Break ke baad

When the group of children burst into a song at a pre-wedding event, the audience was flummoxed. For one, the song was from a yet-to-be-released Tamil film, which not many guests knew about. And two, the children were in Almora, a hill town in Uttarakhand, 2,300km from Chennai.

But then, the song was Why this Kolaveri Di — a melody that’s set the Internet on fire. Almost every young boy or girl in India knows the lyrics — set in something akin to pidgin English.

“It’s a reflection of our times,” says Bollywood lyricist Neelesh Misra, who was in the audience. “That kids in Almora knew Kolaveri by heart shows that the song is a hit. And it’s a hit because of its conversational nature.”

Conversation, the song is. When Tamil actor Dhanush mish-mashed a few words and peppered them with foot-tapping music, he probably didn’t realise it would become the anthem of the youth. But it did, once again emphasising that for the young, short is sweet.

Clearly, English as it is spoken — or texted — is changing with the times. It is shedding long-winded words and verbs. Text messaging, which entered its 20th year this month, is widespread. Over the years, you has become u, thanks is ta, and why is y. Vowels and punctuation marks have almost disappeared, and verbless staccato sentences — incomprehensible some years ago — are the norm.

But linguists are not worried. Far from penning an elegy to the Queen’s language, many say they welcome the trend. “There is nothing worrying about popular lingo entering mainstream English language as long as it does not hamper our learning,” says linguist M.J. Warsi, who teaches eastern languages at Washington University in St Louis, the US. Warsi elaborates on the need to accept communicative English as part of the literary medium. “Language evolves when new words get added,” he adds.

With mobile phones sweeping across India — 881.4 million subscribers registered till October this year — the language of the youth is indeed changing. But with a million words in its kitty, would English suffer with a slight change in 2,000-odd words?

“Not really,” says Ashwini Deshpande, professor, Delhi School of Economics. “There’s no time to dwell on niceties. So if something (like SMS text) allows you the freedom to skip grammar, go phonetic or drop vowels, it might serve the needs of very fast paced lives,” argues Deshpande.

U me aur hum

The whopping success of Kolaveri Di — it crossed 20 million hits on YouTube within a fortnight of its release in November — highlights this. The words are simple and monosyllabic, enabling even the very young to easily pick it up. After all, you can’t quite go wrong with White skin girl girl, girl heart black…Eyes eyes meet meet, my future dark.

According to S. Mohanraj of the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, there is no need to worry about these “Indianisms”. He cites the example of words such as “co-brother”, “pre-pone”, “thankfully” and “weightage” which, because of their popular use among Indians, have now found a place in most conservative dictionaries. “In a few more days, other expressions hitherto frowned upon may find adequate currency,” he says.

The use of broken English is widespread. Bollywood, the barometer of societal change, has jumped on to the bandwagon with names of films such as Mere Brother ki Dulhan, Break ke Baad to I and Me aur Main. “Language is evolving and we should have the stomach to accept it,” says Misra.

Academics agree. “English as spoken in England isn’t pure anymore. What we now have is a world English phenomenon,” points out Shormishtha Panja, professor of English, Delhi University. “A regional variance of English has its own validity.”

The success of a website called Urban Dictionary bears that out. Launched in 1999 to give a platform to popular lingo, it has till date put together over 600 million slang or ethnic culture words, phrases and phenomena. The site receives some 15 million new visitors every month, with 80 per cent of users being younger than 25.

Just as no one baulks at differences in spellings in American and British English, these new words and phrases too are becoming acceptable. So if the last generation said “my bad luck”, today’s youth have shortened it to “ma bad”.

“In the present scenario it is quite natural to imbibe Americanism since it is the dominant language of the Net. If tomorrow India becomes a global superpower you may find the impact of the Indian variety of English everywhere,” says Ravinder Gargesh, linguist at Delhi University, who also warns that a language “dies” when it becomes “impervious” to change.

English, indeed, is constantly developing. When the sixth edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was published in 2007, it removed hyphens from 16,000 words. So leap-frog became hyphen less and pot-belly was separated into two words. Today “kewl” is no longer a teenage expression. In September, it entered the OED as an adjective just as LOL (laugh out loud), OMG (Oh my God) and other such texting and chat terms entered various dictionaries.

It’s an acknowledgement of a word’s currency and longevity, explains Eleanor Maier, senior assistant editor, OED. “We require evidence that the word has reached a level of general currency such that it is used unselfconsciously, without an additional explanation of the word’s meaning for the benefit of the reader.”

The advent of Twitter too has pulled the noose around vowels and long words. The popularity of the micro-blogging site, that limits an expression to 140 characters, has resulted in shorter spellings. Take a recent tweet by director Shekhar Kapur. “u c a pile of rotting potatoes, wld u say d only way 2 fix this is by askin foreign retail chains 2 do so,” he asks.

While the trend is gaining ground, its long-term effects are yet to be gauged. Misra already voices caution. “Technology is eating into our words. A generation that grew up on abbreviated form will be short on patience,” he warns.

With an estimated 15 million texts sent every minute, some academics are worried about text language cropping up in answer sheets. “Youngsters aren’t aware that there isn’t just one form of communication,” says Rimi Chatterjee, a Calcutta-based writer who teaches English in Jadavpur University. “Even if they use sms lingo for a major part of their day, they should not mix it with academic writing.”

Some concerned English lovers are doing their bit to mark the division. Calcutta-based freelance writer Sunayana Roy introduced an online red marker to stop the misuse of the language. Titled Red Marker Blogathon, she wrote blog posts every day for a month last year and asked fellow bloggers to join the initiative. “I wrote on common misuse of words or phrases, answered a few questions and regularly put up links of posts by others,” says Roy. The result was close to 100-odd posts by several bloggers.

But then English is a funny language. Perhaps in the next century a new generation of purists will be penning their own elegies to the death of words such as Lol and twitter. But for now, the verdict is: Chill! It’s not OMG, RIP English yet.