Valuable efforts of Kashmiri youth Toqeer Ashraf for preservation of mother tongue
Date of Publication – March 23, 2023
Abu Haram Ibn Ayaz Shah Puri
If a nation loses its connection with its mother tongue, then naturally that language declines
Man has been given many blessings by nature, one of them is time. Its proper use gives a person the heights of success, while those who ignore it can suffer very painful consequences. And sadly, most of the youth nowadays are seen wasting their time on social media. During this time, they either share their photos, look at the photos and other posts sent by their colleagues and start commenting on them, or they seem to be allama dahar on a topic that is even distant from their life. It doesn’t happen. The limitation is that their knowledge in this field is not more than zero. Thus they spend their precious time in such useless activities. By doing so, they not only harm themselves but also cause harm to their home and the entire nation. Among such people, there are some wise young people who understand the purpose of their life, they have a destination and a target and they invest their time in achieving it, an important milestone in the service of the nation and nation. Determine. One of these youths is Tawqir Ashraf of Kashmir. Toqeer Ashraf, a resident of Guso village in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district, uses social media platforms to overcome the barriers of distance and time and plays a vital role in the development and preservation of his Kashmiri language.
According to sources, Taqeer Ashraf took to social media to promote his mother tongue in October 2021 and till now only his Instagram page has ninety six thousand followers and every video he uploads is watched by thousands of people. He runs a page called “Keashur Praw” on various social media platforms. ‘Kasher’ means Kashmiri and ‘Pro’ means read or learn. Full Meaning Come Learn Kashmiri. On this page, he publishes poems of various Sufi poets and other famous Kashmiri poets like Sheikh Alam, Rasool Mir, Shams Faqir and Wahab Khar etc. with English translation for the purpose of promoting Kashmiri language. Apart from poetry, he also uploads Kashmiri idioms and riddles with translation, which the young generation is not familiar with. This is because most of the people on social media platforms are only familiar with the English language, so they use English as their medium. They are busy teaching mother tongue to everyone. It is said that Tauqeer Ashraf has been passionate about the preservation and promotion of his mother tongue since his childhood. An avid reader of Kashmiri poetry and a lover of his mother tongue, Tauqeer Ashraf is currently pursuing his Masters in Geology from the University of Kashmir. He said, “Although time has passed and I have grown up now, the spirit of promoting and protecting my language is the same as it was in my childhood, it has not decreased, but is increasing.” ‘
Explaining the purpose of his initiative, he says, “More than forty percent of the world’s approximately seven thousand languages are in danger of extinction and many languages have already disappeared completely or partially.” I do not want Kashmiri language to be included in the list of disappearing languages. So I’m trying my best to keep it safe.”
About his journey, he said, “Since college, I was planning to do something big to promote my mother tongue, but I didn’t know what to do and how to do it.” As time passed, I got the idea that why not create a page through which I can do something for myself and my mother tongue. So I started working on it in October 2021. Initially I got very little response from people, but as time goes by I am seeing great response from people.”
The youth of Kashmir love their language and they also like to listen to the poems of their poets but there are a large number of people who do not understand these poems properly, so for their convenience, Tawqir Ashraf released this series. Is. “We love and respect our Kashmiri poets a lot, but we are unable to understand their poetry,” he says. Kashmiri is our identity, if we continue to treat our mother tongue in the same way, then we will not be able to remain Kashmiris.
When Tauqeer Ashraf started this work, initially he faced some disappointments, but he had such success that now many non-Kashmiri friends from all over the world contact him and express their desire to learn Kashmiri language. are
Analyzing his region, Tawqir Ashraf said, “The number of Kashmiri speakers is decreasing day by day. In general, the people of Kashmir have lost touch with their mother tongue and do not even allow their children to learn and speak Kashmiri. They think that teaching this language to their children is tantamount to lowering their social status, which is not true at all. What is more ironic is that our indifference towards the mother tongue is not limited to our homes only, but much more. Educational institutions have also banned the use of Kashmiri language as a medium of delivery.
Giving a special message to his nation, Tawqir Ashraf said that there is an urgent need to promote the Kashmiri language today. We should inculcate in these children the habit of speaking Kashmiri instead of Urdu or English. To me, learning different languages is admirable and I am not against learning more languages but it should not be at the expense of one’s mother tongue. So it is the responsibility of every Kashmiri to promote Kashmiri language to preserve the spirit of Kashmiri culture because losing our language means losing our culture. If the language of a community disappears, naturally the culture of that nation will also disappear and there will come a time when it will have no identity left.
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Weekly Dawat – Issue 26 March to 01 April 2023