Desi Babu, English Maimed

The BJP seems to be in a mulligatawny soup, and that is as English as you can get.

India's literacy is not something to be proud of, so questions about language are less about parochialism than about power.

The BJP party president Rajnath Singh told ABP TV:

"English language has caused a great lot of loss to India. We have started forgetting our religion and culture these days. There are only 14,000 people left in this country speaking in Sanskrit. Knowledge acquired out of English is not harmful but the anglicization penetrated into youths in this country is dangerous."

What religion is he talking about? Do believers forget a religion only because they speak a language that the scriptures were not originally written in? Nobody quite knows what the good angels, apostles and sages conveyed via unknown means that today form holy texts. These are available in translation in regions where they are not even the prominent faith. It is part proselytisation, part academic interest.

In India, many religions are practised and many more languages spoken. Is the BJP, under the guise of lamenting for a language, merely pushing a faith agenda?

Then, we come to the issue of culture. Culture is lived experiences as much as what society might deem to be 'cultural aspects', in terms of heritage and creation of indigenous ethnic art and mores. People imbibe these and add to them along the way. There is no single culture that can be forgotten or remembered. What we broadly term "Bharatiya sanskriti" (Indian culture) is an amorphous entity made up of all of these.

I do agree with Rajnath Singh, though, on the point about anglicisation. It is not dangerous — we do know of the dangers from non-English speaking Indians only too well — but it is limiting. However, bringing in Sanskrit here is tactical. To revive a dying language is one thing, to use is as a political tool quite another. It is part of the reclaiming our heritage agenda that is always kept on the burner. This is dangerous.

Of the 14,000 people who speak in Sanskrit, how many consider it their primary language? Do they use it in personal and professional interaction, assuming their profession is not propagation or teaching of Sanskrit?

Should the BJP not helm this movement and promote Sanskrit among its target audience? Give electoral tickets only to those who have some knowledge of Sanskrit. Start a poster campaign in Sanskrit. Use it to at least begin their meetings.

We know this is only to rake up some cultural issue as a preemptive election strike. Oddly enough, it will not alienate the acolytes, who know no language other than English, because they are being sold a dream, and dreams come cheap.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had gone on to say the situation under Congress was worse than British rule (my full post here):

"Today, there is an insistence on education in a foreign language (English), instead of education in the mother tongue. As a result, the importance of the foreign language has increased to a large extent in the country.”

English is as much a foreign language as Hindi is to someone from a region not much exposed to it, as South Indian languages are to those in the North, the East...we can go on about these languages that people speak today and not in the past.

Having said this, I do believe that we are losing pride in our languages and look upon English speakers as superior. There is a neat divide between the English speakers and those who use regional languages, and this is manifested in almost every aspect. The hierarchy should bother us, and I say this even as I write in English and am more comfortable in it than with other languages that I do know and some I try to understand.

However, in diplomatic discourse I think a unifying language helps a country like India. Japan and China are supremely confident and get away with it. We might not, and unfortunately when we use an international platform with Hindi it is tom-tommed as something special, instead of the most natural thing.

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This reminds me of The Times of India’s Teach India campaign I had mentioned earlier. Look at their promo. Why would someone ask “Englis aata hai kya?” and make a kid feel awkward? Does that person not know how to pronounce ‘English’?

I also don’t understand how a boy at the edge of opportunity will look for open spaces in walls. If he is at the edge, it would be a mountain or a ledge. Where do walls come in?

And all this is to get a working knowledge of English to open up “many little career opportunities” and help in the “surge forward”.

That’s really kind. No big opportunities for the little people, and are we not surprised that this would be a surge forward and not backward?

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End note:

In a debate, there is always room for some lighthearted moments. Madhu Kishwar had written in a piece: “The brown sahibs of today have made English their language for love making, talking to their infants and even scolding their pet dogs!"

I had no idea that infants could understand languages they were cooed in. And would dogs get a superiority complex only because they were scolded in English? Would an ordinary mongrel acquire a pedigreed halo if told to shut up, instead of "shanti"?

What language does love-making have? It is touch. It is visual and olfactory as well. Does moaning have a language? Yes, some words are used, but would it alter the intimacy if they were whispered in another language from the one the two people are at ease with?

For those who do wish to revive Sanskrit, I offer you two words that might help: 'siddha', achieving, could be used for climax; if the experience is overwhelming, you would be in a state of 'samadhi'.

Try it and tell me how it was!

© Farzana Versey

'Euro-English'

Imagine, how easy it is to get one language to become another. I don't usually post forwards here, but could not resist this...or ziz...from my inbox:

"The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the  British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for  improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become  known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will  replace the soft "c".. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump  with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should  klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in  the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f"..  This will make words like fotograf 20%  shorter.

In the  3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted  to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are  possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double  letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate  speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the  silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go  away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such  as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz  yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from  vordskontaining "ou"  and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil  sensi bl riten  styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil  find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali  kum tru.

