We’re
all Banglish... eh?
By
Tawsif
English,
though nothing but a mere language has quite an interesting effect
on certain individuals of our country. These characters suffer from
the delusion that English is the one and only element that defines
the smartness, as well as the social hierarchy of a person. Their
this idea lead to certain idiosyncrasies that entertain the rest of
us.
That day I was
enlightening my younger sister with a solemn lecture on how authenticity
and truthfulness always shows us the right way. Bored and sleepy,
my poor little sib was fumbling with the TV remote, hoping I'd take
the hint and shut up. Suddenly, she switched into 'Africa TV' or something
where a lady, resplendent in her elaborate war paint, (who, I assumed,
also happened to be a news caster, rather than a cannibal), was mumbling
about some depression or something, in her Ethiopian accent.
'See that's the
point,' I cried. 'That African lady out there knows that she sounds
odd. Still, she isn't faking an accent because she wants to keep it
real.'
My sister looked
perplexed. 'Err... bhaiya…I think it's BTV.'
I rubbed my eyes
and looked again. Indeed, there was a small 'BTV' sign at the top
corner of the channel. When did BTV start giving news bulletins in
Ethiopian? I mean, we already have news bulletins in English and Bangla,
and people don't even listen to those.
I cleaned my ears
with a cotton-bud, and tried to listen again. I listened, and listened,
and listened. And, after twenty long minutes I came to realise that
the news caster was actually speaking English. Its just that she had
so much style and (ahem...) 'attitude' in her accent that she ended
up sounding African. Not that it mattered, though. With all the grammatical
errors in her 'English' people wouldn't have understood the lady anyway.
I made one last
attempt.
'Err.... If the
news caster isn't African, why is she wearing Zulu war paint?'
'I think, its
called make-up.' My younger sister replied.
Ah, well.
For some weird
reason, folks who return from abroad find it imperative to prolong
their 'i' s and 'u' s, a bit longer than necessary. Although this
is absolutely normal for those who have been staying abroad for a
longer period of time, for the 'One week holiday-ers' its nothing
but a mere excuse to show-off their dumbness.
I'm sure you've
seen those people who go off to America or the UK, or even Timbuktu,
and when they come back, a mere month
or so later, both their English and Bengali get heavily accented.
Some of the more extreme sorts claim to have forgotten Bangla altogether…"<>Oikhane
khali English ei kotha bolte hoy to"….
Some of us, who
are comparatively not fluent in the English language, suffer from
an inferiority complex. They tend to use bits and scraps of (grammatically
disastrous) English in their everyday tête-à-têtes,
and should you go to correct them the encounter almost ends up in
a fistfight. You'd expect them to be eager to learn the right pronunciation,
right? Wrong. These people take offence at the 'patronising' attitudes
of whoever is misfortunate enough to want to help.
Then again, when
it comes to the 'medium' issues, the English Medium kids aren't angels
either. Some English Medium kids tend to show off their fluency in
the language any time and every time they get the opportunity. The
outcome: Fake English Accent.
After G.W. Bush,
fake accent is perhaps the most irksome element the modern era has
inflicted upon us. I know this girl who has an E in her O Level English,
and can still say 'Hi' in three different accents. (English, American
and German, if you're guessing.) Considering the fact that she herself
has never been to any of these countries, I'd say its quite a feat.
I know this other
chap who's so addicted to Gangsta' Rap that he can't complete a single
sentence without muttering 'yo', 'holla' and 'homie' (not necessarily
in that order) at least five times each. When his traditionalistic
grandpa came to visit him from the village, instead of greeting him
with the formal 'Assalamuwalaikum Nana' he waved his hand in the typical
Eminem style and went, 'Wassup ma' nigger?' Now, he's in the hospital.
Apparently, his Nana's cane had been a rather sturdy one.
Then there are
people who are so fascinated by certain English words and leap at
the first opportunity to use them, regardless of their appropriateness
to the context. Thus we have those amazing places, like the wrought-iron
furniture store called Wrought n' Rust, a bread brand called 'Rank
Bread", a milk company that sells 'Acid Milk', and a men's salon
called 'Guys n Dolls'…and so on and so forth.
In contrast to
the people I've mentioned so far in this article, there's yet another
tribe who tend to deny the necessity of English altogether. They love
to pretend that the Western influence is spoiling the culture of our
country, and we can do much better without it. It sounds pretty good,
that way. At the end of the day, though, these very people dressed
in jeans and Caterpillars, and drool over American Burgers at Wimpy.
Talk about hypocrites, eh?
Before
I conclude, I'd like to clarify that I haven't intended to mock or
ridicule anyone. Bangla is our Mother Tongue. It will always remain
as our priority. But, in an era as competitive as ours, excelling
in English is one of the necessities as well. If it's dumb to exaggerate
your English prowess, it's perhaps dumber to ignore its usefulness
altogether. In the end of the day,
English is still nothing but a mere parlance. Perhaps, it's wiser
to keep it like that.