EK CUP CHAI

I was born a Telugu, learned Telugu at school and then all my education pointed to me that English is just what I needed. Not that I have regrets now. But it surprises me that people talk of saving a language, ( a language like) Telugu!

Telugu, is indeed a beautiful language. Take the term ‘go dhooli vela‘. go means cows and buffaloes, dhooli = dust, vela = time. This single word tells a lot about the way telugu’s lived, around a geography of red soil. When Sun had beaten so harshly that the soil became loose..(or something like that) and when it was not yet dark, cattle returned home. As they walked, there would be dust across the village! Almost every home had a cow/buffalo, and as the shepherd(s) made sure that each of the animals went to its owners, every street ended up raking dust. And that’s when women used to start cook in the evening!

Go dhooli vela = Evening

But can preserving Telugu mean the same now. Can it return the meaning of having loose soil? Can every home have a cow or a buffalo, when milk is sold in packets and bottles with the help of co-operatives and what not? The answer is NO. Then why think of preserving a language? When a word gives the entire meaning of a culture, will that word have any importance at times of change!

Language is a only a means to communicate, isn’t it? Yes in the process of communication across centuries, some words attain specific meaning, and some don’t change at all. But every language has its own story - from having started somewhere, to being merged with various cultures,to taking and giving words, borrowing and lending cultures! And today what do you call a computer, with a language 100s of years old? So then why save a language?

Would you save ‘C’ Language if at any point of time ‘D’ comes up?

English has been able to accommodate to various technological, and cultural changes it has been able to reach to hundreds of people. But that doesn’t make any language lesser does it? A language is the sole evidence of how cultures changed and how people’s thinking changed. But trying to preserve a language is stopping the very change which nature has intended. Does preservation of languages has one aim - stop people from changing?

Today Sanskrit stands, and is spoken as the only language in a village of India. Yes, it is too small for what it was once. But then, it still stands, and will never die. No matter what! That’s the power of language. It never dies. It is only understood or isn’t.