Father Tongue, Motherland: The Birth of Languages in South Asia
By Peggy Mohan
India Hamish Hamilton, 360 pages, Rs 699

India is among the richest regions in the world when it comes to linguistic diversity. The numerous languages (the precise number is bound to be a matter of debate) and their four (or five) families have been among the most crucial factors that have shaped the South Asian region. From culture to politics, much around us has roots in the language factor, though the roots often go so deep down that they remain unknown at large. Recent advances in genetics and genetic mapping of populations have brought to light some of these roots. Yet, for non-specialists the new findings are inaccessible.

To introduce non-specialists to the long-term trends shaping our linguistic and cultural identities, Peggy Mohan, a Delhi-based linguist, made a beginning with her first book on language, ‘Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India through Its Languages’ (2021). Delving into the fascinating early history of South Asia, this original and award-winning book revealed how migration, both external and internal, has shaped all Indians from ancient times. Through a first-of-its-kind and incisive study of languages, such as the story of early Sanskrit, the rise of Urdu, language formation in the North-east, it presented the astounding argument that all Indians are of mixed origins. It explored the surprising rise of English after Independence and how it may be endangering India’s native languages.

Mohan has now come up a sequel of sorts in ‘Father Tongue, Motherland’. The questions here are: How do languages mix? Does it begin in chaos, new migrants and old inhabitants needing a pidgin to communicate? Or does it happen more smoothly, in stages? And what is a prakrit? Why do we hear only of prakrits, and never of pidgins, in South Asia?

Mohan looks at exactly how the mixed languages in South Asia came to life. Like a flame moving from wick to wick in early encounters between male settlers and locals skilled at learning languages, the language would start to ‘go native’ as it spread. This produced ‘father tongues’, with words taken from the migrant men’s language, but grammars that preserved the earlier languages of the ‘motherland’.

Looking first at Dakkhini, spoken in the Deccan where north meets south, Mohan goes on to build an X-ray image of a vanished language of the Indus Valley Civilization from the ‘ancient bones’ visible in the modern languages of the area. In the east, she explores another migration of men 4000 years ago that left its mark on language beyond the Ganga-Yamuna confluence. How did the Dravidian people and their languages end up in south India? And what about Nepal, where men coming into the Kathmandu Valley 500 years ago created a hybrid eerily similar to what we find in the rest of the subcontinent?

One image running through this book is of something that remains even when the living form of language fades. Tucked away in how we think and speak now are echoes of our history, and the story of ancestors who lived hundreds and thousands of years ago.

Apart from her scholarly insights, Mohan’s writing is marked by her ability to take the non-linguist reader along, making her arguments accessible.