Shame of Mother Tongue, Mother of all Shame

Among other reasons,due to loss of language prestige or confidence, taken over by shame or low cultural-self esteem, the ethnic person chooses to speak another language rather than his own. How does this happen? What really causes a person to stop using his own local language? Is it because speaking the more dominant language has economic value? Is it because the dominant language is the 'National language', the 'universal' language?(Is it universal truly even if it is not beneficial to the mother language at all?)Is it because the mainstream language is more advanced? Is it because of the educational system that brainwashed the student to speak in a foreign language rather than his own, to write in a foreign language instead of his own, and even to the extent of thinking and praying in a foreign language, thus putting aside one's mother tongue to a corner of one's soul, until it is blown away into oblivion? Is it because he thinks that the local is low class, uncouth, vulgar, such remnant of colonial mentality, still a captive of the humiliating history and the on-going conditions that marginalized and disadvantaged him continuously? Is it despair? Apathy? Helplessness? Resigned to fate, a loss of vision of an agreable future? Is it powerlessness? Unable to wield his own destiny? Maybe not in body, but in mind and heart, in soul and spirit, is he still unfree, paralyzed into passivity, apathy and indifference or perhaps, disillusioned into reactivity, blaming,cursing,regretting? Unbeknownst to him, in many ways he is virtually controlled and as enslaved as ever? And perhaps, it is the lulling chains of language through which the powers that be, in their domains and dominions, as in media advertisements (or propaganda), or governments, impose on him the ideas of injustice, inequality, prejudice, etc,as the normal truth and reality, that to which he has to believe and be subservient. He is defeated and weakened in spirit, in mind and body, black and blue, bruised all over, and 'dila ray way labod' (only the tongue is unbruised). That's almost a total beating, except for his tongue.

His mother tongue is his last refuge, last fortress, last defense. If his mother tongue is lost, unimaginable power is buried with it, such as the power to create...to name...to mean...to own one's own...to be one's self, as to be confident in one's own groundedness, in one's own cultural identity, belongingness to one's own community and people, etc. So it is, with out such powers... what a shame! What a shame! When ashamed to death, one's own pride and basic humanity is wounded dangerously. One who is down wishes not to stand up and for one who is standing wishes only to walk away, or react as to lose one's his mind perhaps in utter madness or hate. Perhaps, even, deep within he loses himself in the hate of his own self-image. Or simply, he loses the power of speech, as in being dumbfounded.

But such is the power of language, it paints in words and phrases, such images, including self-images, or cultural identities. Can't be otherwise, but it's a linguistic or symbolic creation. Just as well, the creative faculty for human language is a divine gift for humanity, a unique endowment, a birthright of every human being.

There lies in the deep within, the true Self, the being that expresses itself in one's own freedom, dignity, power, intelligence, confidence etc, and even simply in one's own language.