Feature

M. Hamidul Haque and Dr. Bijoy Bhushon Das

Congratulations to Dr. Binoy Barman for the time and effort he put in on so called 'Banglish'. The reply 'Banglish debate - In defence of change and variety' (henceforth, Banglish Defence) published in Vol 2, Issue 14 of Star Campus on November 11, 2007 is almost double in its length of his original article 'I am not ashamed of speaking Banglish!' (henceforth, Not Ashamed of Banglish) published in Vol 2, Issue 12 of Campus on November 4, 2007, even though some of the technical terms like, code switching, pidgin, creole, have disappeared from his discussion!

Here too, the writer has continued with his efforts to impart his knowledge of linguistics to the readers. He makes some obvious points, like a language is always changing or we mix languages all the time, though we have never commented or disagreed on these issues. The title of his reply article gives a wrong impression that we are against any change or mixing of languages. In fact, why he brought the question of language change (in both 'Not Ashamed of Banglish' and 'Banglish Defence') in the context of 'Banglish' should be clear. Does he imply that it is because of 'Banglish' the language called Bangla is going to change and we should accept it as it is a natural phenomenon?

Between Love and Hatred
'Either you enjoy it and appreciate the distinctiveness, or you disapprove it getting a feeling of bitterness or boredom. You love it or hate it' (quoted from 'Not Ashamed of Banglish'): it seems Dr. Barman is caught in the trap of either extreme love or hatred; we certainly are not admirer of such Bush-ism (GW Bush: You're either with us or against us…). We did not criticize 'Not Ashamed of Banglish' out of any 'emotional' or 'patriotic' feelings; rather it was only because of our linguistic conviction driven by some objectivity that we felt motivated to come up with our reply. We do not believe that there cannot be anything between these two extreme emotions. In fact, the writer is clearly expressive about his emotion, at times he even gets too personal in his conviction.

Further confusion on 'Banglish'
If one reads 'Not Ashamed of Banglish' carefully, one clearly gets the impression that 'Banglish' refers to the alien forms of Bangla with heavy admixture of English words and peculiar intonation pattern spoken in FM radio channels. And when one reads 'Banglish Defence', one observes that the writer extends the term 'Banglish' to refer to the variety of Bangla that we speak everyday; the colloquial variety mixed with English words. His confused deviation and consequently lengthy usage of bookish explanations are clearly evident here.

The question arises as to whether the term can be diluted to the extent that it can even refer to the regular Bangla English code mixing. Is it only because of the use of borrowed English words, we speak Banglish? In such case, we should also consider the fact that we do mix words from Arabic, Persian, etc. all the time and hence, the term 'Banglish' may not be sufficient and appropriate. What should we name our language then? The writer also should be more careful in the use of the phrase 'hybrid language'. He rightfully observes that Bangla, English or any other language contains many words borrowed from other languages. In this sense all languages are hybrid; so when we use the phrase we should clearly define in what sense it is being used. As our criticism was based on 'Not Ashamed of Banglish', we will stick to its original connotation or denotation (as in 'Not Ashamed of Banglish').

Dr. Barman is quite correct when he is saying that code mixing and bilingualism may be closely related and code mixing may arise form bilingualism. But the point we raised was rather different; what is the status of 'Banglish'? He brings the discussion of many linguistic terminologies, but fails to relate it to one of them quite convincingly. So, the major bone of contention was the vagueness that shrouded over the status of 'Banglish.' It was unclear where it stands: is it a variety of a language or a special form of bilingualism? Is it an instance of code mixing?

The title of his reply also suggests that he defends 'Banglish' as a variety. The relevant question here is: is it a form that differs from other forms of the language systematically and coherently? We should remember that variety is a wider concept than style of language. If one observes the kind of language spoken in FM radio channels, one would be astonished by the (mis-)pronunciations of different Bangla words as they deviate from established norms. But these deviations are not systematic or regular as they sometimes pronounce the same words correctly. The alternations of sound segments are irregular and unpredictable.

We have two simple statements to make at the end. Firstly, the 'Banglish' that Dr. Barman referred to in his 'Banglish defence' is a very ordinary day-to-day matter which Bangalees, including us, have been used to since the British era; and for that there was no need of generating any debate on his part. Secondly, the colloquialisms and idiomatic expressions used in 'FM Banglish' (based on which he heavily propagated all his confused arguments in his first article and rightly deviated in his second one) may be understood as limited to variation of lexicon, and hence may be of style. Such phenomenon in language is nothing new. In our university days in Delhi, we even heard the popularly known ABCDs (American-Born Confused Desi) speaking a Hindi-English jumble. So, today when we hear our 'desi-born pseudo-Americans' speaking in the FM-Banglish jumble, we are far away from any apprehension that our language is either threatened by it, or will face any sort of sudden demise. It is our fair and logical, not emotional, conviction.

The writers are senior faculty members of English Language and Linguistics at AIUB, Dhaka.