Truest to our inherent nature, suspiciousness is the biggest Achilles heel where we never try to introspect ourselves umpteen time becomes the victim of our own creation.
No wonder, Nagamese is your daily bread and butter but you very often tend to put it at backburner could be as good as questioning the fidelity of your loyal wife when, she had given her everything for your comfort and cause. This is because, you speak and communicate in Nagamese in your everyday activities but you bluntly denied the usefulness of it. What a shame! Surely, God must have told you not to use Nagamese but again you cannot do without it and still using for all communicational purposes. What a sin! It’s O.K. everything is fair in the land of protest (Protestant Nagaland)No doubt, without critic no public interest can be concretized however, irrational critics become double jeopardy to public interest and that’s where many good projects failed to see the light of the day.
Well, we never seemed to have had an iota of faith in others because of our suspiciousness on others even if their intention may be for our good cause. Similarly, as and when the Prime Minister of India Shri.Narendra Mody hinted Nagamese as a viable option for common language for the Nagas, all hell broke loose instantly, accusing him of trying to disrobe our identity by imposing lingo-franca Nagamese on the Nagas. Thus, the good intention of the honorable Prime Minister was put at stake, was for the fact that “leopard will not change its spot” that we become the victim of self-defeating. The fact here is a different picture, finding our lingual diversities, empathetically the honorable Prime Minister of India only hinted that Nagamese can be promulgated to the status of a language if we desired so but never arise the question of imposing something against our wills. Otherwise, under this circumstance he has the right to say; “Take it or leave it” if so, we will be the biggest loser isn’t.
Here it is imperative to understand that most of the languages and their scripts have certain fundamental derivation from some existing languages and scripts, for instance; Assamese has many similarity with Bengali, Hindi with Bhojpuri, Tamil with Malayali etc. So also the script derivation such as Hindi from Sanskrit, Assamese from Oriya, Manipuri from Bengali etc. Do you know? The most popular roman script too had taken many centuries to evolve into the present status of script. That, it was the Phoenician who invented the first 22 letters, out of which the Greek took 15 letters and added 9 of their own letters to make an alphabet of 24 letters. Later, the roman borrowed 18 letters of the Greek and added 7 more letters of their own to make an alphabet of 25 letters. In the process the Anglo-Saxon took all the 25 letters and adding two new ones and then later dropping one. That’s how we have 26 letters in roman script today. So also the English language is heavily laced up with many national languages as cited by many in their write-up.
Therefore, here the virtue of pragmatic ideas can only be well understood by person who had walked the distance and person who had carried the load through that distance. So is the article write up of Rev. N.Khashito Aye on “Nagamese becoming common language in Nagaland & Burma” Dated 7th Feb. 2016 that containing full of practical ideas and practical experience cannot be simply swept under the carpet by the intellectual Nagas.
Never mind, if somebody doesn’t like this pidgin Nagamese but at the same time they shouldn’t also over-ride the majority public interest, then I am not the right person to stop them from expressing their ideas within the ambit of “Freedom of expression” but humbly request them to understand the nuance as; “Understanding the basic is easy but appreciating the nuance takes years.”
Nevertheless, Nagamese as it is may not be suffice enough to qualify for a language status but if at all it has to be promulgated to the status of a language, there should be a committee under the banner of “Nagamese Literature Committee Nagaland” comprising of literature scholars and tribe’s prominent representatives that may be directly attached to S.C.E.R.T. with the SCERT Director as its Chairman. So that within stipulated time a basic structure be brought out and put through public scrutiny. Thereafter only the next step of imparting in school and colleges can be taken up. Of course it may take time but the entity is worth undertaking if at all we have to come to a logical conclusion. Well, my Naga brethren; please think and act positively for the greater Glory of our Posterities.
