Taatung Tatung

MY THOUGHTS

Is it possible to find a single parent these days who isn’t worried about their child’s utter lack of interest in learning regional languages? In my own little world, I’ve had discussions about children understanding their mother tongue but choosing to reply in English, choosing to learn foreign languages over Hindi, and failing to understand the underlying beauty of Indian languages.

Tatung Tatung is a great way to get your kids interested in Indian languages. This non-fiction book is a thoroughly researched volume of stories and tidbits about India’s diverse languages, and makes this book an absolute page-turner. It starts at the very beginning — how early humans communicated and then looks at the evolution of Sanskrit and other classical Indian languages (did you know we have 6 classical languages?). It looks at how Indian state boundaries were decided based on languages, a deep look at what is a refugee language, why we write in cursive, how a language dies, and finally, what efforts are now being taken to rebirth and revitalise Indian languages.

There were so many things I learned from reading this book! Author Vaishali Shroff has written a true treasure trove of facts that will stay with you long after you are done reading the book and will emerge the next time you have a conversation about languages. It also made me think of how we learn (or pick up) languages as children. The nuances and accents that give the language we speak its unique quality, and now we are all one big amorphous mass of English speakers.

This isn’t a book just for children! Pick it up if you have even a slight interest in Indian languages; you won’t regret it!