One English, many English-es

This world-encompassing language has many interesting avatars and approaches

October 15, 2017 12:02 am | Updated 12:02 am IST

Fundamental problem Taught for exams, not for life.

Fundamental problem Taught for exams, not for life.

A numberless many will not like it, but the truth is that a numberless many in the world use English to communicate their ideas and emotions. True, there are more speakers of Chinese Guoyu than there are of English — one billion against 500 to 700 million. But you will admit that as against only one country where Mandarin is spoken, English — whether as first language or as a foreign/second language — is used in nearly every country in the world and is the undisputed lord as the global language. Like it or not, but live with this fact. Admit that English is the only language of international science, diplomacy, and commerce. Didn’t Narendra Modi and Shinzo Abe speak to each other in English? Certainly not in Hindi or in Japanese. And likewise, Mr. Modi and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Wasn’t it English, not Hindi, or Chinese?

It is so everywhere in the world. When four European countries — France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland — started a joint truck making company, they chose English as their language of commerce. Just as when the German company Hoechst and the French Rhône-Poulenc merged in 1998 to form Aventis, the fifth largest pharmaceutical company, the two giants opted for English as the lingua compannies (language of the company?). Similarly, the German engineers and Chinese managers of Volkswagen’s plant in China communicate neither in German nor in Chinese but in English. Any wonder then, if there are more people in China learning English than there are people in the United States? The benefits of ‘Englishnisation’ being so huge, the Japanese ecommerce firm Rakuten chose English to conduct its business. The official languages of Belgium are French and Flemish but the Brussels airport has all its posters and billboards in English. Yes, like it or not, but live with it. English, as Jay Walker says in a TED talk, is the latest mania, the mantra that every Chinese chants to hope to “change my life, and my country.” Surely, you can find an “English Coaching Centre” in every city in the world, won’t you? The fastest spreading language in the world, English today is the most favoured second language across the world. In Europe, English rates highest, at 77%, as the language to know, with French coming next at 38%. Spanish at 6% is only an also-ran.

The Pole, Joseph Conrad, learned English at the age of twenty-one so as to be able to write his world-class novels. And rightly was he buried at Canterbury. Our own, Anita Desai, daughter of a German mother and Bengali father, chose English to write her highly philosophical novels.

And yet, and yet. There are a large number of Englishes, as many Englishes as there are English-speaking countries, and more. For within one nation exist a large number of dialects. The differences between them make them as different as chalk is from cheese; nay, as wine is from whiskey, as tea is from coffee, for both are good, the difference lies in the taste. If English unites the world, it divides the world too. Can you guess what the child in Cameroon is saying when he sings: Dis smol swain I bin go fo maket, or what the teacher is saying when he ruminates Foh dif oh dis graun oh foh no bi sehf? Well, the child is singing “This little piggy went to market”, and the teacher is expressing Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” sadness. If you “meet with” someone in the U.S., you will most likely go to a beer bar to share memories, but if you do so in Britain you will most possibly cause an accident and end up in hospital. You must “meet” someone, not “meet with” if you are British. When a movie “bombs” in the U.S., it is a huge loss; in England the movie what goes “like a bomb” is a great success. A vest in America is a waistcoat in England, and a waistcoat in England is an undershirt in America. In Britain, “to knock up” means to wake somebody up by knocking on their door, but in the U.S. it means to make pregnant. The Royal Mail delivers the post and American Postal Service delivers the mail. Again, while in Britain rubber means an eraser in U.S. it means condom. So, again be sure where you are when you ask for rubber.

Other varieties of English have their own soul-prints and make the whole language-scape so very delightful. Canada, like India, sometimes veers towards the U.S. and sometimes towards its British roots. So it prefers American cookies, airplanes and aluminum, but the British colour, skilful, taps, hen party, and zed. Australia speaks English which is neither British nor American. What is candy floss in Britain and cotton candy in America becomes fairy floss in Australia. The British flat is the American apartment but Australian unit. So does the London chap and the Washington guy become a bloke in Sydney. And remember Sheila means a woman. And when you hear a Kiwi saying to you “Kia Ora”, don’t forget to reciprocate with a hello. Don’t ask for tea in Wellington if you are thirsty because you will get dinner, and don’t forget that to “sink piss” means to drink beer. He is using Kiwinglish, that’s all. South Africa follows its own laws and whims: traffic lights are robots there, and quite like us in India a South African would show urgency by such expressions as “now now” and “soon soon”.

And now to India. Our flip-flop with English, our zig-zagging, our now-in-now-out with English, is visible at numberless places. Sometimes we stand by the Americans and use kerosene (even kerosene oil), cot, realtor, and one-way, and at some other times, we side with British and prefer colour, chips, tram, aeroplane. Haven’t you wondered why when you type aeroplane in Word you are advised to change it to air plane? And both we and the Americans accent ‘r’ in all positions. Apart from lending a large number of words to English, such as lathi, nabob, juggernaut, we have invented words that sound English but are nowhere people, like “lanter” and “bilty.” Lanter may be Indianism for lintel, but what is the origin of bilty? “Bill T?” Any teacher will mute their class with a dictatorial “pin drop silence.” Jean Paul Sartre may have known all about self and all about good faith and bad faith, but would he have known about “good self”, which every Indian seems to have? The latest ABCD goes thus: “American Born Confused Desi, Emigrated From Gujarat, Housed In Jersey, Kept Lotsa Motels, Named Omkaranath Patel, Quietly Reached Success Through Underhanded, Vicious Ways, Xenophobic Yet Zestful.”

Yes, don’t forget your p’s and q’s, but equally important, especially if you are a Korean, don’t ignore your i’s and ee’s because Kim Jong Un and Uncle Sam may resolve the nuclear issue, but the Korean’s lack of distinction between the short ‘i’ and long ‘i’, thus losing the distinction between “bitch” and “beech”, may not stop Donald Trump from trampling upon Kim’s tail if the Korean happens to visit a New York beach and cries: “What a beautiful bitch!”

(The author is a retired Associate Professor of English. vasishta.sk@gmail.com )

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