The tower of Babel
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English has always been my favorite language, notwithstanding the fact that it’s a remnant of India’s colonial heritage. Perhaps I should feel guilty about this, but I don’t. During my school days, I was fortunate to have some very good teachers, none more so than my English teacher, Mr. Nakulan. His command of the language helped cement English’s already impregnable position as my favorite subject of all (followed closely by Physics). My friends and I would discuss Wodehouse and Maugham during lunch breaks, though the world they wrote about, with its Ascots and gentlemen’s gentlemen, was so far from ours it might as well have been Mars. Nakulan-sir, as we used to call him, would sometimes bring tapes of poetry recitals to class, to show us how to read poetry aloud, and how proper pronunciation and delivery could bring the written word to life.
One of the things that Nakulan-sir would constantly exhort us to do, as an aid to improving our English diction, was to listen to the BBC. Among educated Indians of the time, the newscasters of the BBC were considered the gold standard in spoken English. We all knew there were many ways to speak English, and in fact, each state in the Indian union had its own patented method. Some had several. But if you wanted to speak the right way… ahhh, then you listened to the B-B-C.
Imagine my horror, then, when I tune in to the BBC news a few days back on my long lonely drive home, and hear a newscaster with a thick accent reading the news. First, I did a double-take. This isn’t the BBC, is it? But yes, it is. Et tu, BBC! Then fall, English.
I spoke about this to a friend, herself a language teacher, and she was blase. “Well, some years back, all newscasters in America had to be middle-aged White men with gravelly voices”, she said. “Diversity is a good thing.”
Yes, diversity is a good thing! I like diversity. I don’t want all newscasters to be middle-aged White men with gravelly voices. I speak with an accent myself, for the love of Webster. I also want some standard that I can measure myself against, some absolute yardstick, a Platinum-Iridium bar for spoken English. Since BBC has given it up, maybe Fox News will take up the baton. If not, we can all go start work on the new Tower of Babel.
Afterword:
I was joking about that Fox News part.
A very timely post as far as I am concerned. Three (yes, I am reading a lot of late) books I borrowed this week from the library are all about the English language for the most part:
(a) The Stories of English by David Crystal (2004)
(b) The Adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg (2003)
(c) The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutsch (2005)
All three have rave reviews and I can’t wait to read them. At least two of the above books were referred to in the previously discussed Eats Shoots and Leaves book.
I also have been a fan of the English language and owe that to a fabulous Jesuit English teacher - the Reverend Fr. John Manipadam in my junior high school. He used to make us write small essays and read it out aloud in class just for fun (no credit). He was a stickler for correct pronunciation and intonation. While my command of the language has never been that good (as yours for instance), I did listen to a lot of BBC and VOA using a shortwave radio. And I had read the complete works of Conan Doyle and Wodehouse before I turned seventeen.
Another fantastic book that I would recommend is “The professor and the madman” which is about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. It’s hard to put down, and a fascinating peek into the world of people (even madmen) obsessed with words. Haven’t read any of the above. Will check them out.
On a related note, I happen to be a big fan of the OED. But it’s sad to see that it is gradually sliding into irrelevance. The Internet came long, and the good people of Oxford did not adapt. Instead of offering even a deprecated version of their dictionary online for free, they stuck to their guns and demanded a fee to use it. The result is that now Webster’s is the de-facto online dictionary and wherever it differs from the OED on the definition of words, the latter’s position is slowly becoming extinct.
As far as online dictionaries go, I personally like The Free Dictionary. This is not user-written like Wikipedia but a company backed project. I am not sure what their sources are. I like the Firefox extension which you can add to your browser and then Ctrl-click any word, while browsing, and you will be taken to the word definition.
The problem with the appreciation of ‘english’ is that we take the current linguistic status quo as exemplary of ‘english’. This, in turn, harnesses thought via the language which caters to existing perspectival currents.
The problem with learning a language is that we do not only learn it but adopt the perspectival directives contained within it. From hereon, ‘good writers’ or ‘well-written’ articles are those that not only conform to linguistic rules but also exhibit those cultural ways of appreciating reality specific to the present form of the western mind.
