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Magazine
Face to Face
A language’s journey
MITA KAPUR
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Binoo K. John on how English changed its character as it was widely adopted after independence.
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Photo: Mita Kapur
High hopes for Indian English: Binoo K. John.
The mention of the name, Entry from Backside Only: Hazaar Fundas of Indian English, brought a smile on, taking me back to school days when we did Ezekiel’s “Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa TS”: “You are all knowing, friends, what sweetness is in Miss Pushpa. I don’t mean only external sweetness but internal sweetness. Miss Pushpa is smiling and smiling even for no reason but simply because she is feeling.” Binoo’s book on Indian English is significant in its contribution since it not only has a hearty laugh at our own peculiar coinages but it positions Indian English within a framework, with a distinct identity in its “Indianness” and its development down the ages. “Indian English, since the time of the Raj, was the language of the elite, a social marker. It became really big partly because Nehru and Gandhi wrote in English and people took off on reading their books in a big way after they died. The South absorbed English without any hesitation while the North held protest conferences advocating Hindi. It evolved into a mongrel language. It grew in usage as the language of technology and as it slowly filtered down, it started changing. It hadn’t changed so much before Independence. The osmosis from English to Hindi and vice versa was tremendous. People began using their own phraseology. As a language it changed tremendously when it trickled down to the masses,” said Binoo.
Two-way traffic
There are lots of Hindi words that have been classified in the Oxford Dictionary. Yet, there are no Hindi dictionaries that do the same. “Common usage of words like ‘problem’, ‘public’ in ‘aap ko kya problem hai?’ and ‘yeh public hai, sab jaanti hai’, are used even by an illiterate man. There are many such English words in common usage. Hindi doesn’t have such small subtle words for common usage which became a part of people’s tongues. So Indian English came into its own,” laughs Binoo. Like the United States, we aren’t a super power yet but a stage will come when we will have our own spelling for colour (color) and everyone will accept it, adds Binoo. “We have a rhythm to our Indian English, my book looks at English, what is happening and why the language is popular. It’s a totally in-the-face book.”
Plurality is a must for any language to develop. “Every segment of the Indian population has done its bit to make Indian English grow. A language dies if it resists change. English in India grew as it accepted and absorbed regional nuances. If dictionaries have accepted mongrel words, the parameters change. Folk elements add a lot to languages. Singaporean English has imbibed local speech influences just as much as it has in India. Of all, Indian English is the most fascinating. Indians use English a lot, it’s also the language of governance. Tribal usages have also seeped in. West Indian English is totally different,” he says.
Languages die when technologically you are finished as a people and as a society. “Hindi is growing as a language as well. After Mandarin and English, it will be the third most-spoken language in the world. India is a growing nation, in sheer numbers, languages will live. French is on a decline, it hasn’t been able to withstand the onslaught of English, it’s the language of technology most widely used. If India grows continuously as a nation, as a society, and if we do become a super power as predicted in another 20 years, Hindi and Indian English will grow together, albeit at different levels.”
Vast readership
Where does that leave us with a measure of our publishing industry? “Publishing in English is still in its nascent stages.” Binoo believes in the power of our languages in the States: “our entire literature in Indian languages is very rich. The number of stories and the number of writers is huge. We have a history that goes back and beyond Sangam literature. All newspapers, be it in Hindi or Malayalam, sell over a million copies. Telugu and Oriya papers sell about half a million. In Malayalam, a literary weekly magazine sells over a million copies, for a readership of one into five — five million readers a week read short stories in Malayalam! Regional readership may be in pockets, but if a writer has 10 million readers reading his story, what more can he ask for? You are looking at numbers, why do you want a man in London to be reading it? Why do we assume that literature becomes big only if someone in the West reads it? Translations can be pathetic, you have to be a writer to be a good translator and very few can do a great job! How many people will read my book if it is translated to Spanish, when I can have a million readers reading it in one of our regional languages ? Some authors in Kerala will have a larger readership than if they’re translated into English and marketed worldwide.”
For an author who’s shifted from travel writing, his latest book “was inspired by Lynne Truss’ Eats, Shoots and Leaves.” It’s a bestseller which shows there’s a market for language books. Under a Cloud: Life in Cherrapunji, the Wettest Place on Earth and Curry Coast: Travels in Malabar 500 Years after Vasco da Gama are both wholly Indian travelogues with fascinating and intricate accounts of the places. Binoo is busy traversing new shores, as Senior Editor of the newly launched Mail Today newspaper.
See the Literary Review, page 3, for a review of
Entry from Backside Only: Hazaar Fundas of Indian English
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