My grandson came home from school minus his usual cheer and bounce. Concerned, I enquired, “What is worrying you? Why the sad face?”
“The thought why should I continue education, if it is not of any help in my future aspirations?”
This reply was like a primed dynamite
among RDX explosives. To get to the bottom of the matter, I asked, “Why you
feel so? Education is supposed to shape your future, and now why you have
doubts?”
He started, “Grandpa, I have to
study more languages now, with textbooks written to college standards. There
are the usual subjects along with history and geography, as civics or by whatever
name, where will be enthusiasm to study new languages knowing fully well that
all of them will not be helpful to students planning to study engineering,
medicine, architecture, astronomy, mathematics, or any other branch of science?”
In a conciliatory tone I told, “I agree that languages should be like a buffet arrangement. Individuals can choose and pick to his or her liking. Having had it without complications, those behind this loading of languages on students want to have their day of glory.
It is unfortunate for the language as well as the students. But I disagree
on the point that learning additional languages has no future benefit though I
have to agree with you on the level of textbooks prescribed which only
frightens the learner.
The blame is on those who stand
behind in pushing the languages through, no matter what, and on those authors chosen
for writing the textbooks to high standards. It did not matter to them, if the
students have already set their minds on courses other than literature. The
issue is like dropping milligrams of carbon black in milk and then trying to
restore the milk to its natural colour.”
“Grandpa, did I not say that
there is no use in learning more languages when it does not align with my
future ambitions? Am I to go to the stone ages? What they want me to become – a
novelist, teacher or a pencil pusher in an office? You know, today even a
pencil pusher must use AI, python, backchain etc.”
This kid was like a boiling liquid.
Unless the source of heat is removed it will cool not down. So, instead of
advice and explanations, I asked him to sit with me and listen to what I have
to say about a language. I made it clear that what I was about to tell him is
solely for the purpose of exploring its history and enjoy its beauty and
versatility. I left the choice with him to choose or give it a pass.
Still frustrated, he reluctantly
nodded, which I could have easily missed had I not been watching for it. Having
set up the stage, I started presenting my thoughts in the hope that at least he
might begin to appreciate what makes a language to tick.
“Since the first cry of human
beings occurred a very long time ago, there are certain logical boxes that need
inspection. Who let out the first cry – a newborn, toddler, child, adult and of
which gender? Who tutored - nature, animals or birds? Did the cry was
pre-recorded in the DNA of the human being? In the absence of a definite clue,
the un-ticked logic boxes point to the unknown origins and remains as an
enigma!
Countless millennia ago, the first human cry, an audio that disturbed the air waves on our planet. Like "doctors sans frontiers", it was a word without alphabets. With their focus only on survival, the hunting and gathering food or defending against enemies, our ancestors just stopped short with what we today call as phonics! Guided by evolutionary pressure, they jumped the alphabet queue to invent verbal-verbs, combining them with sounds and hand signals.
Our ancestors and their rudimentary vocabulary of audio-words kept
evolving continuously. Many millennia later, they tried their hands in
pictorial representations. With no pressure to explicitly bring out their
socio-cultural leanings, they took some more time to plant the seeds to grow the
nascent crop of alphabets.
The labour of countless minds,
hands and assorted writing mediums- from granite to papyrus, resulted in crude
forms of alphabets. Probably, thinking that a group of alphabets might
stand a good chance of survival with bargaining power, they devised a clever scheme
with vowels and consonants.
Still afraid of the unknown, the
alphabets decided to combine in as many random ways as possible to live in
safety. This cocktail gave birth to words. The life of the words got a little
complicated as dictated by etymology, spelling and phonetics. Sensing the
danger of having limited utility as a verb or noun or number, the stand-alone
words decided to admit pronouns, adjectives, adverbs articles and prepositions into
their fold.
Imaginatively, they added many hyphenated
words and even bent their backs to get contracted, abbreviated as acronyms and
initials or other surgical strikes to increase their utility value. What
else could they do? They opted for a group defense strategy by agreeing to be
governed by syntax, grammar! These rules governing the formation of sentences
infringed upon their freedom, but did they not find the safety now!
