1. WHY IS IT THAT WE DO NOT TEACH MANY NURSERY RHYMES IN INDIAN LANGUAGES?
Indian languages abound in nursery rhymes and lullabies. However, very few nursery rhymes find their way into the language textbooks in India. Most Indian languages practice some form of diglossia, and attach a higher value to success in writing. Our language teaching has a bias for written language and for materials reduced to writing. The school curriculum tries to relegate the spoken materials and performance in speaking mainly to the arena of platform speech and drama. In this process, use and enjoyment of nursery rhymes in Indian language teaching take a back seat. Yet, we all see to our dismay that English language teaching in elementary schools in India uses a variety of nursery rhymes in the kindergarten class and early grades of elementary education. Why this situation? Is it because our Indian language teachers do not really know many nursery rhymes in their own languages, or is it because that they have no ready access to nursery rhymes in their languages through audio and print media? Or is it because the teacher training institutions in the country do not focus on telling and singing nursery rhymes in pre-school and elementary grades in Indian languages?
2. THE ROLE OF NURSERY RHYMES IN LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN
Nursery rhymes play a very crucial role in the cognitive and linguistic development and socialization of children in any society. Nursery rhymes are distinct from lullabies. Nursery rhymes require and encourage the participation of children when these are sung or told to children. Lullabies are rather mainly listening materials, whereas nursery rhymes demand not only listening but also participation in reciting, singing, and acting out the rhymes. They carry and communicate certain truth values that will be subconsciously internalized by children.
3. NURSERY RHYMES IN INDIAN LANGUAGES
References to the use of nursery rhymes are found in Indian classics in many languages including Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu. However, we do not have any genuine, full-fledged, nursery rhymes from ancient times recorded in writing. On the other hand, several European languages have preserved their nursery rhymes in writing dating from 11th to 13th centuries. Whereas Indian traditions have viewed nursery rhymes mainly as oral materials, traditions in European languages freely transferred the oral materials into written form, and actively encouraged authors to write new nursery rhymes. Some of our nineteenth and twentieth century modern poets have created excellent nursery rhymes or poems for children, but somehow these efforts were rather subsumed under the label of literature for children, and these adopted the conventions of written language. In European languages we also notice a trend that the ballads and other types of poetry meant for the enjoyment of adults slowly assumed the function of nursery rhymes.
Rhyming in Indian languages follows certain patterns that are distinct from the rhyming schemes in English. Our rhyming follows not only matching the last words or syllables in a line but also in relation to other words that constitute that line. In addition, rhyming is expected to be coordinated with the syllables and words of following lines as well. Moreover, hard and soft consonants, as well as long and short vowels are to be properly placed to create a special rhythm that helps in memorization even as these words bring in some wit and humor, and mystery too. Yet in any nursery rhyme the process should be simple so that words, and syllables that constitute words, are easily sung with a melody, and easily remembered.
4. A PROJECT FOR THE CREATION OF NURSERY RHYMES
I have undertaken a project to prepare a Book of Nursery Rhymes in selected languages such as Urdu. These nursery rhymes are meant for children belonging to the age group 3 to 5 years. Since the children in that age group are not expected to read and write, the books produce in this project are essentially addressed to the preschool teacher, and the parents or relatives of children who would like to read and teach the rhymes to the children, and retell the stories.
Usually children love to repeat a rhyme, which is recited or sung aloud to them. They are not worried about the meaning, nor are they concerned whether the words they hear and repeat are familiar to them. However, one of the goals of this project is to produce nursery rhymes in Indian languages in such a fashion that these nursery rhymes will help build the children's language skills. So it is important to ensure that that the vocabulary and structure used in creating nursery rhymes are those fitting to their environment. Children must be familiar with these words in their natural environment. In some cases parents or teachers could give simple suitable explanations, concrete examples, to make these words familiar to the children.
These nursery rhymes should be short and easily recited aloud. Ease in recitation, potential to sing aloud with some melody, effortless and instantaneous comprehensibility of the story conveyed are some of the essential features that we will seek to incorporate in our new nursery rhymes. In this process we will not shun using new words, but the new words should be of concrete and immediate functional value to the children. The themes of these nursery rhymes should not only be full of familiar objects around them but also should be twisted in such a manner that the curiosity and humor will be triggered in the children listening to and participating in the singing and acting out of these nursery rhymes. The stories may relate to the environment and center around the flora and fauna. We will look for opportunities to develop some steps toward value education, which we plan to present indirectly. The basic theme of universal love - loving each other, loving all the living beings and protecting our environment will have a very important role in the rhymes created. Animals and plants and trees will be our characters, giving a fantasy touch to the story narrated and to attract the attention of children. Role play is another important factor that is to be taken care of.
