Straight Talk by Nimfa L. Estrellado Language is wine upon the lips. The single greatest invention of human kind is attributed to fire by...
by Nimfa L. Estrellado
Language is wine upon the lips. The single greatest invention of human kind is attributed to fire by some, and to wheel by others. Their claims may have the weight of the scientific community but for the masses, the language is the real innovation.
The language brought the dawn of knowledge; turning over the leaf to doubting, questioning, reasoning, explaining and understanding against the centuries old simple animalistic instinct of following. What use could be any scientific invention to human kind if we were unable to communicate? Despite being a product of human invention, the language encompasses the entire human needs of communication and expression. That is the real beauty of the language.
Since the time that has solid recorded evidence, the language has been used as the basic tool for communication. As the literal definition of language goes it is a set of symbols, figures, and, or rules that can be manipulated to give meaning to the vague ideas.
Mother tongue or first language is perhaps the most favorite thing for any person. The question of language has resulted into many conflicts and discontentment. Today, the world has become a global village. Thanks to the advancement of communication system and technology. Every country is dependent on others for trade and commerce, education, politics etc. As a result, we have to constantly communicate with other countries and speakers of other languages. Third world countries like us have to depend on foreign aid because we are not self-sufficient that’s why we have to be in contact with the speakers of other languages.
But I am not in favor of Philippine Educational system slashing off the Filipino language as a mandatory subject in college and making the Korean language an elective in high school is apparently a thing now.
My stand on that issue is that there is nothing wrong with giving option for high school students (they are capable to discern which language they want to learn aside from official languages in a country over those kids) to learn Korean and other languages, but it would be better not to ignore our own languages, heritages, histories, and literature pertaining language learning. I believe that language learning should not be based on utilitarian economic basis alone, but also to grasp our identity as a Filipino through learning foreign languages related to our culture and history. Filipino language itself is in life support, we should not put a nail in its coffin.
