Indian English has nothing to be ashamed of
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Spending a few summer holidays in Nigeria as a teenager gave me a great opportunity to see (and hear) for myself how Britain's gift to its colonies-the English language- has been utilised in a place other than India. I had already heard some Nigerian English thanks to the Adekuoye family, whose daughters and son were my friends in Romania. But hearing it around Lagos showed me how English could take on the flavour and idiom of other countries.It was sort of like how Assamese, Odia, Bengali and Maithili sound to speakers of any one of those languages. Many Nigerian English phrases were understandable, many were not; and the usage was quite unique, with a lilt and verve all its own. Many of the phrases have remained in our family lexicon though we left Nigeria in 1986 because they were simply so evocative. Especially the local phrase for the traffic jams so common in Lagos-'go-slow'.The lively social media posts by one of the Adekuoye girls I stayed in touch with shows that the Nigerian tadka in her English remains strong even though she has been living in the US for decades now. And the same goes for her larger circle of family and friends there, who respond to her posts in a similar vein. In the melting pot that is the US, their specifically Nigerian English is as much of an umbilical cord with their homeland as any of their native tribal languages.The same can surely be said for people from other parts of the former British Empire (and indeed the Anglosphere) from Singapore to the Caribbean via Africa, who have given English their own distinct flavour, adapting it to their culture and requirements, synthesising it with their own idiom and accents. If there is ever a conclave of speakers of indigenised English today, very few of them would be able to understand each other, beyond perhaps a few phrases.This begs the question whether English is a "foreign" language anymore in those places, including India, and therefore continues to deserve a 'second-class' status because of the colonial nature of its advent. The pithy English phrases that emerged from colonisation are not Creole-a new hybrid language that becomes the lingua franca, supplanting native tongues as well as the coloniser's-but nor should they be burdened with that unflattering word pidgin either.As pointed out in these columns earlier, English in India has taken on an avatar that's hardly recognisable to those weaned on Shakespeare, Dickens, Hemingway or even Ludlum, Archer and Rowling. And Indian users of this indigenised English-Indlish-are more closely linked culturally to their mother tongues than those a generation or two ago as their use of idioms (or lack thereof) testify. Indlish is now as Indian as, well, Rahul Gandhi, rather than Sonia.The crucial difference between English in India 75 years ago and now is that its equation with all the other languages in this country has become more egalitarian.It is also seen as a practical advantage Indians have over our greatest rival, China, in job prospects and communication. If Indians ever abjure English, it would please China more than anyone else.Niglish, Singlish, Indlish and many more are evidence of how English has become indigenised, with diverse cultures no longer being deferential to the colonial language but adapting it to suit its own needs. Given how this adaptive usage of English fosters bonds in the Anglosphere (like me with my Nigerian friends) I believe India's rising international profile is helped by this kind of soft power . Far from being ashamed of it, Indlish must be fostered.
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