Learnt Hindi from UP’s cattle traders while selling them tea- PM Modi at Vishwa Hindi Sammelan

Inaugurating the 10th Vishwa Hindi Sammelan (World Hindi Conference) at the Lal Parade ground in Bhopal, PM Modi called for steps to preserve endangered languages and pointed to concerns voiced by scholars that 90 per cent of the 6,000 languages world-over faced the risk of becoming relics from the past.

Saying that his mother tongue was Gujarati and not Hindi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said he had learnt Hindi while selling tea to UP cattle traders in childhood. He said that UP buffalo traders used to come to Gujarat for taking buffalos to Mumbai in goods trains and took them back as they could not be milked. He used to sell them tea and but interacting with them was difficult as they knew only Hindi and he spoke in Gujarati.

“So I learnt Hindi from them so that I could interact with them.”

Hindi to be influential language in the digital world

Stating that English, Chinese and Hindi will rule the digital world in the coming days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi noted that the language market was huge and companies could cash in on it by developing apps at the earliest. “If we forget Hindi, it will be a loss to the country”, he was quoted as saying.

Regional Languages must be protected

 “It would be good if workshops of various regional languages spoken across the country can be organised to include good words of those languages in Hindi.

“It is the responsibility of every generation to protect, if possible, conserve its heritage and introduce it to the next generations. Whenever something written/engraved is found on a stone, the archaeological department spends years on research to find out what language it is,” he said.