my relation to the Nepali language



Nepali is my first language in which I can comfortably speak, read and write. In addition to Nepali, I can understand two more languages; English and Hindi. Hindi and Nepali have the same origin that is Sanskrit. I learned English before I learned Hindi. Most of the private schools teach English from kindergarten in Nepal. English is taught from class three in public schools. I attended a public primary school and started learning English from class three. Although I would understand some of Hindi I learned it almost everything about Hindi only after I graduated from a junior high school.

People’s whose native language is Hindi do not easily understand Nepali but the reverse is true although the origin is the same and most of the words are very close. More Nepalese youth learn Hindi now than before because of their easy access to the Hindi movies.

I believe that I learned the words of daily use at home. My grandparents, parents, brothers and other relatives are the teachers of my spoken Nepali language. I learned basic writings at home too. People mentioned above taught me to write the basic alphabets and to construct basic words.

Nepali has three different words to address seniors, junior and people of the same age groups or friends.
I always wonder why there are so many languages throughout the world even though we all human beings? Did we use a same language to communicate at the beginning and deviate later? If that is the case what is the language we as human being used first? At what point the deviation began? I think human language is developed with the evolution of human brains. I believe that people has to communicate with each other when they start living in community together. They had to use signs and expressions to instruct somebody about something, which later evolved as language. But the question remains why the different words to express the same things?

The thing that fascinated me a lot in the acticle "You are what you speak" by Guy Deutcher is the language of the Australian aboriginals. It is amaizing that how they determined the direction. When I was in Nepal I could tell the directions easily because we have a lot of mountains and other natural objects. However, When I was in Australia and when I moved from one place to another I could never tell which direction is what. The same thing is happening when I am in the USA. I was considering a direction as the East but it turned out to be the west next morning when the sun rises. I live in sunnyside and now I am used to it, so I can point to the every proper direction but when I go to the Bronx or any other places the problem remains the same. I wonder how the Australian aboriginal would determin directions if they were brought to a country far from their homeland.