Brinjal or Eggplant? Gas or Petrol?

chillibreeze writer — Sabarinath K

“Miss, is it Color or Colour?”

As a product of the Indian schooling system, some of my earliest memories date back to my English classes where spelling tests used to be the stuff of nightmares. Having been constantly fed on second hand DC comics that my father used to get me, “color” is one of the first words that made me realize that all English is not the proper “Queen’s” English. I still remember the red marks (memories of which a recent viewing of Tare Zameen Par refreshed) in my English notebook with ‘color’ being one of the words prominently getting marked.

It’s been over 60 years since the Union Jack was replaced by our tricolour at the Red Fort. Even with a history of over a thousands of years, the 200 odd years that the British ruled us left a huge impact on us; none as profound as the popularization of British English as a means of communication. Sixty years is of course too close to call, but at the dawn of the information age, the English legacy can be said to have had a positive impact on our economy. The availability of so many employable English-speaking youth is the single most important factor that has helped us emerge from our slumber in this age. English is the sickle which is helping us reap as the knowledge industry sun shines brightly.

However, gone are the colonial days when the sun never set on the British Empire. Now the US of A has taken over as the dominant economy of the world. With the end of the cold war, its position as the first among equals has only gotten more and more concrete. The fact that most countries hold their foreign reserves in US Dollars is perhaps the best testament to the fact that the Americans drive the world economy.

In this unipolar world it’s only natural for a doubt to arise as to whether we should toe the line of our former masters or cede our “English freedom” to the Americans. This is relevant as we are a rapidly growing “developing economy” with services exports as one of the major propellants of growth. America is an important market for the skills of millions of Indians and if you go by the cliché “any money is good money” it won’t be hard to predict the winner of the British vs. American English tussle. Not only is a large portion of our exports going to America, of that a good chunk of the business goes into transcription and voice/text based support where the subtle differences in the different avatars of English will stand out.

But a recent study of this topic by Annika Hohenthal in her book English in India: Loyalty and Attitudes shows that we are still able to see the ghosts of our colonial past: a majority of the respondents (70%) felt that RP (Received Pronunciation: BBC English; Standard English in Britain) would serve as the best model for Indian English, 10% thought General American English would be better, and 17% preferred the Indian variety of English. There are of course some important fallacies in the analysis, the most important being the question of teaching resources. For a country that has a history of teaching British-influenced English that is now entrenched in all its English teaching resources, both human and material, it is a humongous task to change. There is no instant switch that can move us to American English.

Also, some of the words are so ingrained into our culture that a change would require a change in our social mindset. Think of confused drivers having to put “gas” into their cars instead of petrol or of the vegetarian housewives going aghast at the prospect of having to put ‘egg’plant (brinjal) into the “otherwise” fully vegetarian dish; or the disgust of the Indian who is happy when he can pay bills with bills, only to later find out the truth.

Another important factor that must be given its due is the origin of the so called Indian English which comprises several dialects or varieties of English spoken primarily in India, and by first-generation members of the Indian Diaspora. This dialect evolved during and after the British colonial rule of India for nearly two hundred years. English is the co-official language of India, with about 100 million speakers. And looking at the activity in the Indian English Literature arena, which is only rising year by year, we can see that we taking our rightful place in the history of evolution of English by contributing to it, as much as, if not more than what we take from it.

At the end of the day if we are to move to American English and a lot of social and financial costs, it has to be justified by the advantages gained. We must be convinced that such a path is the only path for us. But this is not the case as the success story of the our services industry in itself points to the fact that the differences between the various dialects of English are not very high and that they can be compensated by an intelligent mind or in the worst case scenario by a job specific “finishing” training.

To move to American English would not only be a step backwards in social terms but also a great insult to the English language itself, as we would be discounting its resilience and universality which made it popular in the first place. And as for the huge influence that British English already enjoys in our English, only time can tell whether this impact is good or bad. As Angus Wilson once said, “Contemporaries are too close to the event to be good judges.” Contributing to, and developing our own Indian English would be the best step forward.

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