Yengyo, Desi Inquilab?

The latest version of the Oxford English Dictionary has a generous desi dose, with 40 Hindi wordsfinding a place in the English language. The dictionary includes entries such as bhasha, desi, naam bapu,chacha, langar, chakka, srimati and sindoor, ekdam, inquilab.

Apart from common Hindi words such as natak and chawal , other Indian words making theirpresence felt in the dictionary are bhadralok (Bengali for gentleman), tappa (Punjabi folksong), and Iyengar (a type of hathayoga ).
 
"The aim is to cover the English language based on the entire English-speaking world," saysco-editor of the new dictionary Angus Stevenson, whose favourites among the Indian additions are roko(referring to protests) and history-sheeter (a person with a criminal record. 

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But then there are words you won't find in any dictionary. Or even if you do, they would mean quite notwhat they are supposed to.

I have heard printers call a design "alwar" because it is "all over". The campus lingohas always had delightful expressions such as BTH (Bhaisaheb Turned Hep) and KLPD (which is too lewd, for me,to be spelt out) or BHMB (Baraa Hoke Maal Banega). Add to that the recent Campus slang of BKG(badan ki garmi, i.e. body heat) asking for which might get one OTS (one tight slap), raising thequestion "Kya fite hai?" and the advice to "chillmaar yaar" ( "cool it", as a more vernacular version of "take a chill pill"). 

Coke's "Thanda matlab Coca-Cola!" now or Pepsi's "Yeh DilMaange More"  or " humko Binnie's maangtaa" are classic cases of such mixed usagesmaking it to ads aimed at primarily English-speaking classes. And of course there is a TV soap called "kitnecool haiN ham" (how cool we are!).

And of course, if you are a "cat," you always "crack" a paper; "crash" when you sleep, great food is always "fundoo" or something that you "freakout on";  and anything which is not "fundoo" is "fart" which is not just a nounbut also a verb as in "farting" which basically means "bullshitting" and those who do itare "fartoos" who need to be shut up and put into their place by being told, "tul mat maar yaar";some guys are real "despo" (i.e. they take acads a bit too seriously. Acads? Academics), and theultimate reason for something done for no apparent reason is "chumma"; people are generallycalled "janta" and you'd find "hajaar" (literally, thousand, but, in usage,many) "pseuds" who watch a "pondy" and therefore are also called "frust" (fromfrustrated, but the u is pronounced oo and the t is soft) 

Quite " arbit" or "arb" you'd agree? But then that's been the wordfor ages. Short for "arbitrary," it has assumed a meaning all its own which could quite aptly beused in response to deep questions on the life, the universe and everything. Of course, there are also otherperennial favourites too - "sad" is another such word that has acquired a deeper meaning than theOED would have you believe. There's something about calling someone as "woh kuchh zyaadaa hii sadbanda hai" which isn't quite the same as "he is a bit too sad a person".

Yes, I agree, it's all "tooms!" (short for Too much!, which is short forawesome) or yengyo (Tamil, not Chinese, meaning somewhere). When faced with such usage, it's of course zeneraal(general) to saar'ender (surrender). 

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"Sunil, lagtaa hai ke mere system mein kuchh gadbad hai yaar" ("Sunil, it seems asthough there is a problem in my system, buddy")

" Arre, Bala ko contact karo naa" ("Contact Bala")

"Bala, why don’t you come here and check my system?"

"I am a little tied up right now. I’ll ask Srini to have a look, OK?" 

"Srini, Sunil-oda system-le problem-aam, nee pio paakkariya?" ("Srini, thereseems to be a problem in Sunil’s system. Would you go and look into it?")

"Iru, inda Gary kitte sollittu poren, illena moraippaan" ("Wait, I’ll tell Gary andthen go, or else he’ll stare at me")

"Gary?"

"Yamay?" ("Yeah, mate?")

"Sunil’s got a problem again. I’ve got to go and fix it"

"That ain't fairdinkum. He keeps bothering you all the time. You are al’right. Go on, no worriesmate".

The above is an actual recorded conversation that usually takes place in an office at say, Sydney or Melbourne inAustralia where Indians work.

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Microsoft has launched on 19, February, 2004, its Office package in Hindi and 9 other Indian languages,"empowering Indian users to leverage global-based Office applications in the language of theirchoice".

