Once I was sitting with my siblings, having a fun conversation. Suddenly, my sister used a word from our native language that was completely new to me. Curious, I asked her what it meant.

After she explained, and I wondered aloud how we had never used it before. She simply said that it had come to her mind at that moment, perfectly fitting the situation. I marvelled at the uniqueness of my mother tongue.

On another occasion, during a casual conversation, I found myself pausing mid-sentence, struggling to recall the right word in my mother tongue. It was a simple, familiar word — one I had spoken countless times as a child. And yet, in that moment, it slipped from my mind. I sat there, trying to remember it, but I couldn’t. This happened several more times, and I struggled to find the right words to express my feelings in my mother tongue. This was probably because I use Urdu and English more often in conversation in everyday life than I do my mother tongue.

Unable to put my thoughts into words correctly in my mother tongue, I had to code-switch and use an Urdu word to convey my emotions. The code-switching did its job perfectly, but it left a lingering void — why couldn’t I express my thoughts in my mother tongue?

It was then that I realised that my mother tongue, the very language that shaped my childhood, the language I had spoken all my life, was fading from my daily existence. Not entirely, but its essence, its depth, was slipping away. I found myself relying more on the dominant languages around me, and though I still spoke my mother tongue, it was increasingly filled with foreign words, as if my own language no longer had the words I needed.

There is no doubt that linguistic diversity enriches societies, developing cultural exchange and mutual understanding, but losing a mother tongue weakens a community’s identity, disconnecting future generations from their roots, heritage and........

© Dawn Young Magazine