Is one English from One English Tongue Intelligible to
Another Pair of English Ears?
It
is a wonder that English, despite its severe deficiencies as a language has
come to rule the world (almost). The trick is in accepting any all variations
as legitimate. English people have great difficulty pronouncing words in other
languages, but that never stopped them. Americans have a mongrel English that
sits fine with them as well as the English people; not only that, American
mongrel has become a pedigree! How about that!
Thabo Mbeki, former President of South Africa,
answered when his name was called out by either the English or the Americans,
each in their own way. I am sure his name came out mangled enough that South
Africans (his tribe) had difficulty recognizing that it was their leader the
English or Americans were referring to. That never bothered the mouths out of
which the name rolled out. My thesis is this is why English survived.
Mhatre
is a common surname in the Indian state of Maharashtra. English people, and
Americans too, aspirate the initial letter of a word ‘C’ (class, clear,
communism...), ‘K’ (kleptomaniac, kind, kinship...), ‘P’ (political, partisan,
people...), and ‘T’ (tooth, trend, try...) For the sake of pronunciation, if
you added the letter “h”, pronunciation of ‘C’, ‘T’ and ‘P’ change
unrecognizably. But, in Mhatre, the native tongue, by itself has added an “h”.
What would the English do? Can do nothing! ‘M’ does not have an aspirated
sound! They may make either the “M” or the “h” silent. No go. The native will
not understand. Do the English care? No.
There was an Irish fellow in the apartment across the corridor. His name started “Cinn”, "Ó Cinnéide". “What?” I blurted out in all my innocence and ignorance. “Kennedy” he said. I do not know whether it was Irish Gaelic or English. They must, of course, be closely related and yet so different. There is no way one can derive Kennedy from Cinn... or vice-versa.
English
language is arrogance personified. Perhaps it was justified a couple of
centuries ago, Rule Britannia, but definitely not now, indeed for the
past century when the US supplanted the UK as the definitive hegemony. It would
be a hard stretch to Imagine, without the help of history, to think that the
two Englishes are related!
But
English even within the British Isles differs drastically, or even between
counties in England and definitely between classes of people. Those who can
recall the iconic scene in My Fair Lady and the lines The rain in Spain
stays mainly in the plain, and how the “ain”
sounds differently between any two occurrences would readily agree with me.
When
I saw the movie, I could not discern the differences but agreed that there
could be. When I revisited the scene on YouTube in recent times the haughtiness
of Prof. Henry Higgins when he describes the “grandeur” of the English language
cannot but grate the nerves of speakers of all other languages. Every language,
excepting none, has its own grandeur. What Professor Higgins said is the
perfect example of combination of arrogance and vanity.
I
had a Scottish mathematics teacher during my Ph.D work. He had such vague accent
and pronunciation, and also used strange words and abbreviations that for
American students in the class seemed as if he was speaking a different
language. I caught on to him quite fast and the other students realized this
when I asked questions in the class, because I understood his language but had
doubts in the subject!
I
wonder whether Daniel Craig took lessons in Scottish English before he was
accepted as James Bond. He must have, as he was English.
To
answer the question in the heading, yes, any English rolling off an English tongue is intelligible to any
other English ears that hear it, if not at the first instance but definitely over a
few repetitions. English is like a creeping vine. You would never know when
your walls are fully covered.
One
concluding point: What English had done to most other languages, Hindi could do
to other languages of India,
Raghuram
Ekambaram
No comments:
Post a Comment