Linguistic battles

I always stand firm with the quote that your surroundings and your company have a grave impact on you and your thought process. 

Call it my flexibility or having an easily influenced mind but I get affected by the circumstances. For instance, I am a kid who has learnt numbers in English. I don't have a clear memory if I ever learnt them in other languages in written form. Somehow I knew how to say them in Hindi/Punjabi but only up to 38. If anyone passed on the contact number to me in Punjabi I would request them to say it in English. 

The story started changing when one day I saw some random person telling out his number in Punjabi in one go to the other person who was at some distance. I was surprised that the other person was able to jot it down immediately without having to ask for repetition or confirmation, as is the case in English. Had it been said in English, it would have certainly taken him a bit longer to get the other person to feed it correctly.

Then I entered office life. As a person who deals in figure work mostly, whenever I sat down to tally the numbers with colleagues, who were mostly Punjabi speaking people, I would understand all the numbers except for 39, 49, 59, 69 and the series. 

Gradually, I started finding saying numbers in Punjabi easier than in English. As you can say more numbers in one go in a better flow. Trust me, they get handy when feeding an 8 digit OTP. 

So, a few days back, in a college friends reunion, on splitting the bill, I said the amount to be pitched in by each of us but in Punjabi. Nobody paid heed. They were still confused about the amount to be paid. I repeated it in Punjabi again. This time they had to verbally ask, "What is it called in English?" Only then did I realise that they belonged to the non-Punjabi-numbers-understanding-people category just like me back in those days. 

Honestly, I must admit that I get somewhat irritated now when people don't understand the numbers in languages other than English. 

I know this is an area where I need to improve myself. An open mind is the key to happiness. But then we should also be receptive to foreign languages (or in this case, home languages) wherever they are suitable.

Earlier, I wasn't very fond of the idea of people writing their thoughts in Punjabi (Gurmukhi) (I think I still am not) and I tended to read ਸ of Punjabi as म of Hindi, given their similar written form. 

I might be doing it still. But my Punjabi has improved a lot.

Similarly, earlier I found drafting letters in Punjabi difficult and time-consuming. 

I would write letters in English whenever I could. Even if I found writing letters difficult, I couldn't express my difficulty because of the weight of the tag of 'blogger' that I carry (I wonder if I even found it difficult or not). But given the circumstances and practice, now I can write letters in both the languages with equal fluency and speed. 

At present, I fear that I might forget my first language Hindi. It used to be my favourite subject back in school as at that time English wasn't that easy. The community that we used to live in, Hindi was so prominent there that we were so accustomed to it that we would speak Hindi in Punjabi-spoken areas as well.

Tables have turned now. Hindi is rarely read and written and rarely seen written anywhere as well. (Except if you go to Uttar Pradesh where even the names of the shops are written in Hindi). English is finding life through digital media and blogging, and of course the given tilt towards it in these modern times.

The other day, I was writing a word in Hindi out of desire, to relive the feeling of writing in Hindi. And upon writing 2 letters of a word, the third letter which would have completed the word came to my mind in Punjabi form naturally. (For better understanding, people who are fully versed in both languages: I guess the word meant to be written was मेंढक but I almost ended up writing मेंढਕ). Thankfully, this mixed-up form was only in my mind and I realised the mistake before putting it on paper. It would have been too damaging in my own eyes. 

It was the day of big realisation for me. Silly me. Nevertheless, I completed the word in Hindi form only aka Devnagri. 

So, it's all in the mind only. Languages don't make difference if you have an open mind. If one is proficient in all the languages, he wouldn't even know in which language he read the lines. He would only be concerned with content, i.e. what those lines conveyed. That's all that matters. Everyone lives in different cultures which goes on to form their habits, tongue and preferences but we should not let these restrict us. 

Too preachy? Even I feel the same.