Of cultures & concepts

Harjeet Singh Gill

When we discuss the issues of teaching languages to children, we deal with two parameters: the cultural and the conceptual. The cultural aspect is intimately related with the mother tongue. There can be no two opinions that the first language of the school for the child must be the mother tongue. It is the language of culture, of religion and all other communication channels at the advent of human life. 

The best teacher of mother tongue is obviously the mother. By the time the child goes to school, she already effectively communicates in her mother tongue. She does not know the analytical categories of grammar, but this knowledge is not at all necessary for semantic and semiotic articulation. The higher echelons of grammar are highly abstract, meant only to be discerned and articulated by those thinkers who meditate on the intricacies of nominal or verbal compositions as did the ancient grammarians like Panini. 

Along with this language of culture, in the Indian context, there is the “other” language, English, the conceptual language, with which the child must interact to grow intellectually in the modern world. 

I have used the term, the “other” tongue, and not the foreign tongue, for, in our communication context, English is an integral part of our national, and of course, international cultural universe. The mushrooming of numerous IELTS centres all over underscore the importance of English for the Indian youth who continuously dream of migrating to English speaking countries.

The importance of the mother tongue need not be discussed. It is an absolute imperative. Without the mother tongue, there can be no intellectual or cultural progress or incisive comprehension of the world around. But we cannot stop here. We must move forward and grow intellectively and scientifically in the universe of knowledge. The mother tongue and the other tongue must progress simultaneously in perfect coordination and correspondence. 

This is the first step. If our students want to embark on the road of scholarship, they must learn one or two more European languages. The 19th century was dominated by the German thinkers, the 20th century by the French. Any “knowledge” of their universe of ideas based on horrible English translations are misinformed and misleading. The Indian intellectual scene today is replete with such blunders. The extremely complex concepts of Existentialism, Structuralism, Semiotic etc., are difficult to follow even in French, but then there are those who base their understanding of these ideas through English, which can only be disastrous. All European children learn a couple of languages other than their mother tongue. This is the only way to intellectual progress. The Indian children who want to be conversant with the universe of ideas of East and West must follow the same linguistic route.

Finally, even if it may seem cumbersome, every Indian child must have a couple of years of Sanskrit to be able to appreciate her linguistic heritage common to all Indian languages. Some of us may remember how many languages Shri Aurobindo knew! 

— The  writer is Professor Emeritus, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi