Kids buried between other languages and mother tongue Urdu

“It would be good if these people were provided with electricity, water and independence, and the opportunity to speak their mother tongues and educate their children.” Jalal Talabani

The Indian subcontinent is seeing trends of mass immigration. One side effect of the mass immigration is the deterioration of the Urdu language, the mother tongue of most of the immigrants. Especially the people of Pakistan are emigrating at an alarmingly high rate. Now in America and Europe there are many second and third generation Pakistanis.

The first generation, which migrated, was not only fluent in spoken Urdu but could also read and write it. However, the people from the second and the third generation could not learn Urdu like their parents or grandparents.

Knowing about the mother tongue is important. It represents the roots of a person. It also associates one to a specific culture and traditions. However, we must realize the problems and dilemma of American and European children whose mother tongue is Urdu.

These poor children actually have to speak and learn so many languages. They cannot survive without learning in English. Other than that in America, the trend of learning one European language (French, Italian, or German etc.) is rampant. Often children have to learn one of those languages too. Then very often, the parents of these children converse with each other in their regional language, which might be Punjabi or Pashto etc.

 In this condition, the children find it very hard to learn Urdu. The need of the time is to streamline this phenomenon.