From China - With Love

“In a decade, Indians’ll need to learn English from the Chinese.”

---“Rubbish! The Chinese’ve only just begun; we’ve had English for two centuries.”

“D’you know what the Chinese’re up to? They’re importing Americans and Brits and Aussies to teach English in their schools! They want whites.”

---“No, they want ‘native speakers’ . . . ain’t the same thing, you know.”

“But d’you see what that means? They start late, but are up with the latest---English as it’s spoke today . . . Indian English rots in East India Company muck.”

---“Is Company English nothing like English? Has the language changed altogether?”

“You bet it’s changed. Most native speakers can’t understand Indian English easily.

---“Nonsense! Would London English be the same as up north---say, Manchester? Do Bangalore Tamils speak the same quality of Tamil as Tamils in Madurai?”

“Mounting your hobby-horse, eh? Your old theory: dialects . . . and Indian English is one of the ‘Englishes’.”

---“Why not? English varies everywhere; varies even in England. Our Inglish or Hinglish, might be peculiar, but Ausslish is peculiar too, and so is Amlish or Yanklish.”

“Use your head, man! The Yanks, the Aussies---they’re descendants of the Brits. The Brits colonized America and Australia; so the settlers’ English evolved a bit different from English as it’s spoke in England . . .”

---“But that’s what I say . . . English in India evolved different from the Brit version, and became Indian English; that’s all.”

“But we aren’t descendants of the Brits, damn you! If the Brits had settled here and spewed an Indian version of English, sure that would’ve been a dialect. But the Brits didn’t settle here, did they?”

---“But it evolved here, surely?”

“No, it did NOT. The Company merchants dumped their commercial English here. And Indian English is the same yucky commercialese, don’t you get it?”

---“Well, writers like Salman Rushdie keep using Indian English as a dialect alright. His characters speak this funny Indian English . . . sounds comical . . .”

“Nice and comical, huh? Bloody colonial stereotype! The bloody sahib finds pidgin English comical, and so all wogs are gooks! As though the native didn’t have his mother tongue, and wasn’t eloquent in it. And you find that supercilious nonsense funny, do you?”

---“Hmm . . . you have a point there. Yeah, I guess the sahib underestimated the native just because the native spoke pidgin. But what’re you getting at?”

“That all those goofy things about Indian English were all coined by the bloody stupid baboos of East India Company. The Brit the Company recruited was just about semi-literate, see? So he had formats for letters he had to write. As soon as he could---after a promotion---he’d hire a baboo to copy those letters for him. These baboos were semi-literate. And they coined those pidgin terms . . . native place, and dwelling place, and respected sir, and in the backside . . . and what have you shit that the Rushdies keep mimicking.”

---“May be you should tell Indians the Indian-ness of Indian English is only its baboo-ness.”

“I did. And when I did, some people argued like you about Indian English.”

---In your book, INDLISH, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

---“Did reviewers take note?”

“Not many reviewers read beyond the back cover blurb . . . now, your hobby-horse: I don’t see why any self-respecting Indian should accept pidgin-loaded nonsense as ‘Indian English’. Indians can do better.”

---“How?”

“By hearing native speakers---over the TV and radio, of course. It’s easy.”

---“Aha, so you want native speakers too---like the Chinese?”

“No. I don’t mean them coming out here, dammit! Unlike the Chinese, unlike all other nations, we’re the only multilingual people on the planet. Ever realize that? We can sort any language out for ourselves.”

---“Then we’ll cook Indian English, won’t we?”

“No, we won’t---not if you do it my way.”

---“What’s your way?”

“This: first we map just where and how English behaves UNLIKE Indian languages. Then we figure out what we got to do about those. Then we map where we go wrong, and analyse why. Put that together, and Indians’ll figure it out for themselves.”

---“You make it sound so easy. Explained all that in your book, have you?”

“Of course, but even if the reviewers’d read it, they wouldn’t accept my method.”

---“Why not?”

“Because I’m an Indian, don’t you see? Indians believe no Indian can possibly have the answer to ANYTHING. They’ll want foreigners to certify it ---especially, whiteskins.”

---“Hmm . . . you’re all cut up, ain’t you? So how do you think Indians’ll get to learn today’s English?”

“Get the Chinese to teach it my way.”

---“But you just said Indians would never accept an Indian’s way.”

“If it comes through foreigners, they will. Native English speakers’re training the Chinese. So that’s phoren twice over.

---“Is that why you want Indians to learn English from the Chinese?”
“Yes, give the Chinese just about a decade.”