Und  efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze  forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza  pepl."

Is English an island?

How English is English?  Will we ever know why an editor deleted several words of foreign origin from the Oxford English Dictionary? Was he a racist? Or a purist? In the socio-historical context, both these words have been used interchangeably a few times. Nazism and apartheid do believe they uphold purity of a race.

How does language fare as far as this is concerned?

There is a touch of espionage in the manner in which OED’s editor Robert Burchfield went about the process of erasing. Sarah Ogilvie, a former OED editor, writes in her book 'Words of the World' that he started a rumour that the earlier editors were resistant to outside influences. Her research revealed quite the opposite:

"I observed a pattern, that actually it was the earlier editors who were dealing with words in a really enlightened way. They certainly weren't these Anglocentric, judging kind of editors – they were very sensitive to cultural differences and they seemed to be putting in a lot of foreign words and a lot of words from different varieties of English, which must have been amazing for that day when colonial varieties of English were just emerging.”

I’d like to interject here. Foreign words are not the same as different varieties of English. A foreign word may or may not be used in an English context, but has been absorbed into it. Therefore, these are not “loan words”; they are borrowed, or more appropriately, absorbed words. Do they make the English language richer?

As someone from a country that was once colonised, but who has benefited from an education where English was the primary language, I used to try and stick to Anglo-Saxon words when writing, unless they were snatches of conversations. I did make a departure in my columns when I used Hindi headlines occasionally. The bold typeface in 24-point would stare defiantly at the reader. It may sound strange, if not cheesy, but the titles usually come to me first when I mull over the topic I am to write about. I discovered that it connects. Of course, overdoing it would not work.

I still avoid using common Latin and French phrases, but where would our courts be without suo moto and how would we explain that something is the raison d’être? We can indeed go on with several examples. The question here is: how malleable should language be? Let us not forget that it is not merely a literary tool.

When the OED was in its liberal phase, Ogilvie quotes a reviewer who wrote: “There is no surer or more fatal sign of the decay of a language than in the interpolation of barbarous terms and foreign words.”

Can we talk about these two in the same breath? Barbarous, says the OED, means “coarse and unrefined” in the context of language. It could include slang and curse words; they might be seen to degenerate the language. Do foreign words do the same? Is not slang based on specific colloquialisms? Swear words too, which Ogilvie states were in fact introduced by Burchfield, may have varied ethnic roots.  If they are not included in a dictionary, it could well mean they are not seen as polite or do not fit into the politically-correct paradigm. Are they, then, reliable? I discovered that William Gladstone had written a letter to The Times and found this word that we use so regularly as “vile”. Reliable is American. Ain’t that groovy?

Burchfield deleted 17 per cent of the words included by his predecessors and they were all of foreign origin. However, from the reports, they don’t seem to be particularly ripe for plucking out. Is it where they came from rather than what they are that bothered him? If he was so convinced, then why did he lie that those words were removed earlier?

Ogilvie said: 

"The only way I can explain him doing it is that, in the scholarly word of linguistics, the 1970s was when the first work on varieties of English started to come about. Maybe he wanted to be seen as part of all that."

It is interesting that while he had problems accepting other words, he led a dichotomous existence that stood up for those words because it was trendy to do so.

Can we not say the same about ourselves? We often use words that are ‘in’, even if we might not have any sympathy or understanding of their origins or what they mean to the societies they come from. Such words are demonised in the course of their literary and political usage. The N word is not uttered, but does it end apartheid towards Blacks? Why has every war become a jihad, when a jihad in its purest sense is not even an external war? Is fatwa really understood for what it is– an opinion passed as an edict by a group/leader that does not have universal sanction and is not binding upon all? Should languages where these words originate from object at their misuse? Even nirvana is employed casually, as though each time a person sits in the lotus yoga position s/he has attained the ultimate freedom from the Self.

However, the English language would be poorer if foreign words did not embellish it, particularly in symbolic form. Some might wish to pronounce a fatwa against them, but for those who strive to better themselves it is time for linguistic jihad. We may or may not produce a magnum opus but, to use a couple of Americanisms, wouldn’t it be fab if it turned out to be awesome? 

(c) Farzana Versey

Accentuated

Awwrrright, lemme roll mah ‘rrrrrs’ and see if I can do the yankee drawl. Not so tough. Better than getting the brain damaged. Which is possibly what happened to Karen Butler. One minute the Oregonian was in the dentist’s chair for routine surgery and soon enough she was speaking with an Irish accent. Apparently, during the period of sedation she developed the Foreign Accent Syndrome. It is rare and the “change of accent can be triggered by minor strokes, brain damage or even severe migraines”.

The ailment part of it does not sound good, but accents are a peep into so many worlds, and not just geographical. From Peter Sellers mimicking the typical Indian one – although there is nothing like a typical Indian accent; there is only a typical Indian head-bobbing – to the heavy guttural enunciation of Arnold Schwarzenegger, it can be used to analyse behaviour.

