Growing up in a post-colonial independent nation where English has become the medium of education in most schools has led to a common occurrence in our rapidly advancing, tech-savvy generation: the imposteristic feeling of an estrangement and lack of connection with our mother tongue, Urdu.
This article comes from a place of both personal experience and a general look on how we as the youth of this country see and think of our own language(s). Oftentimes you may have found it extremely hard to convey your feelings, especially feelings related to love, trauma, emotional pain, and mental struggles in words. And even more often, you would find yourself more torn and struggling on how to convey your feelings in your first language when compared to English. Maybe you cannot find the right words since our learned vocabulary is limited. Maybe you felt too naked and exposed when trying to put into words your innermost and sensitive feelings in the language you first spoke as a toddler. But why? Why do we shy away from our first language? Every single day we talk casually to our friends and family in Urdu. It comes to us as easily as breathing. So why doesn’t conveying our feelings in Urdu come as easily to us? These are the questions we must ask ourselves as a nation still scarred by years of brutality, injustice and colonialism – and in this article I will attempt to deconstruct the reasons as to why we as multilingual people have complicated and torn feelings about the language(s) of our own land.
Imperial violence does not consist of just literal violence. Repressing and attempting to eradicate a culture’s means of communication is a form of violence which penetrates deep into the colonized group’s sense of self and preservation, leaving future generations with a fragmented and alienated relationship with their own language. Within a language there exists a rich history, a means of communication unique to its group’s identity, and a tale of stories and struggles – things which threaten the colonizer’s utmost confidence in its superiority, and why language thus becomes a target of colonial assault. When the colonizer essentially “leaves” the colonized to its own devices, the colonized starts to see its colonizer’s language and way of life as inherently superior, even if they do not wish to think so. This comes from possibly a place of envy and wrath at being starved of the colonizer’s luxuries and privileges – something the colonized was told it did not “deserve” during active colonialism due to being lesser, uglier, uncivilized, and dirty. With this seemingly harmless pedestalization and glorification of English, we begin to seek validation of the entity that once subjected us to this brutality – we see and perceive everything related to English as superior, advanced, and more worthy of our efforts. In especially private schools, rules start to emerge such as not being allowed to casually speak in Urdu, and to use English at all times except for the dedicated Urdu classes. By punishing or attempting to police our own youth for merely speaking in their languages, we further break one of the few remaining bridges between our cultural history – which was preserved and immortalized through these very same languages – and our future generations. What we do not realize on a conscious level is that, by enforcing these standards of education and refusing to let our languages thrive in more active spaces, we are merely allowing the colonizer and its ghost to dominate us, even after it has supposedly “left” and liberation has been acquired.
Most languages have only one thing in common – that they are a means of communication and preservation. However, other than this one intersection, everything about languages is fundamentally different: from their grammar, to the meaning or multiple meanings of their vocabulary, to their history and origin, and to their collection of written or oral literature. Since English in itself does not “belong” to us, most words can be interpreted as umbrella terms. For instance, when we say “love” in English, we refer to the single pure emotion of finding someone or something important, precious, or beloved to us – it does not necessarily refer to romantic love. However, because of our limited knowledge of Urdu and its vast vocabulary (let’s be honest, most of us never learned to use the Lughat and let it gather dust during our school years), we struggle deeply to find the precise words, expressions or phrases that may be able to perfectly encapsulate the feelings we want to vocalize. Our limited perception of words and phrases – most of which we learned through casual chitchat and modern dramas, and not by reading renowned Urdu literature – leaves us incapable of voicing our feelings in our own language. With this realization comes a sort of defeatist mindset in today’s youth, that it is simply too late to mend our relationship with our language now, that it is simply easier to continue living comfortably with English – once again letting the colonizer win in its pursuit of robbing us of our culture, our hope, and our strength. There is also a huge accessibility imbalance when it comes to English versus when it comes to native languages. Due to its widespread use, English is a rapidly developing and advancing language, with new words related to discoveries in science and technology being added to the dictionary daily. The meaning of a word, coupled with its appropriate use in sentences, is merely one Google search away – a luxury that is not exactly available when it comes to Urdu.
Despite Urdu being the biggest common factor between us and our families, it is hard to convey ourselves in it because it makes us feel exposed. It is a language more visceral and close to our hearts because it is our mother tongue. It is the language we use to hurt each other. We hurl abuses at each other in Urdu. We face discrimination and abuse from people around us and even from our own families in this language. When someone curses at us in English, it always hurts much less than when someone curses at us in Urdu. Because when people wish ill on us in our own language, there’s a hurtful realization associated with it: they mean it, or at least they mean the pain that they know it will cause you. They mean the abuses they throw at us because they are uttering them in the language that is able to emotionally penetrate all of us. English however, despite being a language most of us use to write and speak, still does not hold the same emotional connection for us as Urdu does. We were not born with the ability to speak English – no. We were born with the power to speak our own language before anyone else’s – we were born to speak Urdu. And rather than using it to provide others with love, comfort and warmth, we use it to hurt each other and intentionally cause them pain. Our generation, despite seeing little to no value in Urdu, prefers to use curse words in Urdu. Have you ever wondered why? Because no one taught us how to love or be loved in Urdu; all we learned was how to express our anger and rage. And that is our tragedy: we use our mother tongue, a beautiful language, something we should respect and hold dear, to hurt each other rather than love each other.
We cringe even at the prospect of expressing love, moreso in Urdu. We never think twice about how our lack of dexterity when it comes to Urdu has severely limited our connection and knowledge of our land and people. I, for one, feel terribly sad and almost like an imposter when I am unable to read Urdu literature without help or without resorting to English translations. Manto’s works, Ismat Chughtai’s works – very few of us are able to read Urdu fluently and even fewer of us are able to truly understand it beyond words and grammar on the page. Language is something that connects us with people, with history, with each other. It is more than just a medium of conversing – it is a medium of immortalizing emotions and culture, and a medium of being able to establish a connection with people from the past or even future. As people of this land, no matter how hard we try to distance ourselves from it, or try to erase our connections to it – we will ultimately always fail. We will fail because one day we will realize that expressing love to the people truly precious to us in English will never hold the same genuineness and weight as doing the same in the language we all spoke for the first time in this world.
Admittedly, it is indeed a noble thing to pursue education, advancement, and a better life. However, what we must realize and acknowledge is that our perception of a luxurious and ideal life is dangerously linked to what the colonizer wanted us to believe. Within a colonizer’s culture and its language, there is barely any space for the colonized – someone for whom that language and culture was not meant for in the first place. Only our own languages are capable of communicating and translating experiences that are unique to us, that are unique to our people, that are unique to our land. This is why we must try: try to heal, recover, and most importantly try to love in our own language and see in it the power and beauty that deserves to live on for as long as the world exists.
By Mehreen Amaan
Writer (Team 2023-2024)
Note: the views expressed in the article solely belong to the writer and do not reflect TLC.