Tentatively, they attempted to
befriend with – 1st, 2nd and 3rd person,
degrees of comparison, gender indicators, idioms and phrases, punctuation marks
and so on to form simple, complex or compound sentences.
These newly minted sentences marvelled
at the transformation and happily invited punctuation marks for company, even
if powerful enough to stop them in their strides! After stocking and packing
with these essentials, the journey of sentences began with the toddlers, beginners,
adults, teachers, writers and professionals. The words and sentences became proud
to be associated with the works of professionals as they come up with acronyms,
every day!
My grandson broke silence and said, “When young, I had difficulty in recognising the alphabets and you forced me to trace them over again and again, till I could write them with reasonable resemblance. Then heard your lectures about not choosing the correct verb or noun or forgetting the punctuation marks while forming a sentence.
But my point
is, our ancestors struggled to discover an identity and I am struggling to
retain my choice.” From his comment I understood that the pot is still hot and
he had just posted the ‘handle with care’ notice.
With a gentle tone, I continued, “Whatever be the language it has a soul and never fails to touch the hearts of the users. This they could do only by absorbing and evolving. From the first cry to this day, the language has taken phenomenal strides to expand its vocabulary. Literally, it is eagerly waiting to express its thanks to anyone who coins a new word with a light-year wide smile!
The language happily accepts infiltrating foreign words and allows its own to emigrate!”
Commenting, my grandson said, “You have painted a beautiful verbal picture though I am not very about your message.
Sensing the sign that the boiling pot has begun to cool down, I continued, “Though bound by many constraints, the language has found a way to put the gag order on the user. There are rules governing its usage. It is a clever tale of twisting the tail and taming the tiger! The written or spoken words are ticking bombs primed to go. The power of words gets unleashed, limited only by the imaginative way they are used.
The emotionless words while describing bravery and cowardice, joy and sadness, hope and despair, compassion and cruelty can go histrionic to leave a reader in tears.
If used without weighing the consequences, a difference becomes a conflict; a glib talk becomes a deception; a war cry leads to destruction and despair. As a container gives shape to a liquid, thoughts and expressions of an user shapes the language. Unwittingly, our ancestors might have anticipated this potential hazard and happily conducted their survival business with their rudimentary language!
It seems that the first cry that disturbed the air waves has not fallen into deaf ears, is it not?”
Grandpa, my problem is, the ‘burdened languages’ will not be rudimentary in textbooks and why am I being made to echo that first cry you are very fond of mentioning?”
I continued, “But the language did not sit idle and cry. Absorbing new roots and words, it flourished to earn wider following. This did not happen easily as it had to bend its backs to compete and come out as a winner in the fields of literature, science and technology by enriching itself with newer words every year. The fiction writers used invented words in their plots, even before those concepts and technologies came into existence.
Science & Technology invented processes for those concepts and gladly used those words to describe them. The language is not only beautiful but a powerful driver of inventions also! A case of fiction becoming real.
WE are
heroes in our own stories, but the word is a hero in everyone's story. If
it had not come out of wilderness and today, we will be in wilderness without
words!”
My
grandson sat listening in rapt attention, without interrupting me. I took it as
a positive sign that he had started thinking with a favourable outlook. His
next words punctured that balloon.
He said, “Along
with the early humans, a language also had to suffer with frustration to evolve
and survive. But where is logic in making students like me, with future visions,
to suffer with languages suggested without taking into account the aspirations of
my generation? When two itself is considered to be a crowd, will I not be facing
a stampede to learn 3 or 4 languages?
I agree that the word is a hero for coming out of wilderness, but that does not mean I should be cast in the wildernesses of new languages. I am prepared to study hard to realise my ambitions but why to make it harder to achieve? Think of the mental pressure applied by my future-worried parents, who think it is necessary to have a head start.
The axe will fall on sports activities,
hobbies and instead coaching classes and yoga gets the green light, to squeeze
the daylight hours out of my control.”
I wanted
to tell him “If you don’t get what you like start liking what you got” but he
had already left me to ponder ‘where are we all going with this MLS (multiple language’s
syndrome)?’. I realised that this
boiling pot has still some more heat to give off. Yet, hope always has a
chance. In spite of saying all these, my grandson will go to school as usual. I sat thinking about an equitable solution for
this academic quagmire.
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