My language 2!

I remember when I was two years old, I had started saying, "amama, thatha" and then I was also saying "A-Z". Before I even learnt my so-called mother tongue I was speaking a semi-international language. When did I learn my mother tongue? I guess when I heard people around me speak that, since I was three may be. I was never formally taught that language. Then there came a time when people around me changed their language to English so that I could pick up English words. I was always praised for speaking correct grammar or adding new vocabulary to my sentences.

Soon I came to express in English, the language that is most familiar to me, the language I appropriated from childhood. In which language do I cry? English. In which language do I laugh? English. What makes my communication most efficient? English. Soon my grandfather could not understand half the words I used. He asked me one day, "Kanna, what is this e-mail?" I started saying, "Thatha, It is actually a medium to communicate just like the actual mail service, just that.." My grandfather just stared blank. I was not speaking Tamil to him, I was instinctively communicating in English. Then I spoke in Tamil, using English for connectors.

English is in my system now. Fortunately the language has incorporated words like 'puja' and 'aarti' in its vocabulary, words that are familiar to my culture. Then I come to this new land of America where people say, "we pronounce words like this, You need to learn this way. English is our first language..." "Really?" I wonder, "Why would i unlearn twenty odd years of training in my language?" "What makes English my second language?" I ask. "Because obviously you are not an English nation", they say.
"As in?" "As in, you don't know English!", comes their prompt reply. "That is what I was born with", I say. "Really?"