Come the Marathi Day, and every year after another, we all go hyper senti-n-quite mental. Yes, indeed! Year after after, group following another, the same messages, both highly emotional and equally highly hilarious, start doing the rounds midnight to noon. The fervour loses its fever after the noon, i suppose.
Actually, if the Marathi Day has to have any real value at all, we need to address squarely at least two major issues. The first one is a serious one; namely, the encroachment of Hindi and English on to the Marathi grammar, usage, and, of course, vocabulary.
The second problem is still graver; namely, how to make Marathi a language of knowledge. This is an important issue. My mother tongue can be a language as an asset if and only if it is a language of knowledge, and hence of the market, may be. We need to address this issue urgently.
May be, the institutions addressing such radical issues as knowledge creation and distribution are governed by a handful. There is an urgent need to democratise the process by including talented outsiders even when they may not belong to a given clique!
Only when it becomes a language of knowledge, and hence of status, the Marathi language (day, too) would truly flourish and fructify!
Pratima @ Whether gazetted or not as a "state(ly) language", a language earns respect if it generates and distributes knowledge in an easy and accessible mode!
No comments:
Post a Comment