Suman K Sharma
In his article Dogri can be saved (DE, 22 December), Mr Mohd Yaseen has made an impassioned plea to ‘save’ the mother-tongue of a majority of people in the Duggar region. ‘Our language is an expression of ourselves and (we must)…preserve it,’ he asserts. Indeed, language picked up in infancy tells a man who he is. It connects him with those around him. In it he dreams his small and big dreams.
And yet, Dogri is in decline due to ‘lack of interest in the youth’ in it. The author can vouch for Mr Yaseen’s assertion. Recently, the Jammu & Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages nominated him to translate into English ‘the representative’ short stories of Dogri. Keen on providing the young authors their due space on the platform, he made diligent efforts by word of mouth and through social media to invite works of Dogri writers below 30. But the youngest author he could manage to represent in the anthology is a lady 38 years old. The mean age of the living authors whose stories were received goes beyond 60’s – 38 being the youngest and a couple of authors past their 80’s. Dogri, it seems, is left only for the geriatric.
Apparently, that is an anomalous situation. The language has been recognized at the national level, making way for all the advantages its inclusion in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution implies. Organisations such as Dogri Sanstha are striving hard to promote it in diverse ways. Established authors and enthusiastic new names are adding to the Dogri corpus by hundreds of published works every year. Dogri programmes find a place in the radio and TV channels. Feature films have been made in the language and much hyped about. In academics, Dogri is taught in schools and scholars study the language for their doctorates. As if this were not enough, Dogri has been included in the syllabi of the administrative services of the State and the Central Civil Services.
There must then be a sound reason as to why the present generation of Dogras is indifferent to its mother-tongue. Let us see. When a horrified Dogra mother shrieks at her toddler ‘Toon potty kari odi!’, what she means is that the young one has soiled her newly washed bed sheet. Faeces stink in any language. The use of an English euphemism ‘potty’ for poop (and syntactically wrong at that!) seems to make the naming of the process of evacuation and its end product a tad more acceptable. A more glaring instance of this tendency is when the family elders give an almost approving smile as their school-going brat howls ‘S***!’ at anything that annoys or astonishes him. The equivalent vernacular term would have shocked them. The foul-tongued youngster too would have shunned the ‘filthy’ word in Dogri. But said in English, it acquires a snobbish value.
That is the issue – the hierarchy of languages. English stands at the top, followed by Hindustani and then Punjabi. Dogri, for all its stature of a statutory language, finds the last place in use at home. No wonder then that the children find it odd to speak in Dogri when they grow up.
How has this hierarchy, that distances a child from his mother tongue, been established? Speaking plainly, it is there because of the relative utility of the languages. Learning English is expected to connect a person to the widest circle of interlocutors, raising his or her stature as well as the prospects of employment. The same goes for Hindustani, though to a lesser extent. Punjabi is a different matter altogether, as a ride in a city’s Matador would testify. Its affinity with Dogri apart, the entertainment that it offers makes Punjabi more acceptable than Dogri. What to say of Jammu, Punjabi has become popular even in the Bollywood and down south because of its ringing songs and music.
Would then we continue to sacrifice Dogri at the altar of utilitarianism? The compulsions of globalization and connecting with the rest of the nation are there and so is the lure of entertainment. Yet, it is equally true that the sounds and the particular lilt of one’s own tongue never cease to attract attention. Imagine you are on a business trip to Mumbai or eating in a Melbourne restaurant. Far away from your home, your ears suddenly catch a few words of Dogri. Won’t your first reaction be to respond to that voice in Dogri? In such situations the heart forgets all about the head’s biases.
So let our children learn to speak English like the Englishmen, Hindi like the denizens of Utter Pradesh and Punjabi like the people of Patiala; but at home, they must be encouraged to speak only khand mitthi Dogri. For that, the parents, young mothers in particular, would have to unlearn their bias and listen to the echo of their forebears.
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