‘Can Punjabi be a history’ as it skips towards south

Avneet Kaur

Jalandhar, February 20

‘Har Punjabi Di Maa Boli Punjabi’ (Punjabi is the mother tongue of every Punjabi) is the slogan that will reverberate through the corridors of every house, school and colleges tomorrow as it is the occasion to celebrate ‘Punjabi Maa Boli Divas’.

Carrying placards displaying slogans about the importance of Punjabi as a mother tongue, young students will be seen encouraging their counterparts to give as much importance to Punjabi as they do to Hindi, English and other foreign languages.

But on the contrary, it is rare to find a child speaking in the mother tongue with his family or friends or encouraging others in everyday life. The only place the youngsters seek out the Punjabi language is the dance floor or while listening to the music.

Even the figure of students opting for Punjabi in schools have recorded a decline, besides, the percentage of students studying Punjabi literature for graduate or post-graduate degrees has gone down by nearly half in the past decade.

“International Mother-Language Day is a good reminder to develop and implement a sustainable programme to keep the language and script alive, but the government should play an active role in the preservation and promotion of Punjabi throughout the year”, said Dr Kamlesh Singh Duggal, a media analyst and Professor at GNDU regional campus here.

He said the schools and colleges should involve students in day to day classes emphasising the value of the mother tongue, also seminars and cultural events focusing on Punjabi should be made mandatory by the government in every school.

Talking to the youth to know their opinion about the mother language, a majority of the students said, “We want to learn English in a better way as market demands and offer jobs to one who knows how to communicate in English. It is important to speak your mother tongue but not outside the home as people think that one who doesn’t speak English is uneducated”, said Komalpreet Kaur, a student of Class XI.

Like Komalpreet, same response was followed by a number of students who said, “In schools English is compulsory and teachers force us to speak English more often than any other language,” said Trijot Singh, a student.

‘Mar rahi hai meri bhasha shabd shabd, vak vak’, lamented, Davinder Kaur, a retired teacher who shared, Punjabi, which is the 10th most-spoken language in the world, is being shunned by a significant proportion of our youth. It is embarrassing to see how even elders are reluctant to use their mother tongue.

Parents are more happy seeing their children learn foreign language but are least bothered to make them aware about the history of Gurmukhi script.

She also added, “There is nothing wrong in learning a new language or speaking English but forgetting your own language and giving preference to foreign language more is definitely wrong.”

BOX:

It is rare to find a child speaking in the mother tongue with his family or friends or encouraging others in everyday life. The only place the youngsters seek out the Punjabi language is the dance floor or while listening to the music.

Quote:

“Mar rahi hai meri bhasha shabd shabd, vak vak”. It is embarrassing to see how even elders are reluctant to use their mother tongue.

Davinder Kaur, a retired teacher