What is my first language?
Marathi. That’s my mother tongue and the language that I first spoke. I grew up listening to stories in Marathi and I speak the language with my parents, relatives, and some friends. But it’s not my primary language.
My primary language happens to be English. I think in Marathi, but often I find myself thinking in English. I read English books, I browse the web in English, and even the groceries I shop in India have English labels on them. The last Marathi book that I read was for my school exams. My studies have been in English medium and I choose Marathi as a “second language” (the other option was Hindi). But maybe this justification isn’t enough.
Many of my friends here in Australia find it rather curious when I talk to my Indian friends in English, and some assume that it is out of respect to them. But this we do for two reasons- our schooling was in English and the language is more natural for us than most outside the country may think. The second reason is the diverse language pool.
Language in India is a tricky business. There are 129 recognised ‘languages’ and thousands of ‘dialects’. I put the words in quotations because there are no widely-accepted rules for the classification. I am proud of the diversity that I grew up in and have friends with different mother-tongues. I have always had friends whose first language, or mother tongue, was either Marathi, Gujarati, Konkani, Kutchi, or Tamil. However, at that time, I had only one or two friends who spoke Hindi at home. While playing as kids, we spoke in polluted Hindi to communicate with each other, mixing words from our mother tongue to make sense of our thoughts. It was a choice between Hindi and English, and English seemed too foreign for the community.
I often reflect on how bad my Marathi is. I read at the pace of a snail, and the only time I recall writing in Marathi was for school exams. My Hindi is much worse. But I don’t find the need for improving the situation. There is no necessity. Most parents in India prefer sending their kids to English school because, with a few exceptions, all the undergraduate universities and colleges offer education only in English.
With such diversity in India, English and Hindi are the only languages that enable effective communication if you don’t understand the local language. People are more likely to understand either of those languages in most parts of the country. The general rule of thumb is that in the northern part you’d try to communicate in Hindi whereas in the southern part you can try English.
So, when I say Marathi is my first language or my mother tongue, I do not mean that I understand it better than other languages. I’d rather use English because of my more developed English vocabulary.
On that note, I’d highly recommend ‘Nehru and the Language Politics of India’ by Robert D. King, which offers much insight into the language situation in India.
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When I begin to read this blog , I thought- what would you write on this rubric? But slowly it began to make a complete picture of our Indian society with a confused language pattern.
Keep writing ✍️
Thank you!