Babies and Language; a Personal Story

Recently my mother and I had a conversation about infant children and language.

She was excited to see that her youngest grandson, barely one-year-old, recognized her voice. She recently returned from a trip to visit my brother’s family in Denver, Colorado and was ‘Skyping’ with them.

It was remarkable to her, she said, how much his little brain processed at one year old. Then she told a story about me at one-year-old that is one of her favorites.

A few months after my arrival in the United States in 1980, my parents and I visited an Indian couple. They were from Kerala, the Indian state where I was born, and spoke Malayalam, my birth language.

My mom and I were in another part of the house, within earshot of this couple. They both spoke Malayalam. My mom says, she never saw me turn my head faster in my life. Apparently, my head whipped around immediately at the sound. Though I could not speak the language,  I recognized the tone instantly.

Though I could not speak the language,  I recognized the tone instantly.

Sadly, a few months later, my parents and I visited this couple again. But this time I made no indication that their language was something familiar.

I relay that story because it’s both sad and amazing.

Incredible because even at that age, little babies pick up the different tones in spoken languages. Sad, because I wasn’t able to recognize my birth language less than a year later.

I’m 36 years old now and gave up speaking my native language. And frankly, I don’t consider it ‘worth’ it to learn. I have no family there, and no Keralite friends close enough either geographically or emotionally to speak with. It also would do little to bolster my job marketability.

At one point I wanted to learn Malayalam because I thought I’d become more Indian. However, I’m not involved with the South Indian community here in Washington, D.C. and barely with the Indian community at large.

Sasmita speaks Hindi and Oriya, not Malayalam so it wouldn’t make sense from that standpoint either.

As fatherhood looms, I’m thinking a lot of about language, and how my child will be greatly advantaged because Sasmita is a polyglot.

She’s already told me that she will teach our child both her native language Oriya and Hindi. Maybe I’ll try to learn either language when our child’s formally learning.

You may wonder what Malayalam sounds like, here’s a clip. I cannot imagine speaking this language at my stage of life.

I’ll impart other knowledge to my child, and leave the foreign languages to Sasmita. Or maybe I’ll be the one who teaches them ‘pig latin.’

3 comments

  1. I get that you don’t want to learn Malayalam but there’s no need to be so derisive towards the language (really? You ‘cannot imagine ever speaking’ it? Because what, it’s crazy sounding to you or something?). I hope that wasn’t the implication. Even many of us non-Malayalis actually find the language to be quite beautiful.

    And last but not least, isn’t thatTamil in the youtube video, not Malayalam?

    Here’s a Malayalam song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G2VxhV_gXM

    1. Arjun,
      First off, thanks for reading this blog. I appreciate hearing from readers and am glad that someone besides my own family and friends actually read my scribblings here.
      Secondly, I was not in any way being negative towards Malayalam. When I said I couldn’t imagine speaking it, that was more out of the degree of difficulty, if I was to try and learn it at my current age. Not when I was born and if I had been raised in India. I think it’s cool and would never denigrate my own cultural heritage. I hope you understand that. I’m also sorry if that’s how it came across.
      As for the videos, since I don’t speak the language, I just typed in Malayalam into Youtube and that’s what I got. I’m sorry for the mistake, but it was an honest one.

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