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Ishan Verma, a business management student says: “I know my mother tongue but speak in the language only at home. This is mainly because this isn’t my hometown, so there aren’t many people I can converse with in my language.”

Medical student Hemanth Balakrishnan has no qualms about communicating in his mother tongue. Unfortunately, these youngsters are a part of the small minority that is all out to keep one’s mother tongue current.

There are others like 19-year-old student Ritesh Pereira who while acknowledging the importance of knowing one’s mother tongue, does not know any other language apart from English! Do youngsters today think it is “uncool” to talk in their mother tongue?

Says Deepthi Desai, a fine arts student: “It’s not that I am ashamed of identifying with my native place or speaking in my mother tongue. It’s just that English is a universal language.” With the city being the hottest destination for students from across the country, do newcomers feel left out when others converse in the local language?

Jibin Jose, a student of law says: “I feel left out sometimes as I am a non- local.”

Gurpreet Singh, a sound engineer begs to differ. “I have been living in this city for over six years now and there was never a time when I felt left out.”

Linguist and principal of a well-known school, Santosh Kanavalli expresses his disappointment over the undermining of one’s mother tongue, that too in a culturally and linguistically diverse land like India. “English has come to be the lingua franca. Most youngsters in the city do not recognise the necessity of knowing one’s mother tongue. Although English is the universal language, it does not serve as a passport, especially in organisations and professions that require one to know the local language.” He feels that the problem often lies with parents who don’t make the effort to teach their child the language.

Psychologist Krupa Nayak feels that “for all practical purposes people give more importance to speaking in English than in one’s mother tongue”.

She goes on to give the example of “cross cultural marriages wherein it is more convenient to communicate in English than in two different regional languages”. According to her, “It is this phase during which a teenager has identity problems and makes desperate efforts to impress his peers. Speaking only in English and not in one’s own mother tongue is a way of exhibiting superiority.”

“Preservation of one’s roots is of extreme importance. If one cannot take pride in speaking his mother tongue, a part of his identity is already lost,” opines Malathy V.R. a sociology lecturer. Nobody is expected to abandon English and speak only in one’s mother tongue. But by equating the use of English with modernism and progress, we have demoted the importance of learning one’s mother tongue.

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