I am bilingual. I speak English and தமிழ் (Tamil).If reading
a few other languages and understanding a bit of them counts, I'd be a
polyglot. Cue my 3 years of French in school, some Hindi and picking up Spanish
here and there. Either way, I can get away with using one other language handily. I can use it to my
advantage and can smooth out the kinks in my life effectively. Against common
belief, every time I slip into my mother tongue,Tamil with my
husband I am not talking about you! Well, at least most of the time. It is more
about ourselves, that we don't want you to hear and it is not always about you.
You just have to take my word for it. It could also be the fact that it is so
much easier to blurt something in my own language, than to figure out that word
in English. It is a comfort to be able to have that bond in public to be able
to share something among us. We are not seeking to disrespect the company, we
are not thinking that far ahead. We think of ourselves and quietly share a
moment. Call it an intimate moment.
Being bilingual to me goes both ways. Sometimes, English
is my saving grace. When we run into another Indian somewhere and you find out
they are from another part of the country, we respectfully resort to continue
speaking in English since we don't know a lick of the language that they speak.
Their language, is as foreign as my language is to you. Every southern state in
India and many northern states have their own language. Not a different
dialect. It is not Montana and Texas accents. It is just plain different from
each other with its own alphabet, grammar, rules, epics and folklore. How many
languages are there in India? I might range from 50 to a few hundred. I really
do not know.
Now, getting our kids to be bilingual was hard and easy
at the same time. The more we spoke to them in Tamil, the more they understood.
It came to a point where my husband and I could not converse in Tamil without
being interrupted (in English) by my children about their opinion on the topic.
What language could we learn that the kids would not understand? But they do
try speak it and struggle with pronouncing Tamil words which then begs the
question, does it make them bilingual or not? Google 'Aziz Ansari goes to India' and watch the 2 min. clip. You will get an idea.
I find it hilarious that my son is learning Spanish. He speaks
it and writes it well enough to get a good grade. That should cover what he is
missing out on his mother tongue speaking skills, right? I am curious to see
him putting his Spanish to practice one day and yet eager to see him become
fluent in Tamil, his mother tongue.
I agree, it
can be rude to speak another language in front of others who do not understand
it. I came across that myself when I visited another country and when people
spoke around me, I could swear it was about me! But what could I do? Shut up
and put up. But the longer I was quiet, I did understand that mango in English,
is mangaa in my language and mangaa in Tagalog, a language native to the
Philippines. That was as far as I got. I do believe there more common words.
Bahasaa Indonesia and Bahasaa Malaysia are languages indigenous to those
countries and Bahasaa means language in Sanskrit (and in Tamil). Can't help to
then wonder about Tamil and Sanskrit knitting all these east Asian languages
together, that you just want to go grab a Rosetta Stone and learn another language. And
you say, "Talagaa??", "Apdiyaa?" or "Really?". It
all means the same anyway.
All
this blogging got me wired up on how old Tamil was, the internet places its
origin somewhere around 600-300BC. One of the oldest languages in the
world. Astounded and humbled.
