But in dreams we understand without words fraught.
So what does language do, one wonders
Sapir-Whorf said it shapes our world-view, but "NO" say others.
The language you first spoke, does it inform you
How to perceive the world, does it limit you?
NS Prabhu said in a lecture, teaching a child
A language kills a possible thousand others - WILD!
Yet, the human capacity to create
Would best be seen in how we communicate
Sounds become words become meaning
Learning becomes thinking becomes being.
So when we go to school
And learn in a language not our own
Do we then learn differently, lessly?
Or does another language open us to more possibilities?
Both says research: Learn unknown concepts in a well-known language
Learn known concepts in unknown languages
The brain will build pathways neural
That will create a highway for ideas novel
Linking parts of brain diversely laid
Each brain uniquely wired much like fingerprints are on us traced.
Learn in one's home language or languages
Especially, in the younger ages
To understand better, to dig deeper, to think wider
To question harder, to laugh louder, to feel safer
All these part of the learning process
All these contributing to lifelong success.
In this age of migration and interstate marriages
A child's home may have many, many languages
English may be more spoken at home
So mother tongue instruction is not the right term.
But in many homes of India still,
What one hears is a language. One. Single.
That language may not be of the community
That language may not in school too have any identity
Then how does the child communicate
Away from home already feeling lost and desperate?
How does the child learn concepts new
When the tools to access them, themselves, feel taboo?
How does the brain learn?
How do thoughts form?
How do we communicate?
How do we create?
How do we reflect?
How do we grow?
How do we become?
Through language or more?
Questions galore.
Answers we explore
The writing may be mine, but we each have the floor.
— Written on 9 April 2026.
— As I read through a compilation of notes and blogs and scrap wtitings I have on Language and its teaching and learning, this kind of flowed. Am thinking of compiling them all as a reader with the help of GenAI.
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