Category: Languages

In India, an insult bordering on the egregious—particularly for the middle class—is ‘Don’t you know English?’ Ironically, Indians are more sensitive about their English language skills than fluency in their native language. I’m more proficient in English than in my mother tongue, Malayalam. These are, no doubt, the aftermath of colonisation. But it is one inadvertent aspect of colonialism that has benefited me. While Malayalam has a flourishing literary tradition, it is largely confined to Kerala, a tiny state at the tip of the Indian peninsula. English, on the other hand, is a global language and is becoming increasingly popular. The world is learning it -even the French- who, decades ago, wouldn’t give you the time of day if you spoke to them in English. So I won’t complain. I love the language despite my daily struggle with it.

I’m always on the lookout for opportunities to improve my language skills. Some of my English friends are experts in the language, and I cherish them like fine crystal. I call on them sometimes to understand some grammatical nuances and subtleties of certain expressions. I often agonise over finding the precise word. But when I know the exact word, I use it without a second thought. The problem arises when the word exists in the Indian English lexicon but is not accepted by the anoraks who guard a Victorian version of the language in dingy Oxbridge cellars. Employed in the UK civil service, I once drafted an accident investigation report that contained a statement, “The ship’s departure was preponed by two hours.” My boss approached me with an apologetic look, a copy of the report in hand.

“Gopi, it’s a well-written report, but ‘prepone’ is not in the English dictionary. It should be, but sadly, it’s not!” His wish did come true. In 2010, The Guardian informs us, the Oxford dictionary accepted it. However, it’s still not used here in the UK. Note to myself: I must use prepone wherever possible.

I am confident, like ‘prepone’ other words and phrases will find acceptance soon. Hope is alive for ‘co-brother’, ‘pass out’, ‘brinjal’, “lady’s finger”, ‘timepass’, ‘your good name’ and others.

Even after having lived nearly half my life in England, I commit the cardinal error of saying ‘hand’ when I mean arm or hand or everything from upper arm to finger tips. Likewise, I make no distinction between leg and foot. I know why I make these mistakes. In Malayalam, we say കൈ (kai) for both arm and hand. There is a word, ഭുജം (bhujam), for arm, but I only discovered it with a brief detour to Google as I was writing this. It’s not a word we use in everyday conversation. For leg and foot, we say കാല് (kāl) although there’s പാദം (paadam) but that’s a word usually reserved for divine feet.

“These shoes don’t fit my legs,” I once said in a shoe shop, before quickly correcting myself—“Sorry, feet.”

I’m sure speakers of other Indian languages have their own quirky ways of expressing things. Some thirty years ago, I was employed as the Chief Engineer of a large merchant ship and we were once passing through severe weather. Howling winds and waves as tall as a two storey building battered us. As I did my morning rounds of the machinery space, I heard some strange noises from the main propulsion engine. I said to the Bengali second engineer with some trepidation,

“I think we have a cracked piston.” Had my apprehension come true, we would have struggled looong hours to replace the heavy piston weighing a tonne while being tossed about on gigantic waves. The last thing I wanted was a dead engine in a mid-Atlantic storm.

“I hope so,” the engineer replied. I didn’t punch him because I knew he meant ‘I think so.’

My wife had a convent education in Delhi. Irish nuns gave her a good grounding in the language. So she doesn’t suffer from the linguistic challenges that I do. She once sent me to get pecan nuts for a cake she was making. Not finding it in the nut section of the grocery store, I asked a young shop attendant to find it for me. She was initially confused, then blushed a deep crimson when I repeated it a few times and explained its intended purpose. She struggled to keep a straight face as she led me to the cakes and biscuits aisle. It was only later, after I narrated the strange reaction of the woman to my wife that I realised I was asking for pelican nuts.

I have many similar handicaps. Idioms have never been my friends. Fortunately, I had figured out the concept of metaphors while in school and so knew how to use them. However, I still misquote idioms. In a recent editorial, I exhorted readers to think ‘out of’ (instead of outside)* the box in their creative writing. Just last week I wrote ‘few and far in between’ when DeepSeek pointed out there’s no ‘in’ before ‘between’. But I’m not reckless with idioms like an Indian ex-boss who once admonished me,

“Gopi, why are you chasing a wild goose?”

Then there’s the matter of pronunciation which is another whole can of worms. Indians generally tend to emphasise the second syllable while the British emphasise the first. I say Panaama (പനാമ) while the natives say Panma (പാന്മാ) I once told a colleague that someone is very eloquent. I pronounced it ‘elooquent’ (ഇലോക്കെന്ഡ്). He just couldn’t understand me. Wondering why an erudite man like him didn’t have ‘eloquent’ in his vocabulary, I wrote it on a piece of paper.

“Oh! elquent (എൽക്ക്വെന്റ്)” he exclaimed, relieved.

There’s the story of the cow in the middle of a herd telling the one in front of her, “I can see your bum.” I was like that cow and used to be tickled when North Indians said ‘joo’ for zoo or ‘jip’ for zip. Somewhere along the way, I realised that I too was exposing my bum – I was a repeat offender of mispronouncing. Both my W and V sounded like W. I now know how to bite my V (bite the lower lip) and kiss my W (round the lips).

I once confided my multiple confusion in the English language to a Malayali friend. He shrugged and said,

“Oh! That’s really nothing. I have much bigger issues. I’m constantly confused between divorce and abortion.” At moments like these, I realise how hilariously confusing and endlessly fascinating a language can be.

* ‘Think out of the box’ is also correct as I discovered after a lively discussion with several experts.