The radio talked about the younger generation and language today (yes, the radio talks, amazing ain't it.). It makes me remember a time, when i asked one of my cousins, on why she doesn't want to speak cantonese. "Why should i speak cantonese?" she replied in mandarin. Indeed, why would anyone want to learn cantonese when so many people in sing.ah.pore doesn't speak cantonese? So why should i disagree with her?

Except that language is a part of culture. And to not see a need for a mother tongue, is to give up those cultural roots. Perhaps many people cannot relate cantonese to cultural roots, i will use an analogy. Think of an asian, who speaks only in english, and refuses to communicate in his/her mother tongue, and proclaiming that she does not understand the language, even though she might know bits and pieces of it. It doesn't matter what race the person is, chinese, malay, anything. These are the people we call kentang (potato).

One might argue that it is a person's own right to choose his/her own language. It is truly uneasy when a person can't speak his/her own language. But to deny it totally, to not see a need for culturally defining roots, that which makes a cantonese, cantonese and not just chinese; now that is alarming.

Or perhaps the barrier to language is enormous. People may feel embarassed when they speak poorly. And thus refusing to speak and thereby restricting learning opportunities. The only way to learn a language is to speak in it (reading and wrting aside, it is possible to communicate adequately in just verbal form). But i'm sure we didn't feel embarassed when we fell down when we first learned to walk. Or maybe we did, but we kept trying. Or perhaps we kept trying to walk despite embarassment because of encouragement given by parents/guardians.

I call out to all people who have siblings, friends or people around you who may speak poorly in a language, not to laugh at them, not to make cruel jokes (you'll be surprised at the amount of jokes that are cruel) which makes them feel like giving up. But to simply correct them, letting them know the correct grammer/verb/noun/anything as a form a encouragement.