Foreign language craze hits mother tongue: Expert
Secretary of Sahitya Akademi K. Sreenivasa Rao on Friday said that it has unfortunately become fashionable to introduce children, in many urban settings, exclusively to
Secretary of Sahitya Akademi K. Sreenivasa Rao on Friday said that it has unfortunately become fashionable to introduce children, in many urban settings, exclusively to foreign languages from infancy, often at the expense of their own mother tongue. Learning international languages is undoubtedly valuable, but it should never come at the cost of losing one’s linguistic roots, he opined.
In his address at the 58thFoundation Day at the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), he said that if such trends continue unchecked, many languages may witness a steady decline in native speakers, eventually leading to language endangerment or even extinction.
“This is particularly tragic in the Indian context because many of our languages possess ancient literary traditions and preserve invaluable knowledge,” he said. He further added, “When a language dies, humanity
loses far more than a means of communication. It loses a unique worldview, oral traditions, literature, historical memory, ecological knowledge, philosophical insights, and countless cultural practices that cannot easily be recovered.”
The BriefWire