Vice President, M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday emphasised the need for giving special thrust to the respective official language by every state government.
During a webinar on "Knowledge Creation: Mother Tongue", Naidu stressed on the protection and promotion of various Indian languages through the use of mother tongue in different fields from education to administration.
In a press release, he stated, "It denotes the identity, culture and traditions of the people. It plays an important role in preserving music, dance, customs, festivals, traditional knowledge and heritage.
Calling for imparting education in the mother tongue up to primary school, he also said that a language would gain popularity only through widespread usage. He said that it was a fallacy to think that progress could be achieved only if education was pursued in English. Research has shown that those who are proficient in their mother tongue can learn other languages with equal ease.
Naidu further said that it was also not correct to think that modern research could be conducted only if one was proficient in English. It should be noted that about 90 per cent of the top 40-50 countries in the Global Innovation Index are those in which education was imparted in their respective mother tongues.
Expressing the need to develop the mother tongues to meet modern needs, Naidu added that complex scientific and technical terms should be simplified in Indian languages.
Stressing the need to strengthen research on various Indian languages, he advised researchers to find the endangered words and promote their use in day-to-day conversations, essays, and textbooks to revive decaying languages.
Asking the teachers and parents to encourage their children to speak in mother tongue at home and elsewhere, he said it should become the lingua franca for all educational, socio-economic and other activities.
( With inputs from ANI )