Linguistic ability
Ok, I am no linguist, but I do have nuts and bolts knowledge of linguistic: two courses and copious amount of books. Anyway, today I was struck by a sublime feeling, and a feeling of “what it’s to be human”.
Before letting you know about the incident, let me explain you about Human Language. Like Spider spin web, birds fly; we human are born with our language skill; A thing unique to us. The only species, which can communicate, and entice emotions, through written signs. The only species, whose testosterone level can be increased only by speaking @$#$ $@$ @$@. Language is so unique to us.
Now, a little skeptic inside you must be pitching, that if this is so, than it means Indians are born with Hindi speaking language, and in England people are born with English speaking English. Well, the answer is YES|NO.
Yes, because we are born with a language, and no because we are all, I mean we all human, are born with a “mental grammar”, hard wired into our brain. This Hindi or English are just the clothes, through which we dress up this “mental grammar”. But beneath this, things remain the same. And I got a good taste of this mental grammar, and more importantly, how “hard wired” and how “innate” language is to human.
One of my colleagues, while conversing spoke,
“voh , Nula kaa excavation kaissa kurenga.”
And a thought struck in my head, the same type of strike, which Newton felt , when an apple fell on his head, rather than surreptitiously eating it, he thought , why it fall from the top to bottom. Well, my head was racing with this question.
Assuming, he did not have the correct Hindi word for excavation, he could have used the word “excavate”, rather than straining his tongue for that extra “shun…”
I mean, what he intended to say, would have made no difference, if he had said,
“voh, Nula kaa excavate kaissa kurenga”.
Ok, I thought and I thought, and I thought. (Thinking is not innate in us, only few like us possess….hail mitesh…)
I tried to use my linguistic observation skill, and made certain sentences.
1> Raghu nain ram kaa katla kiya. ( katla is a noun in Hindi)
2> Raghu nain ram kaa murder kiya.( murder is a noun)
3> “voh , Nula kaa excavation kaissa kurenga.”( excavation is a noun)
Hence my colleague, use of words was perfect. And if he wanted to use, the word excavate, all he needed to do, is to use “ka” instead of ‘ko”. Now, I don’t know about others, but before doing this analysis, my commonsense told me, what is correct, it is all because of the “mental grammar” inside us.
4> Raghu nain football ko kick kiya ( kick is a verb)
5> Raghu nain ram ko maara(thupud is a verb)
6> “voh, Nula kaa excavate kaissa kurega” ( excavate is noun)
Now it means so much to us, Upun Hindi English ko mix kur sakta hai, it’s a badhiya mix. koi fault nahin hoga, because upna mental grammar will take care.
But why I had a sublime feeling, is not because of this linguistic experience, but a slightly experience, it’s the experience, that there is so much inside us, so much potential we have, there are so much thing within us to appreciate this “experience to be human”, but still we care about is about our new iphones or wii consoles.
“Birds fly, fish swims, all we care is sit down and cry”
Language and Respect Neutrality
In office life, there are no juniors and no senior, what we have is work. In this environment, it becomes difficult to converse in Hindi, as the language is punctuated by “Aap” and “Tum”, where “Aap” is to show respect and “Tum” is to show your high authority. Hence, both words become politically and emotionally hard to speak.
Though the usual thumb rule is to, use “aap”, to those who are elder, and “Tum”, to those who are younger. But thumb rule is not practical, because none of us human are born with those age sensing senses, and our other indirect ways of age sensing, like wrinkle and white hair detection, fails in this cosmetic age.
I have started the rule that guys, with whom you meet often, call them “AAP”, and the guys, with whom you meet, regularly, call them “TUM”. But this again failed, as I find that, there are no colleagues or regular mate that happens in colleges. All there is are projects. Sometimes, you meet a guy regularly, when he is involved in projects with you, but when the projects get over, the meeting gets converted into once, then what “aap”, or “tum”. Call me hypocrite or Machiavellian.
The solution to this problem lies in ENGLISH (The complete “respect neutral” language). With no “ji” , no “aap” , and no “tum” . It is no surprise, when we see a heavy use of English, across offices all over India, in spite of having the largest per capita languages in this world. English, do not arouse respect nor demean the respect of the listener. Here action precedes the object (English – SVO, Hindi – SOV order). The language did not change, in presence of junior or senior.
But in India, speaking English has other dimensions. Everybody in India wants to speak English, the :bachelor wants English speaking wife; the parents think of their sons speaking fluent English; the waiters are told to speak in English, even if they don’t know the meaning and even amitabh bachan trying to mimic English in Namak haram. The reason is not the reason that I seek for, but the irony is, it is spoken to entice respect from the listener. As speaking English, and the degree of fluent English, that you can speak, shows not only how much literate you are, but how much “polished” and “sophisticated” you are. Hence we see the need of English speaking people in Banking, retail and all the marketing jobs, but not in Engineering.
In engineering, if I start speaking English: –
1> It will alienate people
2> I would be regarded a snob
3> And to add to all this insult, they will call me, that “I am preparing for MBA”, so may be start being look with pity. Poor guy, with a wrong job.
As high sophistication or literate people are rarely required in engineering, well all they need is a technically sound people, rather than pompous sounding guy. Hence English don’t work.
I don’t find any solution to the problem except cutting the cause of the problem. Like an evil dictator who hangs any voices of dissent, I too will make my heart cold and my mind numb, while dealing with juniors and seniors. DEVIL MAY CARE
Ravings on life 