I hear voices. Voices in English to be precise – that’s cheesy.. am pissed off.. screwed up totally.. catching up old blokes.. Oh my ghosh.. its rocking yaa.. awesome mahnn..blah blah blah WOAAAHH. I turn left or I turn right each day I hear people conversing in English. Undoubtedly, English is fast emerging as the lingua franca and over the years Indians have surely developed a strong liking or if I may say love for this global language. English has always conferred many advantages to the influential people who can speak it right from the time India secured independence. Well this is certainly not about bestowing English its impending glory but its unrivalled importance to Indians and the associated tasteless pride on their own spoken English.
Each one feels that the way they pronounce words is the ideal and correct one and leave no stone unturned to prove it. They are so obsessed with the correct pronunciations and intonations that they completely jettison the situation and surrounding and jump at the opportunity to correct the other person. “Oh its not Photographer its (fo-tow-grapher)- with the British/American accent”. Absurd reasoning, justification and unapologetic ostentation go to the extent of their affluent schooling backgrounds – Convent, Military, CBSE board, State board and hence their enunciations are the right ones. Immature as it may sound this is absolutely true.
The fact of the matter is that in India how well one approximates British English often determines how well educated he/she is. From times when it was considered a matter of immense superiority if a person in the family could manage to write and speak English to times when a family was equated to being extraordinarily well educated if they conversed with each other in English to now where parents take pride that their wards don’t speak their mother tongue but only English, the transition has been painfully remarkable. I dread to predict what the future could be.
Not many of us know that what we speak in India is very less of British English and we have developed it in our own way influenced by our linguistic, regional and socio-cultural contexts. They are all mutually distinct varieties and I just hope that this uniqueness is valued and appreciated.
Very good point of view, I think language evolves with time, n it must be allowed to..rather than being stuck on to sumthing jus for the heck of it.well written.
ReplyDeleteU win ur self a book for that...but only if u return the Super Power first. In a world where language is often abused for the purity , the dialects and the accents...Mr Burgess puts it simply as "Languages are made by the people for the people, and people must use language as their needs dictate."
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Gigs
I must compliment you with the fact that you have a very good observation,But I would not agree with all that you have written but nevertheless you have you have penned down your thoughts well and I appreciate that...
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point of view. Today speaking in english is a way to show off. We are soo much influenced with the english in our b'wood movies. We re losing the politeness of the language. Appreciate your observation!!
ReplyDeletehey nice blog dear. didnt knew u could write so well . nice blog dear n keep blogging :)
ReplyDeleteWell and written and nice compilation of examples to state your point of view. I believe that we Indians have developed English in our own good way and it is really good as compared to its other originators. That is why words like Bazaar, Jungle, Pariah etc. have been made part of English. So it Hinglish which is one of the better forms of English.
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