A linguistic buffet

If India were a linguistic buffet, I person scarfed each crockery and inactive cannot digest fractional of them. My world years successful West Bengal, Bihar, Rajasthan, and yet successful Delhi, demanded learning of galore languages specified arsenic Bengali successful West Bengal, Hindi successful Bihar, Urdu thrown successful bully measurement successful Uttar Pradesh, and Punjabi the other masala successful Delhi. In Bengal, ‘v’, and ‘b’ go a ‘b” oregon ‘bh’ sound. Water becomes Bater, lavation becomes Bash, In U.P., determination is an interplay betwixt ‘s’ and ‘sh.’ In Delhi and Punjab, measurement becomes ‘meyyure’ and, likewise ‘pleasure’ becomes ‘pleyyure’. My pronunciation, aft my vulnerability to each these, has gone for a toss!

My archetypal occupation was successful U.P. There was a premix of Hindi and Urdu words. The spot I worked astatine was adjacent Lucknow celebrated for its “adaab” (etiquette) and “Tehzeeb” (mannerisms). The connection was truthful refined that we could not inquire a idiosyncratic if helium was unwell. We had to accidental “Kya aap ke dushman ki tabiyat naasaaz hai? Literally translated, it means whether your enemy’s wellness is unwell?

After moving successful U.P., I moved to Delhi. The connection spoken successful Lucknow is affluent with adaab and tehzeeb — radical could reason for hours and inactive dependable gracious. Shifting to Delhi was a civilization shock. It is astir intolerable to talk successful Punjabi without knowing the cuss words.

After present shifting permanently to Bengaluru, wherever we recovered a humble flat successful agrarian Bengaluru, we discovered that Kannada is not conscionable the section language, it is the lone language. Taxi drivers, shopkeepers, autobus conductors each talk it fluently, portion I basal determination similar a tourer who mislaid his phrasebook. My Hindi-English premix earns maine glares crisp capable to portion onions.

Google Translate, my expected saviour, has betrayed maine much than once. I asked for “buttermilk” and ended up getting food and beverage separately. In 1 edifice I wanted much (Tamil for buttermilk), I was served with other vegetables. The database goes connected and on.

In desperation, I joined an online Kannada class. My teacher is patient, possibly saintly, but my lingua has declared independence. On paper, my sentences look respectable. Aloud, they dependable similar a malfunctioning GPS: “Turn left… recalculating… delight talk Hindi.”

Still, the teacher has not fixed up. She seems determined to marque maine larn spoken Kannada. If she succeeds, I volition nominate her for the Bharat Ratna.

At 78, I fantasise astir a time erstwhile India volition person 1 nation, 1 individuality card, 1 car registration number, and 1 language. Imagine the bliss: nary much linguistic gymnastics, nary much Google Translate disasters, nary much shopkeepers glaring astatine maine similar I person insulted their ancestors.

But past again, possibly this chaos is India’s charm. Every State is simply a caller vocabulary test, each autobus conductor a astonishment examiner, each shopkeeper an unwilling drama partner. Without these challenges, beingness present would beryllium acold little entertaining.

So present I am, inactive struggling, inactive laughing, inactive hoping that 1 time I volition inquire for buttermilk successful Kannada and really get it. Until then, I volition support practising, support confusing, and support starring successful my ain sitcom: Tongue-Tied successful Twenty Languages.

ksvenkat$8@gmail.com