIVELISH" style is in.
ReplyDeleteDear Chitchat
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for sending me ur wonderful blog...
I loved the Ramblings session..Nice thoughts !!
Keep up with the good work
regards
deepti
How true!! Being a tamilian raised in the tamil belt, I can still be proud of my tamil, but sometimes when I look closely at my daily-vocabulary, true that I have been influenced a lot by other languages, mainly English, some hindi, some telugu and nowadays some German as well..
ReplyDeleteAs far for my hubby, having brought up in Andhra despite being a tamilian, his tamil is far from perfect.. Now I am really worried if I can make my kid/s speak proper tamil at all...Thought-provoking post buddy!! :)
wow, that's a wonderful topic (important issue)you 've raised!!!
ReplyDeleteI recall a kamal's movie named thenali where he criticizes the tn journalists about how they speak tamil!!!
really, tamil speaking has become some sort of modified unknown new language (mixture of all ), now, when I hear someone speak a clear sendhamizh, I have the impression of honey flowing into my ears (then paayara meri irruku) :):)
I try to do some efforts with my children too, I repeat them that while they learn to speak tamil, learn it correctly....
no wonder your kids cry out " nooooooo" hihihih, it's not their fault , it's the society around us and all of us should put the effort really!!! nice thoughts dear, going to put this into practice!! hihih wish me good luck !!!
have a nice week end!!
that reminds me of my hubby try to read a sentence in Tamil today- he sounded like kindergarten! And when he speaks, I can follow half of the conversation since they use so much of English. Which reminds me how adulterated Romanian in Moldova (where I am from) is....filled with Russian words- sort of fashion....It is sad how much we respect those who once occupied and tried to change an identity. Lose your language- lose your thinking- and disaster follows.
ReplyDeleteI think it's the same happening to almost every local language. I am not a Tamilian; I speak Telugu and I find people giving me strange looks when I try speaking everything in Telugu. Not speaking in our mother language has become a sort of fashion in the recent times. Poor kids of next generation...
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