Recently I attended a classical/folk music event. Here's how some of the lyrics in the middle of one of the numbers went-
Chhaati se lagake tumko rakh lenge near
ab to aaja dear
Soulful and soothing are not words one would use to describe a bhojpuri song on a usual basis. However, it was a song from an era before bad taste and the film industry happened. What drew my attention most was the lyrics. It started to end with hindi words such as 'peehar' and then came the english ones 'near' and 'dear' for the rhyme. They were perfectly at home.
A fair example of the plasticine nature of language and culture. While human beings grow into more rigid,more stringent,more intolerant avatars,ironically (irony,as you will later see,is a staple), language and culture seem to follow the Darwinian principle of Evolve-or-perish enchantingly,and yet,tenderly.
We trivialize and infantilize both of them beyond belief. Whilst no one can deny the necessity of preserving certain fast disappearing languages and cultures,the basic nature of all of them is subtle,accumulating transition,for what it does mirror is a land,its people and the hands of time. The evolving complex compound does not show properties of any of the original elements yet somehow preserves its grace and history-the all important soul. It is as impossible to dig out the 'unwanted' matter-there aren't any sediments. May be the Dravidians were the first people. May be the Aryans came later. May be the Moguls came,saw,conquered and settled. May be the British colonized this country for more than a 100 years. May be as we speak now we are being covered by an opalescent veil of 'the west'.The truth could be that it does not matter. None is an addition to an already satisfactory mix-rather they're what make the mix and keep on changing and enriching it. Ironic, considering the fact that it is finally 'we' who create language and culture but are somehow slaves to homeostasis in a way they can never be.
It is for this purpose that we come across the numerous succulent ironies which dot our daily lives like capitals on a map. It is in a Ramdev Baba declaring that gays are physically ill in a country where the son who 'took birth' out of the union of Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu-Lord Ayyappa-has his own temples where hundreds of people flock daily. It is in that Barber bridge in Chennai which was originally named 'Hamilton bridge' by the british,roughened by mundane tamil to 'Ambattan bridge'-ambattan being the tamil word for barber-and in a full circle coming back to barber. It is in all those tourists and Indians who see India symbolically in the Taj Mahal without being aware of the secondary citizenship that most Indian muslims endure. It is in all the Los Angeleses and San franciscos of the world which will not change no matter how America feels about its mexican immigrants.
Status:-Overwhelmed with all the effortless grace of the universe.
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very interesting subject to take on! i agree, all the time a new "culture" emerges, which is forever a mix of old elements and new.
ReplyDeleteyet, as an old language dies or begins to fade away, something is lost. The hindi-english lingo in emergence today, somehow doesn't have a richness or sublimity of meaning for me. and it is not just now this is happening, since some english words are deeply entrenched in daily language even in ruralities (i am forever on the lookout for village punjabis using english words, and they always are!).
it is a tough question, does perpetual hybridization always yeild a product better than the original? in language, new words are added, from other languages, and as new words are coined. but old words constantly fall into disuse. is the ultimate product richer than the original? i wonder! the world is undoubtedly headed towards a single global language, as communication is making it shrink to a dot. this will be good in a way, since a world with a common language will have lesser artificial barriers.
there are historical examples of hybridization yeilding a product worse than the original. the Greek civilization of 6 BC was more advanced in its thought and science than civilizations a thousand years thereafter. yet it intermingled with sorrounding civilizations and faded away.
in any case, no matter how much you try to protect language, artforms or even "culture", at best you can obstruct change a little, but it is bound to come.
(sorry for the rant!)
Thanks for the generous comment!
ReplyDeleteYou are not alone in the grieveing of native languages (and culture) upon the arrival of English. I might suggest 3 things to make it better.
The first-Even if it may seem that Hindi (and other Indian languages) are being hybridized for the first time,it is not so. the Hindi that we consider 'unadulterated' in the absence of english elements is still not 'pure' if you wish to put it that way. It has gone through many such transformations in the past and is currently a cumulative culmination of all of them. There are words and grammar techniques of Urdu,Farsi even German both because of the common root language Sanskrit and the overlapping of languages and cultures. This might be just another of its costume changes.
Secondly,whether the product of such a union is 'better' or 'more enriched' is hardly the point. It is not akin to human beings and therefore a high rate end product is not the goal. The goal,if any at all,is to mirror a people and their transitions and subsequently become a way of Life. As far as culture and language are concerned,my personal belief is that there are no superiors and no inferiors. So one need to try to change or protect one form from turning into the other,or two against each other.
Thirdly-You must've noticed that the English spoken in,say,the USA or the UK is very different from what is spoken in India,even apart from the accent. What is happening is not an aping but a kind of internalization. Even if we do find a good reason to try to copy them,it is impossible to still see India in it-a fact that is reassuring for some and loathsome for others.
Names seem to be the most democratic of things, even tho' they're so specific..its almost a paradox..
ReplyDeletewonderful post this, one of my favourites here..
we're so full of contradictions, its maddening! and beautiful! :)
I do not agree with your definition of the "goal" of language. Yes, mirroring society is inherent to the evolution of language, but to say it is the only one seems a little short-sighted to me.
ReplyDeleteThe first example that comes to mind is the Tamil language. Whereas Hindi has "evolved" over time, Tamil probably has too. But it has not been "lost" to the evolution process; rather even with the assimilations, it has retained its 3000 year old characteristics. That is no mean feat, and probably one of the reasons why Tamilians are so proudly and zealously guarding their traditions and language from what they see as a process of bastardization.
While I do agree that language and culture evolve, and need to, it is the extremely rapid loss (before the establishment of a worthy replacement) that we might need to guard against.
The last para is probably the most interesting of all on this blog.