Chilled beer?

If English were a person, it would definitely have MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder). Ancient, though still alive and thriving, English is the undisputed language of the world. Although it is the closest thing we have to a global language, it is impossible to have a truly global language which would be the same across all the countries of the world. English is not a chain restaurant - it is more like downloadable, editable software - which a country procures, and then changes to suit its needs.

I grew up in India, where English streamed down from her British rulers, blended with the language of the locals, the culture, the way Indian mouths formed the words of a foreign tongue, and emerged into a new form, with a new accent. This form, too, has its many variations. There is the marketman’s English- very coarse, very direct - with exaggerated pronunciation, developed for the sake of communication with outsiders who don’t know the local language. Then there is the sophisticated convent-educated girl’s English, which silences the r’s and pronounces ‘towel’ as ‘taal’, secure and a little snobbish in its belief that it is the right way to speak English. There is also the Indian-newsreader’s English, which is clear and pronounced, and oh-so-Indian. The real kind of English, though, does not mimic the American accent or even the British one; it is an embodiment of a second-language, and hints at the existence of another language in the speaker’s world, which is closer to the heart and soul.

After 14 years of education in the Indian English school system, I did not anticipate any problems in American colleges; after all, I had grown up watching Small Wonder, Full House, and FRIENDS, and followed the Oscars diligently. As far as I knew, I was set.

American English took me by surprise. People around me seemed to speak a language of their own, which was mostly slang, with some random recognizable English words thrown in between. It took me a long time to figure out ‘bad ass’ - a word that sounded offensive, but was always used in a positive context. ‘My bad’ was another such phrase - my bad what?! Of course, there were other substitutions that I had to make in my vocabulary to be clearly understood, which included switching from ‘dustbin’ to ‘trashcan’, or ‘footpath’ to ’sidewalk’, from ‘petrol’ to ‘gas’. I learned that you could be ‘up for something’ and ‘down with it’ at the same time, and mooning over someone was very different from actually mooning someone (not to mention the latter could get you into a lot of trouble!). The first time someone mentioned that I had an accent, I was puzzled; as far as I was concerned, it was others who had accents, not me!

There is also the matter of other languages gradually sneaking their way into English. Or, to look at it from a different perspective, the matter of English stealing words and phrases from other languages and making them its own. ‘Faux pas’ , ‘déjà vu’, and ‘rendezvous’ are some common examples from the French language, while ‘bazaar’, ‘guru’, and ‘chai’ are clearly borrowed from Hindi. (Aside: ‘Chai Tea, by the way, is the most absurd coffee-shop menu addition ever; it’s like naming something ‘Tea-Tea’ or ‘Wine-Wine’.) English is expanding and growing, at a rate that’s making it impossible for classical dictionaries like Oxford’s or Webster’s to keep up with it. Urban Dictionary is no help - it seems to have become a medium for dejected lovers to criticize those whom they detest most in the world, and entries like: “Brett=Dork, example usage: You are such a brett,” are quite common.

Perhaps one day, English will have spread and changed enough to be given other names in other cultures - and the cycle of creating a global language will start all over again. Or perhaps, English, the melting pot of all languages, will grow into a giant beast, forcing cultures to come up with code languages of their own so that ambassadors still have a way of making fun of their foreign host’s wife’s outfit.

So what’s the point of making all those random statements, you ask? It is important to have a global language. It is also important to preserve others. In spite of all the ridicule Americans sometimes face over knowing only one language (such as the famous joke which claims that a person who knows three languages is trilingual, the person who knows two is bilingual, and the person who knows one is an American), I’m quite impressed by the language requirement that most American schools and colleges have (even though engineers sometimes get away with claiming that Fortran, or even mathematics, is a language). Quite frankly, it is a little unfair (and unfortunate) for all the native English speakers to be victimized like that: the only reason other people of the world know more than just their own language is because English - a foreign language for most - has become the most common mode of communication.

And despite its universality, English is definitely a strange language.

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