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     Volume 2 Issue 41 | October 28, 2007|


  
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Feature

I am not ashamed of speaking Banglish!

Dr Binoy Barman

If you ever tune to Radio Foorti or Radio Today, you might listen to some alien forms of Bangla. It is in fact Bangla with an admixture of English. You might call it with the portmanteau 'Banglish' (Bangla+English) or 'Engla' (English+Bangla). It appears as a hybrid language distinct in its intonation pattern, apart from mixing of words. Now you may react positively or negatively to such kind of language. Either you enjoy it and appreciate the distinctiveness, or you disapprove it getting a feeling of bitterness or boredom. You love or hate it.

If you happen to have any negative feeling towards it, then I should say, you have something to ask yourself. Why do you need to hate it? Is it because it irritates you? Why need it irritate you? Is it because it goes against your expectation that two languages should not be mixed? But why do you expect two languages should not be mixed? Is it because you think mixing is bad or odorous? Why do you think it bad or odorous? Is it because it spoils the purity of your mother tongue?

Well, being a puritan is not anything wrong. Almost all of us desire pure stuff. We want pure food to eat, pure water to drink and pure air to breathe. We aspire for pure music, pure knowledge and pure love. We adore purity heart and soul. We want pure practice in every sphere though things may turn impure in practice.

Language is a special area in which impurity is the ultimate truth. Language tends to corrupt gradually with constant use in society. It corrupts at the individual level as well as community level. This kind of corruption cannot be prevented at any cost. Rather it is the normal course, and desired as well. It gives language dynamism which keeps it alive through continuous change.

A living language is always changing, or getting impure, you can say. A static language is a dead language. If a language ceases to change in keeping with the habits of its users, it slips into mass disuse. Greek, Latin and Sanskrit had to embrace the dead fate for this very reason. All the modern languages of the world were born with some process of impure mixing. We should remember that all the Romance languages like French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian were created from Vulgar Latin. Bangla and most other sub-continental languages were also created from 'Apabhrangsha' (a vulgar form of Sanskrit). English, the most dominant international language today, has a Celtic root heavily mixed with Old German. It was also mixed with Norse language in old period and French in the middle period. In fact English has borrowed words from all over the world, even from the sub-continent. We may find many words in English having close affinity with Bangla. For example, English has such words as 'ghee' 'veranda' 'bazaar' 'guru' 'mantra' 'yoga' etc. Now, for the sake of purity, will you ask them to wipe out these words from English dictionary?

A living language will show variety in contemporariness. It will have regional variety as well as social variety. Regional variety will include dialects, such as, for Bangla, Barisal dialect, Noakhali dialect, Chittagong dialect or Sylhet dialect. Socially, variety may be realised through 'register' which is associated with groups of people. For example, doctors, engineers and lawyers have their own registers with different lists of jargons. What you listen on Radio Foorti or Radio Today is also a register, which you may name 'FM register'.

A living language also manifests itself through what is called code mixing. Wherever and whenever there are multiple languages, there are mixes of those. It is the natural consequence. There is nothing objectionable in it. The mix may be found anywhere of the world two languages coming in contact, giving rise to blended labels such as Hinglish (Hindi+English), Spanglish (Spanish+English). We have got Banglish or Engla in the same way. Nothing is inherently wicked in such kind of mixing. Code mixing does not impart any sense of inferiority. Ability to use two languages at a time is a superb skill. It needs mastery of the two linguistic systems in questions.

It is intriguing to notice how two languages are mixed. Individual use of two languages simultaneously is characterised by what might be called 'code switching', systematic swapping between the two. Psycholinguists try to discover what kind of psychological activities are involved in such linguistic phenomenon and sociolinguists try to analyse the situation in which it arises with its distinct structure and style. Code mixing by community is a matter of special interest to the historical linguists. They discover that the mixing of two languages often gives rise to pidgins and creoles, simplified forms of intermingled languages containing common features of all. In today's world, examples of creoles are: Hawaiian Creole (English mixed with Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Portuguese and Hawaiian elements) spoken in Hawaiian Islands, and 'Saramaccan' (English mixed with Portuguese and African) spoken in Suriname; and examples of pidgins are Krio (mixture of English and African languages, particularly the Yoruba language of Nigeria) spoken in Sierra Leone, and Tok Pisin (mixture of English, German and indigenous Melanesian languages) spoken in Papua New Guinea (Tok Pisin is rather claimed to be a creole nowadays). You will find many such instances all around the world.

Banglish/Engla is a special form of bilingualism, unique in its characteristics. It is stylish and beautiful. I am very much enamoured of this splendid hybrid. Whenever I get chance I mix the two languages (Bangla and English) in my own way, and I also appreciate others' use. I am not ashamed of speaking Banglish at all.


The writer is an Assistant Professor, English, Bangladesh University.

 

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