Governor Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan equated learning in mother tongue in the initial years of childhood to giving mother’s milk to the newborn baby. Since both will have an immensely positive effect on the well being of the children in their entire life.
She stated that respecting, loving and promoting mother language is nothing but respecting and loving our own mother.
The Governor was participating as the chief guest at the International Mother Language Day, organized by the Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirapally, and Desiya Chintanai Kaghagam.
Highlighting the importance of learning in the mother tongue in childhood, she said that research has concluded that a child’s brain has tremendous scope for absorption in its formative years and learning through the mother tongue will immensely help children to grasp imagine, retain better.
“In the case of mother tongue, first we develop the competence by listening and express our feelings through own words. Afterwards, we learn to read and write. This ideal sequence is not possible to maintain while learning the other language, wherein we first learn to read and write and their other things”, she said.
She declared that there is no alternative to the mother tongue.
“It is paining me to know that some youngsters are not able to speak correctly either in their mother tongue or in English. The precise reason for this is non importing of learning in the mother tongue in the initial years. If children are taught in their mother tongue during the initial years, they could be able to learn other languages quite easily”.
She said that the languages are the most powerful instrument of preserving and developing tangible and intangible heritage, and the effort to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will contribute to linguistic diversity and multilingual education.
