The English Fallacy
Wikipedia ranks India as Number 1 in the list of English speaking populations with about 350 million people able to use English. I am deeply suspicious of this number. Infact, I am filled with disgust since this is yet another number disguising bitter reality.
Sample this :
hello sir iam a.**** i complited my b.tech and iam starting an industry and i want to join our party at the same time i want to meet our head ******* sir how can i get oppintment pls replay me
Humans , particularly Indians, have a tremendous ability to adapt and this trait should enable you to understand the true purport of the sample above. If you still don't , email me.
I got this message through a social networking website popular amongst young Indians. It is not the first time I have witnessed such radical use of English syntax and semantics. I have a feeling it won't be the last, either.
Numbers are what make Indians proud these days - be it demographics ,GDP or the sensex. But beyond the euphoria, one must take a deeper and closer look at quality.That is, the quality of English being spoken by the Indian masses. There are deep-rooted socio-cultural factors at play here. English has made the leap from the lingua-franca of the Indian elite to that of the Indian masses. About 350 million of them, to be precise. But the problem is not many of those joining the league want to accept that their English is not only imprecise, it is precisely defunct. They don't accept this shortcoming because it is "uncool", almost an embarassment in their social circles. These are the kids who never learnt English properly in their primary schools , mainly due to teachers who were incompetent. You will be surprised to know how many of the private school kids cannot speak or write correct English. These are the kids who will get found out , and will lag their peers by a margin.
Does it matter? I think it does. The services industry has been complaining for a while about employability of college graduates. A lot of it has to do with basic spoken and written English. No body wants Byrons or Shakespeares. But atleast ,pretty please, can we get the spellings right?
6 comments:
And the grammar right as well, please?
I think the problem here is compounded by the fact that English in a lot of schools is taught in Hindi and by people who are quite handicapped in English themselves.
What pains me the most is not the reluctance to accept the handicap but the confidence.Sample this, one of the teams I am training corrected me that a nursing mother is not somebody who is breastfeeding, but, somebody who BREAST feeds somebody else's kid. The guy,unfortunately for him, is a BA(lit.) Things like this make me go *cringe*
Grammar isn't emphasized on, rather stuff like writing a telegram and its format is important. Telegram?! The concept of rote learning has to go, there is no other way. India is producing too many mediocre students in every field. It is about time we recognized that short cuts and quick fixes are just that-short and quick!
Sorry for the long rant Bipin, this just happens to one of those things I feel strongly about. :)
hey Bipin,
There is a mobile monday happening today
http://momodelhi.pbwiki.com/MoMo4
(am Nalin here- the guy that posted about the last mobile monday at venturewoods- and you had said you wanted to be informed the next time it happens.
I look forward to seeing you there.
Take Care... NS
Don't despair! This is exactly what they worry about in england too. So much so that they've even had a simplied spelling society since 1908.
On a serious note a malaise that affects education in general - how many good math (or history/geography/hindi/science/you name it) teachers have you seen? How many people do you think are excel at anything at all?
A lot of it just our attitude - quantity over quality, results over learning. This becomes apparent when "offshored to bangalore" becomes a synonym for rigidity/poor quality and delayed delivery.
Genuinely I am not sure how does it help, as long as you are able to communicate how does it matter. Of course there will always be people who will learn the correct grammar.
And I honestly believe that something that does not make economic sense is not going to survive. In my company, I will hire who can communicate in English, but is a good engineer, rather than Shakespeare who is dumb in Engineering. I mean grammar is something which is last on priority.
I am not sure I agree with you goli. While there will always be some jobs which don't require effective communication , most others do. Lets take email for an example. With global teams working together in MNC giants, do you think we could live without correct grammar? And its not just about grammar either. Spoken english, pronounciation. No one has to be a Shakespeare , but a minimum amount of quality is required for effective communication using any language. English is not an exception.
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