Here's a typical conversation in any school in the West..

Pupil to teacher:  Hello teacher, How are YOU?? (they are meeting after a long holiday gap)

Teacher:  I'm fine and how are YOU??

Pupil:  Fine and how was YOUR holidays..

And so the typical conversation flows..

 

 

But first let us translate this directly to Tamil (Hindi in brackets)

 

But can one ever imagine a student speaking like this to his teacher in Bhaarathm without using the respectful Neengal (Aap) as the pronoun for addressing his teacher.

 

In English it is always YOU whether the teacher addresses the pupil or vice-versa. There are no pronouns for respectfully addressing elders and those in authority. It is YOU for the President, PM and even whilst addressing the Almighty himself.

No doubt the west has this intractable problem of youngsters not respecting elders. One may counter here and say that the pupil can always use SIR when he addresses his teacher.  But that is an imposed condition rather than the norm.  Moreover the use of SIR is not mandatory which means even if the pupil did not use SIR in addressing his teacher it would not be deemed as disrespect.

Whereas in our Bharateeya languages beginning from Sanskrit and Tamil we always have MANDATORY pronouns of respect for addressing elders.  Children learning in the mother tongue are inculcated in this discipline right from the start and what becomes inculcated early on becomes deeply internalized and what gets deeply internalized comes out with spontaneity.

In this regard a Bharateeya child will naturally have respect for elders internalized in him as everything begins with the sound of language, esp the mother-tongue which is one of the first thing to get internalized and what gets internalized first remains for life.

And at all times such a child will be conscious as to how to use the right way of addressing depending on whom he is verbally interacting with and it all flows naturally.

 

So the formula here is simple and that often begins at home.

Speak to your children predominantly in English and it is English words that get internalized and the probablity that they will not respect their elders becomes high.

 

Inculcating children early ONLY IN THE MOTHER TONGUE will ensure that respect is internalized at the language learning  level itself and again this begins at home.  No doubt today in Bhaarath, the current older generation has also begun to gripe about the declining respect accorded to them by their youngsters.  BLAME ENGLISH FOR THAT and that you can take it to the bank.

 

Dr. VSH

200910

KrishNaarpaNam