Languages have been formally categorised as L1 (the language that a child acquires from his parents, at home or it is a very first learning language) and L2, the second language which is acquired after L1. It’s often thought that any language other than native language is L2, as a linguist satirises:
‘If you speak your language, you are conservative,
If you speak the other’s language, you are modern.’
This year UNESCO will celebrate International Mother Language Day 2017 on the theme of “Towards Sustainable Futures through Multilingual Education. As a Pakistani, Urdu is our mother language along with other regional languages; Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi and Balochi etc. But most of the nation is hankering after L2. They have left L1 in the background, especially in the new generation. A time will come when mother language would be a talk of old times. Parents are irrational; they are neglecting their intangible heritage just in order to continue in the rat race of modernism.
The efforts should be made on domestic, educational and governmental levels to protect L1 – the mother tongue.
AYMEN ZAHEER
Lahore
All the world’s many languages are worthy of being used. I hope that Esperanto is not being forgotten on International Mother Language Day. Esperanto is a planned language which belongs to no one country or group of states. Using it as an L2 or L3 speaker brings speakers of different mother tongues together without having to resort to English or a strong regional language.
Not many people know that Esperanto has native speakers. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzDS2WyemBI
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