The Importance of Speaking your Mother Tongue Around Kids

What’s the importance of teaching children their mother tongue from birth, and how does it enhance their skills and experiences.

A few days ago, while grocery shopping, I corrected my two-year-old’s pronunciation of the Urdu word ‘kheera’ (cucumber). He repeated it several times, and so did the little boy beside us. Within a few minutes, the boys started singing the word in Urdu. While they enjoyed their little party, the little boy’s mother frowned at me. I could tell she spoke Urdu too. I realized she was frowning because I wasn’t talking to my son in English. She quickly pushed her son to stop calling it a ‘kheera’, but her son continued saying it. I could see the frustration on her face.

While I do not discourage teaching English from a young age, I really believe in also teaching the language that is your own. Although I admit that as a mother, I had initially thought of talking to my newborn son in English too. But I realized that some of the most endearing expressions I have for him only sound as endearing in Urdu.

Nevertheless, with the increase in migration and modernism, the importance of the mother tongue is slowly disappearing. A mother tongue is defined as the native language or the first language [i] – the language that belongs to a person’s cultural identity. However, we are now coming to a point where our own tongue languages seem less relevant compared to the English language.

New parents often try to converse in a language that they themselves don’t speak regularly. They stress on teaching children a language that is considered as a measure of knowledge and education. However, we are failing to differentiate between speaking a language and being knowledgeable. Having a good accent or speaking English better than your first language is no sign that you are more or less educated or knowledgeable than anybody else. In fact, speaking more than one language is the actual road to being educated.

Hence, the importance of the mother tongue is currently underrated. When parents communicate in their native language, they are conversing in their most comfortable element. They are able to communicate and express emotions, and children develop those skills too. Other than effective communication, a mother tongue enhances speech and cognitive development [ii]. This eventually leads to children growing in an environment that fosters their mental and emotional health. According to research, they grow to learn so much more in a different language that eventually does not have to be retaught in schools [i]. Perhaps, those concepts are automatically understood even in English once they learn the basics of the language in schools and with peers.

This, then, brings me to an important point. Why teach a language that the whole world can teach? In the modern world, everyone can teach you English, but not everyone can teach you your mother tongue. The connection to culture and traditions with a language is what enhances its context. With the language, what is carried forward is its origin, cultural values, and, even, the historical development of the language.

While I agree we have moved into a world where speaking fluent English is largely essential, it is also crucial that our languages are kept alive and given the same importance. The only way to keep languages alive is by learning them. Perhaps, the best of conversations happen in the language that is close to who you are.

References:

[i] Effiong, A. (2013). The Role of Mother Tongue in Early Childhood Education. Journal of Education and Practice, 4(24). Retrieved from https://www.iiste.org/Journals/index.php/JEP/article/view/8909/9183

[ii] Nair, A. (2019, January 5). How to Teach Mother Tongue to Children & Its Importance. Retrieved from https://parenting.firstcry.com/articles/why-and-how-should-you-teach-mother-tongue-to-your-child/