The death of a language

When Aaji whispered her lullabies in Marathi, her voice carried 400 years of our family's history. Now my niece Maya asks, 'Why don't we sing those songs anymore?'—and I have no good answer.

During my time with Spin A Yarn (www.spinayarnindia.com), I have met so many interesting people.

Meet Rajesh Murmu, a Santhal artist in Jharkhand who paints his tribe's creation myths—but can't teach them to his grandchildren because they only speak Hindi. Or Lakshmi, a 72-year-old Tulu storyteller in Karnataka whose epic poems about monsoon spirits will die with her because no one under 50 in her village still understands them.

These aren't abstract statistics—they're my cousin Deepak forgetting the prayers our grandfather taught us, my friend Aditi's toddler calling "dadi" instead of "ajji" because her Bangalore preschool says it's "more professional."

Every time we let a language fade, we're not just losing words—we're losing:

In Leela's kitchen (where "ambado" meant more than just "mango pickle"—it was her secret recipe against rainy-day blues)

Or Ramesh Anna's farm wisdom (who knew 17 Konkani words for soil types that agri-science still can't replicate)

Young Tara's confusion when her Warli grandmother describes "ghotya" (a sacred forest spirit) and she can only translate it as "ghost"

To every Delhi hipster who jokes 'My Hindi is worse than my toddler's'...

To every Mumbaikar who can order coffee in Italian but not in their mother tongue...

This isn't about guilt—it's about power. Your voice matters most because you stand at the crossroads:

You're the last generation who heard these languages at home, and the first who can viralize their survival.

The crisis hits hardest in moments like these:

When Chennai-based Priya struggles to read her late father's Tamil love letters

When Delhi schoolboy Arjun is mocked for his "village accent" in Bhojpuri

When linguist Dr. Basu records the last fluent speaker of Mahali—a 94-year-old widow who whispers, "Who will remember our stories now?"

But here's where hope lives:

In Kerala, 8-year-old Diya is learning Malayalam through her great-grandmother's fairy tales

In Mizoram, college students are tattooing Mizo proverbs on their skin as protest art

In a Mumbai apartment, my neighbor Mrs. Iyer hosts "Tamil tea-time" where toddlers learn rhymes older than the Taj Mahal

"A language isn't lost when the last elder dies—it's lost when the first child isn't taught."

So what can you do: Explore how your family's language story fits into India's survival struggle—visit www.spinayarnindia.com to share yours. You can even DM me.

P.S. to Urban Readers:

That WhatsApp group with your cousins? Start a 'Word of the Day' thread in your heritage language. That Alexa in your apartment? Teach her your grandmother's proverbs.

Small acts become revolutions.