Thus, the indian penchant for proverbs, rhymes and imagery, when included in an article is spurned when compared to western cultural norms. Thus, in our efforts to gain the approving nod of the the western mind, we amputate beautiful and insightful perspectives that are quite unique to Indian culture, and which, when compared to the west, would relegate the latter to the observations of a child, devoid of the imagery and styles of more profound minds.
Learn the language by all means, but import the Indian perspective which is best experienced via the language.
First of all, the post was about spoken English. The Tower of Babel did not house a printing press.
If the “current linguistic status quo” refers to the extant body of literature in English (or any language, for that matter), then I have to plead guilty as charged. How else does one experience a language other than in the framework of what already exists? Time travel, perhaps.
The Indian penchant for proverbs, rhymes and imagery, when employed in sophomoric ways by incompetent writers, results in cross-bred monstrosities which are rightly amputated by editors worth their salt, profound or not. Said penchant, when used without massacring the adopted language of choice (as by a Seth or Roy or Rushdie) results in works of surprising beauty, which have been recognized as such, in the West and elsewhere.
I suppose the old dictum ‘be liberal in what you accept and strict in what you produce’ is a useful one to follow in all systems that have this basic tension between change and staying the same.
English has done a great job in evolving over the years, especially helped by its ability to assimilate thoughts and ideas from other languages and cultures.
I dont want to get into an argument about the comparative worth of ‘Indian’ vs ‘Western’ thinking, but on a personal note - it is somewhat ironical that the large portion of my assimilation of Indian culture has been through English translations. Be it the Bhagwad Gita or all those great Amar Chitra Katha stories of the Mahabharath, Ramayana, Panchatantra. Brings back wonderful memories :).
Hmm…Wodehouse, Conon Doyle and childhood english teachers [sigh!]. When I read that Judge Roberts is an avid Wodehouse fan, I had not problems of him becoming a CJ (and how he is).
I still own the complete works of Wodehouse and Conan Doyle a and have read both of them a few times over. I have quite a few books by Maugham. Makes me want to relive my youth all over again. [deeper sigh!]
As for childhood english teachers, mine was the sultry and very very sexy Ms Janet De Silva. [deepest sigh!]
I thought it were French teachers who are considered to be the sexy types. Mine definitely was. [super duper sigh]
I am not unlike yourself. Personally, i can hardly speak any indian language though i can quite understand it. That is how my perspectives have been inseminated with the indian one. However, translations can transmit basic content but never the entirety of perspectives of which ‘content’ is a component. The same is not applicable to every language but is especially when it comes to, say, arabic, tamil, amongst others. In contrast, very little is lost when mandarin or malay is translated to english.
We must remember that language is a relic and corollary of perspective and which in turn can serve to replicate the latter amongst practitioners of the former. I, personally, have been careful in not allowing this to lead to my ejecting perspectives learnt via other means and mediums in my effort to communicate and understand via english.
Just an example. We have the word ‘transliteration’ to refer to the translation of characters, but we don’t really have a word to refer to the translation of perspectives which is generally assumed to be effected via the simple translation of words.
Perhaps a trip to the library should suffice during the commercial break for The Simpsons.
A discussion of the ‘Tower of Babel’ disjointed from the present is irrelevant. Btw, neither was ‘english’ a part of the TOB experience unless you have historical documents to prove otherwise and thus link its relevance to the current discussion. Additionally, the post was not about ’spoken english’ but learning it. If you are the writer of the post, i suggest you re-read it.
That is subjective. You have yet to substantiate it.
You forget that language is a work in progress just like culture. What you call ‘massacring’ is the language of those who cower being the familiar for fear of being intellectually challenged by the novel. The fusion of languages when the more insightful elements are taken on board can only lead to the enrichment of perspectives via an enriched language. Perhaps, you are of the impression that various languages were created on the 8th Day after God had taken Her/His much needed rest and therefore deserving of appreciating them in themselves.
Touche!