Our mother tongue is our heart language. It’s how we’re best able to express our thoughts, feelings and ideas. That’s why the International Assistance Mission is passionate about literacy in the mother language in our partner communities in the Central Highlands.
In 2019 – the International Year of Indigenous Languages – our team in the Central Highlands ran a Hazaragi mother tongue essay and poem competition in six local schools. 1,216 students participated, and we picked 61 winners (one from nearly every class). We partnered with Hoopoe Books and the Hazaragi Literacy Organisation to give the winners each 11 billingual storybooks (in Hazaragi and Dari), as well as notebooks and pens to encourage them to keep writing. We were also able to distribute Hazaragi books to 4,693 students in 14 schools in the district, and to all 552 adult students of our literacy courses.
Below, you can read two of the winning essays!
The Importance of the Mother Tongue, by Masuda, Grade 4
“In the name of God who gave us life, who gives ability to the smallest hand”
The mother tongue is very important; it enables us to speak every day. We love our mother tongue, but will not compare it to other languages. Our language is our very culture. It is our mother tongue that gives us Hazaras our identity. If we don’t remember our own mother language, the race and tribe of the Hazaras will cease to exist. Everyone preserves their own sweet mother tongue. We also preserve our own sweet language of Hazaragi.
In the whole world, everyone preserves their own mother tongue: for example, birds and animals learn their own mother’s language! If we go to other places that have their own languages, we should remember and preserve our own language. Because of this, our mother tongue is very important, and we should recognise its value.
A Hazaragi Poem:
My love goes uphill and downhill
Looking for hay for two cows
The hills have your fragrance
What flower has the beauty of your face?
The new moon that rises
Reminds me of the curve of your eyebrows
Essay about the Importance of the Mother Tongue, by Sharif, Grade 10
Definition of language: Language is the means to understand and to be understood. What is meant by this is that by means of language we can understand something and make ourselves understood.
One’s own mother tongue is the best language, and is extremely sweet. We must respect our mother tongue, because the mother tongue is a language that is local and very lovely. In all of our lives, our mother language holds our good culture. Our mother tongue, the language of Hazaragi, has been passed down from ancient times to us as the carrier of our culture. We ought to preserve and keep this culture of ours. It has great importance. We aren’t able to understand the language of others, but we can understand our own mother language. Other languages are different. For example: they say “Padar” (father) and “Madar”(mother) but we say “Abai” and “Atai”.
A Hazaragi Poem:
There are three hundred and two stars in the air
The man’s son is outside the door
Father, Mother, go and open the door
It’s my husband, your son-in-law.
I have a traveler who is far away from me
I am the person who is pining after the traveler
Never mind that I am missing the traveler,
The heartsick oppressed person is me.
Hazaragi Proverbs:
To the homeowner one house; to the homeless one hundred houses.
A house full of women; the old woman has the bad name.
God knows the donkey, so didn’t give it horns. (God gives each according to its nature)
God takes His time but takes His fill. (Justice will come)
Too many midwives; the head of the baby is misshapen.
As well as working in the field of literacy, our team in the Central Highlands partners with communities to help improve nutrition, access to safe water, maternal health, and more! Take a closer look at our Community Development work here.
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