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If you can talk in Hindi or Bengali or Tamil, you are well on your way up in tomorrow’s global world. Orso it would seem. Dr. David Graddol, a leading English linguist, says that the present time is an extraordinary moment in thehistory of languages after which, "a new linguistic world order will emerge".

English will be backtracked and will be replaced by Chinese as the top language. Hindi and Arabic willfollow, sending English to the fourth place.

Our other Indian regional tongues, Bengali and Tamil will rank sixth and seventh respectively (Spanish isslated to occupy the fifth place).

Thousands of smaller languages spoken all over the world today are expected to become extinct by the end ofthis century.

The future is in the tongues of Asians, so to say.

It has been predicted by scholars that by year 2050, only 5% of people will be native English speakers.English will only be an additional language spoken by bilingual and multi-lingual people. Conversations inEnglish will be between non-native English people. Further, monolingual English speakers will be disadvantagedby the fact that multilingual people around them will conveniently switch languages for routine tasks andcasual conversations.

In this context, Professor David Hall, Head of Linguistics at Macquire University in Sydney, Australiachallenges the expectation that a student should aspire to speak English as well as a native. Accents are athing of the past. Hence, this is generating a rethink on teaching methodologies in academic institutions.

Professor Hall feels that since Australia is home to millions of migrants who are fluent in many otherlanguages, it will be a great advantage to the country in adjusting to the new world linguistic order. Hehighly recommends that Aussies learn at least some of the top languages of tomorrow, predominantly Asian, ofcourse!

And, three of the top languages of tomorrow are Indian: Hindi, Bengali and Tamil. Supplement this withEnglish, and you are way ahead in the new world linguistic order.

Often couples belonging to varying linguistic communities worry that their children speak a lingo thatmixes the languages spoken by both the parents, and so may end up not being able to converse in any languageproperly. These supposedly inarticulate bilingual or multilingual utterances are only indicative of the child’scapabilities to absorb and master more than one language. We all know how adept our Indian children are atthis when they go to school and learn more than one language.

My closest Tamil friend has married a Bengali man. She worries that her toddler is unable to speak a fullsentence coherently in one language as he is picking up Tamil from her, Bengali from his Baba, Hindi from hisneighbors and English at play school. I reassured her that there’s another Nobel laureate coming up!

Multilingualism will be an essential criterion in fifty years time.

It would be worthwhile to follow a multilingual approach in our educational system. In addition to learningEnglish, learning one or more of the top languages of the "new linguistic world" surely makes sense.

Tamils could learn Hindi. Let Bengalis learn Tamil. Hindi speakers could opt for either Bengali or Tamil. Mayall the others choose between any amongst the ‘trinity’. Besides, we Indians were destined formultilingualism anyway.

The mammoth People of India project undertaken by the Anthropological Surveyof India revealed that Indians have 216 Mother Tongues, which can be grouped into 114 languages. A majorfinding of the survey, not surprisingly, was that the vast majority of Indians are multilingual. Many canspeak or understand on an average 4 languages, an enviable asset in the eyes of the world.

Conversing in English and the vernacular, both at the same time is an art and skill developed and honednaturally to perfection by us Indians. You only have to look around you to ‘hear’ this- at home, in theschool playgrounds, college campuses, shopping centers, offices, films, on television channels- Indian MTV hasbeen particularly singled out as a model of "evolution in action" through the linguistic marriage of Hindiand English.

Many do turn their noses up at such intermingling of languages saying it reduces conversation to kitsch.But linguistic experts conclude that in a multilingual world, it is all right for us to mix English with ourmother tongues. It is just a matter of adding spicy curry to a bland course making it more palatable to ourtongues-in every sense!

Well, above all, we can stop worrying about our vernacular accents. It is perfectly all right for a Hindispeaker to call an early educational institution, "is-school". We can pardon generously when aBengali says he loves to have, " Balls Ice cream" or when our Northeastern brothers and sisterssing, "God shave the queen" or when our Punjabi brethren get all "sportive" at laiyar withplaiyyar. And it's pretty wokay when our Tamil Malini Iyer Sridevistates matter-of-factly, "The sun rises in the yeast".

G. Sujatha is a Social Anthropologist from the University of Madras. She used to teach "ThaiStudies" at a Bangkok University for many years. She now lives in Sydney, Australia