Musings of an eccentric mind

When we were in school, we were taught 2 languages till the fifth grade. Those were English and Hindi.

In middle school, from sixth to eighth, we were introduced to a third language—Sanskrit. In the ninth and tenth grade, we were allowed to choose between the second and third languages, so that we only had two, and in the eleventh and twelfth grade, we were left with just one—the medium of instruction, English.

Coming from a Tambrahm family, I struggled with Hindi. So when the time came to choose, I picked Sanskrit. Sanskrit had logic and made sense. Hindi was just too arbitrary and if you weren’t a native speaker, it was virtually impossible to grasp. Besides, I was waking up to MS Subbulakshmi’s renditions every Sunday. At least I could now start to understand what it was that I was listening to.

A few of my peers switched schools during that time and I learned that the fancy schools offered French and Spanish instead of Sanskrit.

Years later, during a casual conversation with a colleague, the topic of languages came up. I mentioned something along the lines of how unpatriotic it was for those schools to not teach Sanskrit, and instead, teach a foreign language.

My colleague calmly replied, that if he had that choice, he’d also get his daughters to learn a foreign language. I stared at him in horror. And he said, it’s just practical. What use is Sanskrit to anyone?

It took some time, but it finally dawned on me, how near-sighted I was. I felt betrayed that someone would call Sanskrit a useless language. But my ideologically-coloured vision had missed the point entirely.

The Sanskrit we learned in school was entirely based on rote. Could any of us genuinely hold an impromptu conversation or pick up the Vedas and understand a verse, let alone appreciate the poetry and wisdom? Sanskrit is a beautiful and scientific language. And the literature—the wisdom of ancient scholars and philosophers—written in Sanskrit is phenomenal.

But few people can truly make use of it. Those who’re cleaver, neatly package a few select verses and profit from it—the masses couldn’t be none the wiser. And that’s what made learning Sanskrit useless. It wasn’t the language itself. It was the way it was taught, and the little practicality it offered in a land where people didn’t speak it at all.

Elsewhere in the country, Tamil Nadu has fought tooth and nail to keep Hindi out of its schools on ideological grounds. To a certain extent, I understand where that comes from.

Consider this. All languages are made up of the following:

• form: the sounds (or alphabets), root words (eg, to write) and different versions of those words (eg wrote, written, writing).
• content: how those words combine to create sentences (grammar).
• use: how local usage and context varies from say, formal to casual or the use of metaphors and idioms to communicate ideas.

Side note: Language experts use the terms phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics to describe these. But I’m no language expert so the above components are my understanding/interpretation. I’ll be happy to fix it if I’m wrong. Please let me know in the comments.

On top of these, I’ll add script as the fourth element.

Hindi and Sanskrit share the same script and the same sounds. Since Hindi originated from a mixture of Sanskrit and Persian, many root words are the same. The grammatical rules are somewhat similar as well. Inspite of these commonalities, Sanskrit is hard for someone who knows Hindi!

I know this because in the ninth grade, only a quarter of the students in our school ever elected Sanskrit in the ninth grade, despite Sanskrit being an extremely scoring subject with a much simpler question paper. As I mentioned earlier, the Sanskrit we learned was introductory or juvenile, compared to the more advanced Hindi that students had to tackle in the same grade.

Now consider someone who has to learn a language that doesn’t share anything in common with their native language. New sounds, new script, different grammar. That’s what someone from Tamil Nadu would face when learning Hindi as a third language. It puts students, who are already burdened with a highly competitive environment at a disadvantage. Perhaps, if North Indians chose to teach their children languages that didn’t use the Devnagari script, they’d be more empathetic.

The other ideological reason doing the rounds is the threat to Tamil culture, akin to an invasion by foreigners. I’m perhaps not the best person to weigh in on this argument because I didn’t grow up in Tamil Nadu. But as someone who hasn’t truly felt at home either in the north or the south, I may be in a unique position to offer an objective perspective.

The Imposition Angle

We complain about the British colonising India and nearly destroying us (their contribution to our conflicts is still actively destroying us from within).

The reason English is as common as it is today, is because a handful of foreigners imposed their culture on to the rest of the world. They just went everywhere and stayed, and forced locals to adapt to their ways.

Something similar is happening now, with a lot of migrants moving to the southern states. The southern states offer plenty of opportunities for those seeking work. Every time I visit Chennai, I see more and more North Indians and even Nepalis working in the service industry. Would it be fair to ask the local population to adapt to the migrants?

