Ah English. I can’t think of another language that I both love and hate so much as it. On the one hand it has a richness of words which is almost unparalleled in other languages, what with readily introducing foreign words into the lexicon and then (most importantly) making them its own. A feat other languages should be jealous of. But then I am also quite loath of it. For it becoming the international language it is seeping into all the other languages, and Anglophone customs, good or bad, are becoming the norm. I know of no nation where this is happening more astutely than India, where, in my opinion, it is a disease in the minds of the Indian people, and something really needs to be done.
Now I make bold statements I know, but I am fully prepared to back them up. So here I go with that. First of all English gives way to a lot of arrogance. The embarrassment of the stereotype of the loud British or American tourist talking loudly at locals and then getting angry when they don’t understand them is part of this. But then you have pseudo Anglophone states where similar things happen. English is an unfortunate status symbol in India, but what makes it even worse is the local arrogance of the people. They assume themselves to be fluent (they can usually speak it well but they’re not fluent, get that through your thick skulls!) and so when they come to England for instance and speak in their thick accent with some archaic colonial vocabulary or (worse still) local slang and no one can understand, they are shocked that no one can understand.
Heck, I actually remember someone from Delhi saying ‘these English people don’t know how to speak English.’ You’re having me on, right, the nation where the language was born can’t speak the language it created properly? No, it’s your ego that is the incomprehensible entity here! It’s such an ego that is the hindrance of any Indian that goes abroad to study: they push their own ridiculous form of English on everyone, so no one understands, and will not take any corrections and so in the end they can’t speak to anyone other than themselves. Lessons would be accepting weakness so no one takes them. Result: no one has a clue what anyone is saying. Well done, spectacular own goal.
So English and its status symbol go much further than that. I remember once taking a train in Germany and seeing some Indians on the train (not something that is very common there) and sat next to them. We started chatting in Hindi about everything and nothing as you do. After a while one of them asked me where I was from. I mentioned the origin of my parents but that we had come from the UK. It was at that stage that he said in a think Indian accent ‘Oh, you are tourists from UniTid Kinggdomm?’ and henceforth no matter how much I spoke in Hindi all my responses were in English. It was almost as though the half an hour of dialogue had not occurred at all. Cue me trying to decipher what he’s saying even though it would be infinitely easier to switch to the language we both grew up speaking.
It’s not just the speaking that can be irritating, it’s also the ideas that come with the language. Because everyone speaks English over there sitcoms can be broadcast without any real alterations. And so you get the mindless stream of debauchery, promiscuity and vulgarity that is seen here all the time over here. Now because we see it all the time we realise that it’s sad and pathetic but over there because of the association of English with intelligence and money, the impressionable Indian youth think that this is all the West is about and that this is how to act and conduct your life in order to get ahead. This leads to young men thinking of women as objects of their pleasures (and that number of partners = manliness) and the youth in general that swearwords are the cooler than Jimi Hendrix shimmying across space playing the wildest version of Voodoo Chile ever. OK, I had to stop the rantiness for a second.
So if you ever meet the really rich young people of India that grew up in the really fancy houses, you quickly realise how the f word is every other punctuation. It’s a vile sound that does them no favours with anyone but themselves. On the promiscuity front I remember my father once telling bout how one night he was sat with some friends who were telling him about how fortunate he was to be ‘surrounded by British women’ who will ‘take their clothes off for any reason’. Sickening. But I suppose that was more to do with a number of things.
Anywho the major point is in the name of English, India is being robbed of so many things, much more than she is gaining. I remember recently seeing the tagline for MTV India which was ‘the channel your mother warned you about.’ If it was British or American I would have probably chuckled because it fits in with the culture here but it’s such a powerfully non-Indian statement, a nation where the mother is to be revered (at least that’s the theory!). And so I can’t really say that English benefits. Now you could argue that it’s helped the economy what with foreign companies outsourcing. One of those exports has been call centres. But remember about the English no one can understand? That’s right, they’re moving them BACK for that reason. What an own goal, India. So what are we left with? A bunch of people who speak a European language in their own way, a manner which means no one can understand them, no outsourcing coming and barrel of rotten western philosophies (it’s amazing how ideas such as stoicism haven’t become prominent, I just don’t get it).
Not to mention how English is used in the midst of Indian languages indiscriminately, there’s no organic evolution like there was with (ironically) English, it’s like bashing two jigsaw pieces together that don’t fit. I have to use more English when I speak Hindi with Indians, particularly the young ones, cos no one understands me when I speak it purer as I do at home!
In ’47 a nation apparently became free of centuries of oppression. But choosing English paved the way for another form. I can already see the tide of South Indian hate with even the mention of Hindi as the state language. Don’t worry I’m not saying that. I just can’t believe that a nation of that size, that could have contributed so richly to the world culturally meekly chose to continue using a colonial language when they could have had a fresh start. And what language should they have chosen I hear you ask…?
SANSKRIT!!! A young nation could have revived an old language just like Israel revived Hebrew (I’m not going to go into the politics about the state but that’s an achievement, regardless). It would have been a golden opportunity for the country to learn about its ancient precolonial past, recover literature and philosophies that had remained dead and buried for so long. Some of you will also know that Chinese is a UN language. Sanskrit had every chance of getting such a status, and then maybe the world would have known a lot more about yoga, science, philosophy and a lot more besides.
But they gave the status meekly to English. And now all languages are doomed. Yipee
Regards
The Vedic Underdog
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