Vishü Rita Krocha
The inability to speak one’s mother tongue has become one of the greatest challenges confronting the Naga society today. Besides creating communication gaps between children and grandparents, it is also isolating young people from their culture, heritage, and oral traditions.
This is especially true for children of today’s generation who barely know how to converse in their native language. Few decades back, local or indigenous languages were once veiwed as inferior, and beyond the comforts of homes, most people also spoke English. For some, speaking in their own language in public spaces also carried a sense of shame.
Today, with the disappearance of languages around the world at such an alarming rate, preserving one's own language has become extremely vital. But then again, how does one preserve a language if it is no longer spoken at home or in public spaces and gatherings? A language cannot survive if there are no more speakers.
The reality of our times is also that most children, especially those who grow up in towns and cities no longer speak in their own language. English has become the most common language spoken by children whether at home or otherwise.
And this is not only an isolated situation that is observed in children of mixed marriages, but is something that is ironically happening even among children of parents who hail from the same village and tribe.
Parents might have once adopted English at home to secure better educational and career prospects for their children, but this is seemingly no longer the case. Despite many parents' effort to teach and impart a mother tongue to their children in today's context, there is still a huge gap that exists.
Many children consistently speak only in English at home, which has its own benefits, but there also arises the sad reality of our times where children do not know their own native languages in the same measure. To the extent that they can no longer express themselves well in their own language with people as close as their grandparents.
Given the linguistic diversity of our land, our society must strive to preserve all the Naga languages because languages really, are the most precious resource of our culture. It serves as the living archive of our collective history, values and identity.
Language also carries a sense of belonging to one's roots but when a language is lost, even that fades. In the process, we lose not only the most precious resource of our culture but who we are and what we are altogether.
This is a guest editorial by Vishü Rita Krocha. She is the Publisher of PenThrill Publication and a senior journalist based in Kohima.