5. THE FOCUS
The following gives a list of concepts that could be taken as themes for the rhymes.
Kinship
Mother, Father, Brother, Sister (both elder and younger), grandfather, grandmother (paternal and maternal), uncle, aunty (paternal and maternal) and friend (he and she).
House, Household Objects
House, home, kitchen, table, chair, cot, cradle, clock, plate, cup, vessels of different types, spoons and ladles, radio, T.V. etc.
Flowers, Fruits and Vegetables
Rose, lotus, jasmine, sunflower, plant, tree, creeper, bush, rice/wheat field, orange, lemon, apple, papaya, banana, mango, jackfruit, pineapple, pumpkin, ash gourd, cucumber, snake gourd, bitter gourd, yam, greens, drumstick, ladies finger, potato, chilies, flower garden, fruit garden, park, grass field, etc.
Animals, Birds, Insects and Other Creatures
Dog, Cat, lamb, calf, goat, sheep, cow, buffalo, tiger, lion, elephant, rabbit, deer, crow, cuckoo, peacock, cock, hen, parrot, duck, crane, wood pecker, mynah, butterfly, honey bee, squirrel, snake, fish, frog, crocodile, and tortoise.
Other General Concepts
Sense organs and their functions, games, colors, toys, health habits, festival, common and special food items, river, sea, pond, lake, hill, mountain, sky, sun, moon, star, day, night, lamp, candle, match box, cycle, car, motorcycle, auto, car, bus, train, boat, ship, airplane, ornaments such as mala, ear tops, nose stud, bangles and anklets, cap, frock, kurta payjama, professions like teacher, doctor, nurse, driver, conductor, and any other concrete objects or ideas familiar or could be made familiar to the age group.
6. IMPORTANT FACTORS
I would like to avoid an excessive focus on morals and ethics teaching than on literary enjoyment. The following factors will be considered:
- Simple language
- Colloquial speech
- Short sentences
- Short phrases
- Familiar words
- Short syllable-words
- Concrete meanings
- Less abstract notions
- Story lines
- Melody
- Easy pronunciation
- Rhyming-alliteration, etc.
- Humorous, and mysterious
- Some teaching of values
- Short poems
- Easy to interpret
- Reduplication
- Repetitive
- Animals
- Short story
- Simple morals
- Familiar motifs
- Folk tunes
- Funny
- Pun on the words
- Susceptible to dramatization
- Physical action and participation
- Mass participation
- Onomatopoeia
7. OUR GOALS
Our goal is to follow the individual genius of Indian languages, ethnic and linguistic communities, and simple imitation and translation of the nursery rhymes found in English. There is no doubt that the European languages and communities have a longer tradition of preserving nursery rhymes as a special form of literature for the benefit of their very young children. We need to learn a lot from their efforts and the available nursery rhymes. However, nursery rhymes in Indian languages will follow Indian linguistic structures and conventions. The metaphor, theme, storyline, rhyming processes, idioms and phrases all will have to be native to Indian languages. We need to illustrate these nursery rhymes with Indian visuals depicting objects and characters of the individual nursery rhymes.
A book of nursery rhymes is not simply a compilation of pages with printed words. It is a gateway to induce children to develop interest in reading, and this is better achieved not only by singing aloud and acting out the nursery rhymes, but also through attractive illustrations of the characters and events presented in the nursery rhymes. We need the co-operation and dedicated involvement of people like Marguerite de Angeli, who illustrated the traditional nursery and mother goose rhymes and published Book of Nursery and Mother Goose Rhymes (Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, 1954). Marguerite de Angeli wrote,
Saying or singing the rhymes seems always to open a long corridor in my mind through which I see generations of mothers going about their needful work, the children at their heels or in their laps enchanted by the rhythmic sound of words; words that are sometimes pure nonsense, sometimes full of age-old wisdom, or seeming to have lost their meaning because of time and custom past.