Quote

I don't know Bengali perfectly. I don't know how to write it or even read it. I have an accent, I speak without authority, and so I've always perceived a disjunction between it and me. As a result, I consider my mother tongue, paradoxically, a foreign language.

— Jhumpa Lahiri

Sentiment: NEGATIVE

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✓Similar Perspectives

People are often shy to acknowledge that they are Bengalis. They somehow take pride in saying that they cannot speak or read the language.

— Mithun Chakraborty

Hindi is my mother tongue. Even though I do not get to use it as often, it's still a part of me.

— Anu Garg

I speak Hindi fluently because my mother speaks only in Hindi and Urdu.

— Esha Gupta

My mum made a conscious decision not to teach me any Indian languages so I wouldn't talk with an accent.

— Naveen Andrews

I feel I can express the nuances of the Bengali lifestyle and ways of thinking better than other cultures.

— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

I grew up, as many Indians do, in an archipelago of tongues. My maternal grandfather, who was a surgeon in the city of Madras, was fluent in at least four languages and used each of them daily.

— Aravind Adiga

While I can't speak Telugu, I do understand the language.

— Armaan Malik

I learnt to sing in Bengali, my mother tongue, then went on to sing in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati and every possible Indian language.

— Shreya Ghoshal

Because my parents are Indian, everybody speaks Hindi to me, and I have no idea what they are saying.

— Rajiv Ouseph

✗Opposing Perspectives

I speak English. I grew up speaking Bengali. This is the normal, the known, the obvious composition of who I am. Then there's Italian, this strange, other component of me that I've just created. It was a creative process just to learn the language, never mind to start expressing myself in it.

— Jhumpa Lahiri