Blame rests with Indians

WITH reference to the story “Indian languages are dying” (POST, November 23-27).

Although many of the so-called leaders in the community are blaming everything on the slowly dying Indian languages, a lot of the blame rests with Indians themselves.

Most had concentrated on English as, admittedly, it was the breadand-butter language.

It enabled them and their children to seek education, employment and a better life for themselves during discrimination in the apartheid era.

Learning, practising and keeping Indian languages alive was put on the back burner.

Despite some organisations making efforts to teach the Indian languages to keep them alive, the people themselves did not play active roles in promoting these languages among their children and the subsequent generations.

It would be appreciated if the POST could play a pivotal role in promoting Indian languages by running a weekly feature on conversational language – Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Gujarati and Urdu.

MAYASUNDERAM SINGH

Umhlatuzana