Helping keep their mother tongue alive

KOCHI: On the eve of International Mother Language Day, we decided to take a look at the different communities in and around Kochi and met people who belong to various linguistic backgrounds.While one of the languages has almost died out, others are braving odds to stay alive as the younger generation prefers to learn English, Malayalam or Hindi.

UNESCO, which is celebrating International Mother Language Day for nearly 20 years, aims at preserving and promoting mother-tongue based multilingual education.But what we see today is more and more people around the world are investing in learning foreign languages rather than their own mother-tongues.

Jayant Pithadia and Vijaykumar Padamshi about Kutchi

There are about 600 Gujarati families in and around Mattancherry and within these communities there are some families which speak Kutchi. These people have retained the essence of their language while mastering Malayalam. Jayant Pithadia, who used to work for a prominent English news magazine in Kochi, is a member of the Gujurati community who is proud to converse in his mother tongue - Kutchi.

The Gujarati community had a monopoly over the trade and commerce in Kochi at one point of time. He says, “It has been many years since I came here. I speak both Kutchi and Malayalam. I converse in Kutchi with my Kutchi friends and in Malayalam with non-Gujaratis. In my family, I made it mandatory for my daughter to speak Kutchi at home.”

Jayant says though they are in Kerala, everyone strives to keep the Kutchi language alive and to propagate it, efforts are on to translate some of the Gujurati works into Kutchi. Jayant says, “There is a doctor in Mumbai named Vishan Nagara who writes poetry and is attempting to translate Gujarati works into Kutchi. Vijaykumar Padamshi, born and brought up in Kochi, runs a bakery in Gujarati Street in Mattancherry. He too is passionate about Kutchi and its promotion.

Abdul Kareem on Deccani Urdu

“There were plenty of Muslims who spoke Deccani Urdu in Kochi, but now the numbers have come down,” says Abdul Kareem, who belongs to the Deccani Muslim community of Fort Kochi and has Urdu as his mother tongue. Hailing from Pattalam in Fort Kochi, he says the place got its name because of the presence of the British Army in the locality in olden days. “Many Deccani Muslims were part of the army and they settled down in that area.

They used to speak the Deccani variety of Urdu, which is slightly different from its standard version in the north. He says his parents knew to read and write in Urdu and they encouraged him to learn the language. As a result, he is one of those few people who are well-versed in Urdu. This language is spoken by the community members in Alappuzha, Thiruvananthapuram and Kasargod. In Malabar, some madrasas teach Urdu apart from Arabic. But here in Kochi, he says only Arabic is taught in madrasas. This is a reason why the new generation is not keen on learning the language their ancestors spoke. Earlier, there used to be lots of Urdu songs during weddings. But nowadays that is also declining, he says.“In madrasas, Urdu should be included so the language is propagated and children don’t deviate from their mother language.”

Kishore Shamji on Kutchi

A prominent member of the Kutchi Oswal Jain community in Mattancherry, Kishore Shamji is one of the stalwarts of the spices trade in Kochi. “We speak Kutchi at home. Our children usually speak to us in English and don’t respond in Kutchi.” Around 135 Kutchi families are there in Mattancherry. There is no writing done in Kutchi as it lacks a script, he says.

According to Kishore, it was his father who moved into spices business. In the late 60s when the pepper business moved to Kochi from Alappuzha, his father shifted to Mattancherry. “A lot of pepper from places like Thrissur, Ponkunnam was exported and he was doing good business. He was also dispatching pepper to other markets. In the 1970s, I joined my father,” says the businessman.

“I studied in TD School in Malayalam medium and so I can read and write  Malayalam,” says Kishore. “To propagate Kutchi language in the community, we are  conducting ‘Kutchi Natak’ where the artists are mostly young students showcasing their talents and giving relevant social messages.

Francis Xavier Gomes reminisces about Portuguese

Francis Xavier is 90 plus and is one of the oldest members of the Anglo-Indian community at Fort Kochi. Till the early part of the twentieth century, creole Portuguese used to be the mother tongue of a good number of Anglo Indians in Fort Kochi and neighbouring Vypeen, he says. When asked whether the centuries-old language is dead and gone, he says, “It is not dead and gone yet. I am one of the last persons of the community who clearly remember our parents conversing in Portuguese at home. I can still recollect some of the old folk songs in creole Portuguese which used to be sung during house parties.”

With great effort, he manages to sing an old song about an unlucky beautiful damsel, which used to be sung in Fort Kochi and Vypeen. “Maldita Maria Madulena, maldita formosa,” he croons. Although Portuguese was spoken in his family when he was a child, he is sad that it was not propagated. “The parents who spoke Portuguese kept it within themselves instead of sharing it with their children.” Talking about English as a leading language, he says, “I feel it was thrust upon us. Instead, it should have been Portuguese as we grew up listening to it.”