Kattrathu Tamizh, then English apres Francais

Drove down the Mount road and saw the Chennai Corporation staff pulling down English signboards after the over zealous mayor declared that all boards be in Tamizh. To this mayor I ask what is the use of a board if it cannot be read by many?

The governments in successive bouts of madness have killed the language by various stupid ideas.

If the jokers must do something, then instead of breaking boards and renaming streets first change the name of the state, because morons it is not Tamil, but Tamizhnadu.

Tamizhnadu is the state where the mother tongue is an option instead of being the compulsory second language, in the zeal to remove Hindi these jokers have made several generations opt out of the language of the land and no your pathetic idea of giving state ranks to Tamizh students may not impress or motivate many and I for one would be scandalized to get a laptop with a screen saver of a geriatric even if it was free.

Language is meant to communicate and trust me classical Tamizh will leave many natives scratching their heads

It is common language that the classical written language and the colloquial are as different as two different dialects and it is practically impossible to remove the traces of other language especially English from the colloquial.

If the state has always been open and willingly to be inclusive to many cultures, religions, languages, nationalities over the ages why can the language of the land not be so?

There was a time when my above the ordinary English was a barrier for me to communicate to my classmates in Loyola College one of the best colleges in the country. Yes my classmates and some of the contract faculty members were dazed after hearing me speak and this is became my millstone. I lived with the title of a “Peter” and “Appa tie, Amma gown” monikers for the entire three years. My wonderful language skills were good for answer papers but it remained there. I had to unlearn 12 years of wonderful English learning from my school to ensure the rest of my life was a success.

Today what I speak is a mix, I still tend to switch to English as a language of convenience rather than choice, I read and can write Tamizh and manage my way around with Hindi and yes I can read and write French, but I know that I can communicate to everyone because I now know that you do not need a perfect language but what is more important is to communicate and for that what I see around and what is going to happen next week is just a waste of public money and is self appreciation at the worst.

To give Tamizh its due, it is a wonderful language and is a classic but as all classics go they will never be common place.

This post was inspired by another brilliant piece from a fellow blogger whom I follow.