Whose Language?

Julia (name changed) spoke English like native American speakers. I presumed that she had lived for some time in an environment where that variant of English was spoken, because there were a few other such students in the school. Charlie (real name), for example, came from the USA where he lived with his parents until they decided to give him a taste of Kerala, their homeland. Charlie’s English was just like what I hear in Hollywood movies. I had to request him to Indianize it a bit for my sake sometimes.

Julia was my student for two years: grades 11 and 12. Her American accent was little easier for me than Charlie’s. Nevertheless I requested her too to make it more comprehensible to the class so that the 39 other students could follow her. She did make an effort.

It was only in the first Parent Teacher Meet that I came to know that neither Julia nor her parents ever lived outside Kerala. They all lived in a village not far from the school.

“How did she acquire her American accent?” I asked her mother.

“From Bollywood movies and TV shows,” the mother said, “and constant practice. She loves English.” Then she added, “She loves you too.”

A student’s love for a subject can stretch to the teacher and vice-versa, I knew that from years of teaching experience.

Julia’s love became a cake when Christmas came. “I baked it myself for you,” she said handing the pack to me.

From that Christmas to the last one in 2025, I have received a cake every year, baked by Julia herself. Years and distance haven’t brought any wear and tear to our friendship which is apparently based on our mutual love for English.

his morning’s The Hindu newspaper reminded me of Julia. The Education Plus page carried an interview with Alan Maley, English Language Teaching (ELT) expert. Should everyone speak English like the native speakers? No, affirms Maley. Standardisation of a language does serve practical purposes, Maley says, “but it is also linked to power, control, and nation-building. So-called ‘standard English’ is, therefore, a convenient fiction.”

English is spoken differently in different countries. I speak Indian English as do most Indian speakers of English, though I try my best to follow the standards prescribed by Received Pronunciation (RP) and International Phonetics Alphabet (IPA). I love English like Julia, so much so I gave up math after graduation and pursued higher studies in English language and literature and became an English teacher. My personal library is full of English books. A simple reason is that English brings me writers from everywhere, my most favourites being the Greek Kazantzakis, Russian Dostoevsky, French Camus and Czech Kafka. Without English I wouldn’t have known them.

But I never made an effort to acquire the British or the American accent and intonation. I am of the firm opinion that language belongs to a place and culture, even if it is an imported language. So it will naturally acquire the local flavours, and that’s how it should be.

I loved Alan Maley for saying that when he set up an MA programme at “a prestigious private university in Thailand,” he appointed lecturers from India, Singapore, Italy, Burma, the Netherlands, and, of course, Thailand. Maley was “the only native speaker.” Maley made English more inclusive and hence more universal. More dynamic.

Languages are dynamic. They keep growing by adapting itself according to situations and requirements. English is a “shared global resource,” as Maley puts it, “rather than the property of a privileged few.” Let it be rooted in the soil of the place while branching out to all over the world.

anguage can be made a weapon. India’s present political leaders are doing that in many places. Hindi is being imposed by Delhi on the whole country. I fail to understand why people living in the rural areas of a state like Kerala should learn Hindi in order to understand what their government in Delhi is communicating. This same question was asked by Karnataka two days back when Kerala government decided to make Malayalam the official language. There are plenty of people in the northern border region of the state who speak Kannada rather than Malayalam. How will they be affected by Thiruvananthapuram’s imposition of Malayalam on them?  

Why should anyone impose their language on others unless it is for control and manipulation? My simple solution is: let there be a universal language. English suits the purpose best simply because it is spoken all over the world. Let there be as many Englishes as the speakers want. If we shed our nationalistic egos, English can be our own and serve a lot more practical purposes than trying to make absurd acronyms like:  SAMPADA in PMMSY.

Ø PMMSY - Pradhan Mantri Kisan SAMPADA Yojana

Ø SAMPADA - Scheme for Agro-Marine Processing and Development of Agro-Processing Clusters