Indians bend over backwards to learn French and German in search of opportunities. Can we not offer the same courtesy and respect to our fellow brothers and sisters?

Indeed, while many city-dwelling North Indians complain of Tamil being a difficult language, the service industry workers—who hail from small towns and villages—pick up the language fairly well. The white-collared folks manage to get by with English, not even bothering to learn Tamil. On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised to hear many of service providers in shops and restaurants speak decent Tamil.

On the flip side, just as North Indians barely understand classical Sanskrit literature, I wonder how well do Tamilians understand classical Tamil literature—which is as vast and rich and old as Sanskrit literature. And Hindi or n Hindi, spoken, practical Tamil is very different to the language of the great Sangam Epics and the Thirukkural.

The Diversified Angle

I grew up in a cosmopolitan environment, safely insulated from the politics of religion and caste. That’s a luxury a defense service officer’s (fauji) family gets. A luxury I didn’t know I had, until it was gone.

My school had students from all over the country and from different castes. And none of us knew the difference. But the one thing we did know, was which state we belonged to, and the languages we spoke. Language is a critical aspect of our identity and culture.

There’s a bit of a stereotype about Tamilians and Malayalis being particularly good at maths and science and Bengalis as being good at arts. And none of us good at Hindi! That stereotype did play out a fair bit in our school too.

My struggles with Hindi were shared by others. But that didn’t particularly hurt anyone socially. Perhaps interacting with people from different cultures at a young age gave us a broader perspective. We learned to appreciate each other’s strengths instead of ostracising anyone based on their community. Perhaps there wasn’t a mob or majoritarian mentality because—to borrow an investment advisor’s phrase—we were so well diversified.

I wish everyone in our country had that sort of upbringing. When my father eventually retired from the Navy, reality hit hard. Having grown up in our little bubble, I learned much later that everyone else grew up in their own little bubble—albeit a homogeneous one. My struggles with Hindi today pale in comparison with my struggles with understanding how so many Indians are ignorant and unwilling to accept differences.

Advantage: Multilingual

Language shapes our world view. As some studies suggest, there are communities that simply do not see the certain colours, because no word for it exists in their language. Similarly, I have heard about umami, but I have no idea what it tastes like. MSG is tasteless to me.

Tamil has a particular word called “thuvarppu” (துவர்ப்பு) which considered one of 6 tastes (the others being sweet, salty, sour, bitter and pungent). It translates to “astringent” in English, but I don’t know if the larger word treats astringency as a taste, or as an unpleasant feeling. Until I began writing this post, I didn’t know it had a Hindi equivalent, because no one really uses that phrase.

Research suggests that multilingual children tend to develop better cognitive abilities than monolinguals—and given these other examples of how language shapes our worldview, it makes sense. Multilinguals experience more nuances of the world. This is why teaching multiple languages at a younger age is advocated.

There isn’t much research on whether being trilingual is more beneficial than being just bilingual, but if those school stereotypes showed anything, it was that the multilingual kids tended to be at the top of the class.

There are plenty of trilingual countries, where people are fluent in three languages, and I don’t see one language replacing another—unless it is done so with that specific intent, as the British did. And even then, it’s likely that most of us who are brought up in the English-speaking system probably do not know how to pronounce “W”.

There are allegations that highway signboards have been removing Tamil names and replacing them with Hindi ones. If true, that certainly is colonial.

I don’t know if Hindi or Sanskrit will eventually be taught in Tamil Nadu. Perhaps it will be as juvenile as the Sanskrit that’s taught in the North. But if it is, it might provide Tamilians a greater edge in their professional life.

I certainly attribute my professional success to my multilingual upbringing (as well as sound grounding in classical music, but more on that in another post). I see problems differently and can connect dots that others miss. This has won me clients through word of mouth alone.

I am, today, fairly fluent in Hindi—I dare say, even better than native speakers. I only wish I were as fluent in my native language. Having grown up in the North, interacting with my grandmother in Tamil is the only reason I can now still understand and perhaps even survive in Tamil Nadu. But I wish I’d learned it more formally.

The three language policy gives North Indians an opportunity to learn a third language and broader their children’s horizons.

It gives children of migrants an opportunity to connect with their roots—an opportunity I didn’t have.

The question now is whether North Indians will be willing to take that challenge, or cop out and stick with Sanskrit.

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Meanwhile, I’m trying to learn Spanish on Duolingo, and that’s revealed a thing or two about what practical, living languages are about. Read more here.