Why would an American get an Irish accent and not a Welsh one or from any other part of the US, a country where syllables dance in more varied ways than the stratified red and blue states? Was there some past connection? Was she drinking Guinness before? Did she have an argument about Gerry Adams or had she been reading James Joyce?

The classic battle, of course, is between American and the British English. Indians seem to prefer the American accent. It is easier to chase a word that runs over another than to figure out a starched consonant. I know of someone who studied at Oxford and returned with an American accent! Another thing that beats me is how expats manage to acquire foreign accents so quickly whereas those who come from overseas and live in India do not. I have friends who enjoy our food, our clothes, but they do not have the slightest trace of any Indian accent. Take the example of Sonia Gandhi. Even her Hindi sounds like pasta.

Those of us who are still in Anglo-Saxon mode cannot dream of going to the lav-a-tory, although the Brits ought to be happy that their political party is such an intrinsic part of the American ablutions. I will also not go according to sked-ule; I’d much rather ‘shed’ the mule to get to the schedule.

But these are nits. The Italian, the French, the Spanish have distinct ways of speaking English that make for rather charming pauses in conversation. And I love to recollect a conversation with an Egyptian who I had urged to talk.

“Ookay, thawk.”

“No, you.”

“Woth thu thawk? Yor olwiss farthing and farthing.”

It was time to indeed start farthing…fighting…if only I could stop lifing…laughing.

Kannada Calling, Mr. Narayan Murthy

Any Kannada books?

Infosys Chairperson N R Narayana Murthy can afford the luxury of emotions, among other luxuries. The Karnataka government wanted him to inaugurate the Vishwa Kannada Sammelan. Kannada writer Baragur Ramachandrappa was not happy with this. Murthy finds it “absurd to label him anti-Kannada”. These were the words in the report, but not by Mr. Ramachandrappa. He had written to the chief minister:

“I can understand them inviting him to inaugurate the World Investors’ Meet. His contribution to the field of business is immense. But what has he contributed to Kannada and its culture. The establishment needs to understand that they are organising a Vishwa Kannada Sammelana and not a Vishwa Karnataka Sammelana. The subtle distinction is that the former has a cultural context to it. How does Narayana Murthy fit into this scenario? He is not a cultural face.”

Culture in this context is specific to the arts and not to social mores. So, there is indeed a distinction. But the government wants a global face. Why must regional literary and artistic activities be held hostage to how the international community perceives them? Apparently, Mr. Murthy had advised the authorities to choose a litterateur, but they said it was not relegated to Kannada. In that case they ought to change the title of the event. Money power seems to be doing all the talking and also getting legitimised as the cultural façade. It would not hurt Murthy to be seen as such since roots have such currency, especially among global Indians. No wonder he said:

“Kannada is the language of my emotions.”

Emotions are private. They are not displayed at seminars and most certainly not as an identity card.

As happens often, it becomes a tussle between the local language and English. Baragur pointed out:

“He always quotes Chinese model, where English is being encouraged but says nothing about the fact that major IT companies there have developed software in the Chinese to ensure that their mother tongue is part of the next generation too.”

This is a moot point and not a lesson we are ready to learn. The Chinese have managed a fine balancing act and most of their enterprises can in fact said to be culture-driven, in that there is little compromise on that front. In India, at least in urban areas, we discourage regional languages; it is considered too vernacular.

This is not to dismiss English. I am writing in it. This is to give a holistic approach. But Mr Murthy’s take is different:

He said he would have 200-250 peons, drivers, etc asking him every year to get their kids admitted to English-medium schools. They asked him to take up the issue with the government so that the children of the poor can also become engineers and doctors. Murthy told the government: “Why don’t we have information on TV and press about the advantages of English and Kannada medium by qualified people. Let people then decide.”

How will people decide? Will there be elections on this issue? Or a committee will be formed? How can one lay down the advantages of a language when it is an evolving entity that is used to express several things at different times?

It is no surprise that peons and drivers would want their children to study in English-medium schools. They should not be denied it. But, as he himself stated, he studied initially in a Kannada school and went on to be what he is. Therefore, language is not an impediment. One is not so concerned about the poor getting into English-medium schools as much as the rich not being tutored at all in Kannada or any other regional language. Murthy is skirting this issue by firing from the shoulders of the poor.

This brings us to his role in Kannada culture. He may be the face of Karnataka and Bengalaru (Bangalore) more particularly. He probably does sponsor cultural activities. However, it is time the government stopped patronising people for the wrong reasons – whether they be entrepreneurs or even cultural upstarts who curry favour with the establishment. And if they want to showcase not just Kannada, then they can get whoever they wish to inaugurate the sammelan. Narayan Murthy may then not even need to waste his emotions.

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More on the 'worth' of CEOs as calculated by students here