Listening to FM (for those into all the inflation related stuff, steer clear as i am not talkin abt our Finance Minister but abt our good ol' FM Radio), which i do everyday or should i say, "I have to do" coz its the only solace I get while driving to office in the Delhi Traffic. Before i go any further let me be forthright in clarifying that this post has nothing to do with my travelling between Noida and Gurgaon :)
The link between the topic of this post and FM Radio is that one gets to hear all the RJs blabber away in Hinglish. Mixing English with Hindi (i dont know if its the other way round, such is the extent) is like corruption of both languages. The whole point of using this lingo is to cater to the 'Generation Now'. Now I dont know if thats a good idea. I say this because I am not proud of the fact that I cannot speak even a single language perfectly.
My mother tongue is Telugu. I dont speak that perfectly because i have been brought up(well.. almost) in Delhi. Ideally i should speak perfect Hindi but thanks to the lingo we people use these days, even that is ruled out. English, well i am not a native english speaker, so this one's gone too. I wonder if anyone from my age group, whom i know, speaks any language perfectly. But one thing I am proud of for sure is that I consider my Hindi to be pretty good.
Even the film songs these days have english all over the place. Unnecessary Rap is added to each and every song to make it sound "cool". Wonder how that'll help improve the Rashtra Bhasha. In my opinion, most popular source of entertainment, read All-things-bollywood-if-not-cricket, should be used to spread social messages and care should be taken at least to save the language.
But we can take heart from the fact that a lot of hindi words are finding their place in everyday english in the west. Words like Mantra, Pucca, Guru, Pundit, Jungle, Loot, etc etc.. These words are used as they are, no changes in spelling or pronounciation. Plus there are a few more which have been adapted/altered a bit. One word belonging to this category surprised me in particular. It is Juggernaut,"a term used to describe a force regarded as unstoppable, that will crush all in its path", which actually comes from the tradition of pulling the "Jagannath Rath" (Chariot) at Puri, Orrisa. This word was definitely worth a "dekko".
One more word, i'd like to mention here is "Doosra". This word is finding its mention in modern cricket these days.
All said and nothing done. So from now on I will make a conscious effort to find ways to improve my language(s). :)
5 comments:
we have similar problem in singapore
which makes the english sound ...soo funny ...that ppl in other countries..have used it...for comedy shows
including singapore's own tv shows like PCK Pte Ltd, Under One Roof et all.
u can also term it as acccents sometimes i think
:P
Just give u sample of Singlish, check out the link below:
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=mQfcR7tc_ro
BTW, the guy in the video is a BIG celebrity in Singapore named, Gurmit Singh :P
saw the video... its hilarious
I completely agree. My pet peeve and one am guilty of is also how we write these days. We've gotten so used to IMing, now even regular writing has become abbreviated. Point in case: Gr8, hru, d for the etc etc.
Oh and hey - I can probably beat you in a telugu speaking contest any day :)
@ Jayashree didi..
Ya i had thought abt the writing part also, but then blog bahut lamba ho jata..
n by the way,
nenu eppudu mimmalnu telugu lo matladutu choodaledu :P
try beating that...
cool che!
another thing note-worthy is how people adore using abbreviations...or the sms culture for that matter. 'but' will be 'bt', 'got' is 'gt', 'is' is 's' - what harm is that one teeny little vowel inflicting on humanity?????????
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