Incursion of English Language into Street Thamizh

                                                 Incursion of English Language into Street Thamizh

I overheard a supervisor telling his subordinates doing their daily task of clearing the roads of garbage (shame on those who throw wrappers and other detritus from their cars on to the streets) in Thamizh. This is no surprise as I live in Srirangam, a suburb of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu.

Yet, it did surprise me, the way the supervisor conveyed his message: “Ungallukku edhavadhu daut irundhal enakku fone pannunga (I transliterated).” The Thamizh sentence without the borrowed and accommodated words will go, “Ungallukku edhavadhu sandhegam irundhal ennudan tholaipesin moolam pesungal.”

In English, it goes like, “If you [in a respectful form] have any doubts, call me on the phone.” Note that “doubt” in English comes out as “daut”, there is a letter in Thamizh for “au.” This sentence suggests to English speakers and writers, “please use ‘f’ instead of ‘ph’”. I know why “ph” is used but when would it be time to try rationalizing English spelling? Never? 

Do you know that in the mid to the waning decades of the nineteenth century “tomorrow” was written as “to-morrow”? I do not know when that hyphen dropped out. Do we have to wait for such a time interval for “ph” to become “f”? That was a mild diversion.

When people speak in English with Hindi words thrown in, they call it Hinglish. Then, would I call the language in which the supervisor talked Thinglish. No, I would not.

I would rather call it Street Thamizh, wherein “street” does not connote anything inferior. It has the same status, if not higher than, the Thamizh taught in schools, colleges etc. The name “Street Thamizh” do not connote street, please understand.

At home, I, a Thamizh Brahmin, speak a mongrel that includes, quite often in a single sentence words from Thamizh, English, Hindi and Sanskrit too! I would be justified if I were to call it TamBrahm Thamizh! But, I would not. Or, perhaps I would call it, “Agraharam Thamizh,”, the Thamizh spoken in bad old times in streets on which only Brahmins lived.

No. I would call it, again with no imputation of inferiority, “Street Thamizh”, as distinct from the literary form. 

Raghuram Ekambaram