Loss of a Language
Death within three generations
This flash essay is part of a collaborative, constrained-writing challenge undertaken by some members of the Bangalore Substack Writers Group. This month, each of us examined the concept of ‘LANGUAGE’. At the bottom of this snippet, you’ll find links to other essays by fellow writers.
What does loss of a language feel like? The only language your ancestors spoke and within three generations of migration, almost nobody can speak it anymore.
The first generation migrants were born and raised in their home state. The man migrated for employment and the woman migrated as she got married to a migrant. They raised their children outside their home state. The children spoke their native tongue well initially. The children later started talking amongst themselves in another language. Sometimes the parents also started speaking to them in that language. Especially when tempers flared, the children got a mouthful in the other language.
The Mother tried to teach them to read and write in their native language during the summer vacations. She felt it was important that the children know how to read and write in their native language. The first one learnt a little, the second one didn’t learn anything. The Mother never got to even trying to teach the last two, life happened by then and she had too many things on hand that needed her attention. Sometimes on Sundays Doordarshan on TV would play a film in their native language, but most of these were referred to as “art films” which had won multiple awards but didn’t help at all to sustain a child’s interest in a film.
On “Pooja Veppu” Day during Dussehra they would keep all their books for Pooja. Next day on Vijayadashami, the Mother would make them write the alphabet on a plate of rice. The children wrote the alphabets and the numbers 0 to 9 in three languages. Two languages they managed on their own but they were illiterate when it came to the third. The Mother would hold their fingers and make them write all the vowels and consonants of their native alphabet. They did speak in their native tongue but the quality of the speaking worsened according to the sequence of their birth.
Now they are no longer children and have children of their own. They did speak to their children in their native language when the children were small. The children shifted to English once they started school and the parents shifted too. Unbeknownst to them they became an “English” speaking family. By the time they realised this and tried to change, it was too late. With the passage of time, their grip over the language became weaker and weaker. The children are most comfortable with only one language - “English” as compared to their parents who were comfortable with at least two. During “Pooja Veppu” they write in two languages only. The Grandmother is no longer around to hold their fingers and make them write in the third.
Now these children have grown and further migrated and crossed international borders. Which language will their children be comfortable with - English or the language of whichever country the parents migrate to? One thing we can say with some guarantee that with the fourth generation the loss of language will be completely completed.
Please find links to rest of the essays below:
Beyond Words and Dialects by Aarti Krishnakumar, Aarti’s Substack
In search of my lost mother tongue by Siddhesh Raut, Shana, Ded Shana
The language question by Rahul Singh, Mehfil
Geography & Language by Devayani Khare, Geosophy
The Dance of Languages by Haridas Jayakumar, Harry
Poetic Silence - From Anand Bhavan to 3039 and back by Amit Charles, @acnotes
No Garam Aloo in Tamil Nadu by Ayush, Ayush's Substack
Lost in translation by Vikram, Vikram’s Substack
I’ve been thinking a lot about tongues, again. by Ameya, (Always) Ameya
The Language Beneath Words by Mihir Chate, Mihir's Substack
What does this mean? by Nidhishree Venugopal, General in her Labyrinth
I love the Language of, by Shruthi Iyer
The Language of Murder by Gowri N Kishore | About Murder, She Wrote.
I have no words by Richa Vadini Singh, Here’s What I Think
Jal-Elephants, Thread-Navels, and Other Sanskrit Beasts by Rajat Gururaj, I came, I saw, I Floundered
Of Language, Love and Longing: Politics, Mother Tongue and Loss by Aryan Kavan Gowda, Wonderings of a Wanderer
The Bengaluru Blend by Avinash Shenoy, Off the walls
An Ode to Languages, by Lavina G, The Nexus Terrain
Yes. And our national government is now deporting Bengali speaking workers to Bangladesh.
Absolutely conveyed my own fears and dilemmas around sharing my language with the next generation. My best bet will be if they learn at least Odia (My spouse's mother tongue) if not Marathi given that she has a strong connection the way a mother tongue ideally has. The scenarios played out are so real here. Thanks for sharing.