editorial

A New Language for Hindustan

A NEW language is emerging all across India and more particularly among the elite. And, it is the educated class that is evolving and spreading it through its practices at public functions, classrooms, and seminars and at evening parties and get- togethers. Listen to people’s representatives in Parliament and numerous state assemblies, it is a new language they speak. Even hard-core mass leaders who are proficient speakers in many of the Indian languages that the public generally speaks and understands, less wittingly and more unwittingly, resort to the new languages. Even those Harvard or Oxford educated leaders often speak this new language.

When the educated meet at airports, railways stations, bus stations and any other public place, they frequently and instinctively use this language.   It is neither Hindi nor any other of 30 odd Indian languages. It is also not English as spoken in the land of its birth. It has no specific name, but for convenience, it is being given a name- Hinglish. It is a mixture of English with any of India’s recognised and established languages. One could listen a Punjabi speaking a mixture of English, Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu not during those informal chats, but also in the formal classrooms and seminars and other such formal occasions. A Tamlian or Bengali and Gujarati or even Kashmiri more often speaks this language. It could also be a mixture of English with any of the numerous Indian dialects.

Here take this case: Date February 11, 2006. Place English Auditorium of Panjab University at Chandigarh and the subject for the seminar is World Trade Organisation and Indian Farmers. But as it turned out though in a small way, some from the audience insisted the participants speak in Punjabi. Speakers including left political leaders and professors who tried hard to speak only Punjabi, failed miserably. Words from English, not those technical words, but common words came flowing from their speeches.

Listen to the debates in parliament or a state assembly or to the harangues of the political class, a new mixture of languages emerges.  Harangues of political class present a queer mix of this new language.

So when experts tell us that  "Hinglish", or the variety of English spoken in India, will soon become the most commonly spoken form of language globally, there ought to be no surprises.

A leading British language expert Prof. David Crystal, one of the world's leading linguists and author of several books on the English language says, "Already, a third of Indians are speaking the language, a percentage expected to rise in coming years. With the Internet spreading English like no other tool ever, and Indians at the forefront of the Information Technology revolution, Indian English will reach around the globe and take over from British and American forms.” Similarly so many Hindi words have found their way to Standard English dictionaries. And, we agree with the famous Oxford linguist Professor Roy Harris that there is nothing called Standard English. Languages in the past evolved through military barracks, trade and now through the Internet.  There was language imperialism when English and French came into India. There are plenty of vestiges still left. And now, this new language is a small answer to that if we take the other way that we mix an Indian language with some words from English.

But if Crystal sees the future bright for other variations of English spoken as a second language world wide as more and more people pick this, there is a genuine worry that rich heritage of many dialects and languages would be obliterate. Dialects and languages take centuries to evolve and each has its own peculiar taste and fragrance. Folklores, folk tales and folk songs of language differ from the other. Hinglish could be useful at the functional level, but this hybridization is hazardous for world heritage.

Crystal goes a step further. “I believe the mother tongue countries have had their day. It is now the turn of countries where English is spoken as a second language to take the lead.”  He called his lecture "The Future of Englishes" at the British Council in New Delhi where he spoke last year. Some 400 million people, mostly in former British colonies, speak variations of English as their second language, about the same number as those speaking it as their mother tongue. But with second language countries growing at about three percent per annum, compared to a meager one percent growth in mother tongue countries, the variations will soon have many more adherents. How about China where there is now almost a craze to learn and speak English. And the Chinese sure will have their variety of English, the Chinglish.

Another 700 million people or so speak English as a foreign language, though their control over the language is still fairly weak. According to Crystal some 1500 million people therefore speak English today, or a fourth of the world's population - the first time ever that one language has commanded such a vast following.

Crystal seems to agree with Prof Harris that since English has had all kinds of powers vested in it, it could beat other languages. The first was political power. With the spread of the British Empire, many took to English as a means of accessing political power and getting jobs. [Same reason as now] But large majority was forced to learn it by the colonial masters. There were no takers except as a subject in the universities where the British Empire did not have its tentacles spread.

Then you have information power, the power lying in scientific texts and manuals. Two-thirds of inventors during the industrial revolution came from English-speaking countries, and people had to learn English to make use of their inventions. Even today, about 80 percent of world's scientific literature is in English. Yet Russia and China made great advances in scientific knowledge in their own languages. Many other languages of the world have great felicity to store and spread modern knowledge.

Economic and cultural power helped English dominate the world monetary system from 19th century itself and in the 20th century also became the foremost language of cultural expression - be it through music, cinema or literature. According to Crystal, last half a century was particularly significant for the spread of English, with the growth of international trade and formation of United Nations, the world increasingly felt the need for one language to converse in. English took over this role, and many newly independent nations were also forced to adopt the language.

Crystal asserts, "But they did not just adopt it, they also adapted it according to their own culture and requirements. This has led to the rise of so many varieties of English. And in their rise I see the future of the language. The internationally accepted Standard English is of course there, but the real language resides in these colourful, creative local varieties. It is manifested even in written expressions of the language. Hardly any book written in Standard English has won a Booker prize in recent years." Yet, pray what is that Standard English about which this learned professor is talking about.

There is a real danger of this spread of English to other languages. Crystal admits "A language is dying every two weeks somewhere in the world today. Half the world's languages will no longer be spoken in another century. This is an extremely serious concern, and English has to share the blame.” He suggested a United Nations charter on linguistic rights of people, on the lines of the human rights charter, to save these languages.

This could be one way. But it is for the governments, writers and the speakers of different languages to come out and make efforts to check this onslaught and save their rich heritage. Governments could help the effort to translate literature, particularly scientific literature into different languages from English and encourage writers to devote their time and energy in enriching their own languages and those who love their own mother tongue should assert as Pakistan based Lok Bolian is trying.