The Language of the Heart

Ever thought that our heart necessarily has got a language? A language that makes true sense without trailing the essence of the message. Of course, it’s our mother tongue or our native language that is always the language of the heart that passes the right sense of meaning to the receiver of a message. The mother tongue is the language that a child grasps naturally owing to exposure to language through families or soundings. And, as a language of our self, our culture, and our identity, it helps in providing a definite shape to our feelings, thoughts, and emotions. It plays a vital role in the development of social, personal as well as a cultural identity. Kids who possess a firm base in their mother tongue mostly exhibit a deeper understanding of themselves and their role or position in society along with a sense of understanding, consideration, wellbeing, and self-confidence. Mother tongue bounces that feel of home while carrying the baggage of allegations of one’s identity and heritage. No matter how much we progress in life, our native language reminds us to stay grounded and remember our roots. Children with a strong command over their mother tongue would hold many benefits like it would ease the child to get hold of a foreign language quicker, help to connect with the people and culture, aids in cognitive as well as intellectual development, economical and professional betterment in the future and so on.

Native tongues are the base foundation on which everything else we learn builds, it’s important to continue nurturing our first language. There is no specific way to impart the mother tongue to a child. In the past grandparents who predominantly influenced toddlers through stories, folktales and rhymes had a significant role in passing on the mother tongue. Parents of our present generation taking Malayalam online teaching modules might have experienced first-hand experience with the help of their grannies who would teach them rhymes, stories, fairy tales, puzzles, etc. All these things can influence the fostering of language ability in children. Besides, Keralites are very much obsessed with the usage of Malayalam which started to develop as a separate language from the 13th century onwards to express our feelings and emotions most effectively and appropriately. That’s the reason why parents of Malayalee kids residing abroad, in a land of foreign languages, are very much garrulous of regional dialect, amusing diaspora and diversities, and so on whenever they get a chance. 

Though children are moving away from the native tongue and catching up with other foreign tongues, many parents, particularly Malayalees who have realized the importance of regional dialects over foreign tongues are indeed attempting to make every possible effort to expose the importance and beauty of Malayalam language to their kids. Many parents who don’t have the provision to afford an appropriate Malayalam education for their offspring are leaning towards online Malayalam classes to afford to bind their children back to our roots and culture. More than a language variant, the mother tongue keeps the culture alive. Several professional language trainers are giving online Malayalam tuition through various educational as well as social media platforms where students of various age groups can join to attend the classes at their convenience. Language learning not only fosters the child to master a particular language dialect or reinvent personal connections but also benefits students to excel at the academic level too as it tends to increase grasping capacities in children. Furthermore, it crafts children on the journey to multilingualism too.