Language

When you are born in one state and live in another, travel the world and are educated in a language that is not your own, you can forgive the person for his inability to communicate properly in  any of the national languages. That's me by the way. My paternal grandfather, Doraiswamy, would be immensely shocked that I can communicate well in English but so poorly in Tamil. I am better in Kannada and Hindi but that does not take away the fact that I made a career because of knowledge of English. It does not take away the fact that I miss being versatile in any of the Indian languages...  

In their foreword to Sanskrit Computational Linguistics (2009), Gerard Huet, Amba Kulkarni and Peter Scharf have said, “Extant manuscripts in Sanskrit number over 30 million, one hundred times those in Greek and Latin combined, constituting the largest cultural heritage that any civilisation has produced prior to the invention of the printing press.” Preservation of ancient texts is only the first step. What we need to do is to encourage scholars to do research using these primary sources and unearth new nuggets of knowledge. (M. Venkaiah Naidu, Indian Express: https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/languages-and-civilisation-heritage-and-development-5659310/)

Different civilisations came to the forefront because they were focused on their art. And language was the leader, While the word is of Roman descent - mean to live in towns - the real meaning as Wikipedia says,  A civilisation is generally an advanced stage of organisation. That means it has laws, culture, a regular way of getting food and protecting the people. Most civilisations have agriculture, and a system of government like monarchs or elections. They speak a common language, and usually have a religion of some kind. They teach their young the knowledge they need. All civilisations, since the Sumerians and the Egyptians have had some kind of writing. This is because writing lets people store and build up knowledge."

Of course, being good at war is the way to conquer new lands but where did that leave Alexander and Hitler for that matter? Not in a good place. Language enabled the Europeans to conquer the rest of the word. India was also developed but was quite content with its territory. And then it had its religion and culture  (Look for another piece on this.)

My point is that let this century be the beginning of another era. Make your children proficient in their mother tongue and any language that is prevalent in  your location. We are all ordinary but the ability to communicate excellently will make your child successful in their career. I would advice my nephews and nieces to read and hopefully they do.. I started reading when I was about  eight or nine. I read and devoured everything that came my way.

I remember one day - I was nine - my dad brought a pack of children's books around 20 something. He had been sold by a sales guy at work. But mom thought it was a waste of money (incidentally dad had little schooling and mom a little more but she was quite clear that we had to have proper educations. So here I am.) and forced him to return it the next day. But I read them  all over the night and had no qualms over it being returned. I had read them all!

Reading is important for language proficiency. We can talk only so much. The big and literary words (!) are mostly in the books . And writing follows that. The greatest leaders - businessmen or otherwise -  have always been good with words. So if you lack in some skills, you can make it up with language.

So let us read. May your children read. More. Language is stepping stone to success. Let nobody tell you otherwise.