Multi-Alphabetics: A Novel Model for the Simultaneous Learning of Alphabets for Five Languages by 2–5-Year-Old Children, Adding a New Dimension to the Multi-Languaging Concept and Method

Abstract

India has 22 official state languages and more than 19,500 mother tongues or dialects, but no single accepted national language, which makes India both a goldmine and a minefield of languages. Multi-Languaging, as developed by Seshi ( https://multilanguaging.org , 2021; https://youtu.be/SINDjAMp0pA , 2022), uses identical subject material across multiple languages to enable simultaneous learning sentence-by-sentence and word-by-word. This article presents a novel progressive model for 2–5-year-old-children to learn five different alphabets, with previously learned information serving as an anchor in each step. It is based on 444 images corresponding to two keywords for each letter in the English, Telugu, Hindi, Urdu, and Sanskrit alphabets (26, 51, 57, 39, and 49 letters, respectively). The images on which the process is based form the foundational “study set” for learning five different alphabets in four steps over a three-year period (ages 2–5 years). Step 1: At 2 years of age, children recite 444 words in their mother language after watching videos of monolingual rhymes or vignettes, without being encumbered by any script. Step 2: At 3 years, they progress to reading and writing the words they have learned in their mother language’s script. Step 3: At 3 1 / 2 years, children begin learning all the words (1,776) in the other four languages, transcribed into the script of their mother language, while watching and singing multilingual rhymes/vignettes, thus continuing to operate in the ambiance of their mother language. This model should present no major difficulty in accepting and learning the other (foreign) language words as their own, since they are dressed in the script of their mother language. Step 4: At 4 1 / 2 years, children learn the script of the language of the respective words, forming a clear association between words/sounds and the specific language. This method should be equally applicable to teaching/learning combinations of any other language alphabets.