Audacious innnovations

Hybrid linguistic variations in modern conversations:

by Dr R.L. Chandrasoma

English has become a major linguistic force in Sri Lanka for various reasons: its colonial heritage, the impact of globalisation and new technologies of communication, the bourgeoning industry of international schools, the ever increasing number of Sri Lankans working overseas, and the predilection for using English by many urban dwellers.

In these contexts one can certainly justify the use of English. However, if people use English to the detriment of their first language, which is Sinhala, then the situation appears to be awkward and linguistically unproductive.

This may even lead to the decadence of a language. As the following analysis may foreshadow, such developments mean we are on the brink of losing our grips on the strengths of Sinhala.

In urban areas in Sri Lanka, it is abundantly clear that most people use English or a mixture of English and Sinhala for social transactions. The context here and elsewhere in this article is that people whose first language is Sinhala use English for communicative purposes with their fellowmen whose first language is also Sinhala. Some speak pretty good English especially in workplace situations.

It is hard not to believe that in these demographic areas Sinhala is going to be a vanishing medium of communication. The impact of this significant yet little noticed linguistic phenomenon on the outskirts, especially semi-urban areas, of Sri Lanka is enormous.

However, Sinhala still remains the main vehicle of communication among the rural folks of Sri Lanka, and it goes without saying that traditional cultural values are to a great extent maintained and preserved by the rural people in most societies.

As a frequent visitor to Sri Lanka, I have noticed several instances that enable me to form informed opinion pertaining to the use of English and Sinhala by people living in semi-urban areas.

Recently, I went to a Food City mini-supermarket in a semi-urban area to buy some food items. A lady looking for something on the small aisle next to me shouted at her little daughter: 'Don't fall it' pointing to some canned food.

It really worked and the girl immediately stopped touching the cans. I was curious to know the age of the girl, and this was a good opportunity for me to talk to the lady in Sinhala and she responded in fluent Sinhala. I am by no means worried about the wrong grammar in "Don't fall it". I really appreciate this kind of audacious innovativeness.

What really worries me is the emergence of a new breed of people who seem to be determined to use English by trial and error which may eventually relegate Sinhala to the status of a dead language.

In fact I noticed a significant number of instances where people, whose first language is Sinhala, use English for shopping purposes in semi-urban areas. In other words, it seems to me that English which is in large measure the language of shopping in urban areas is fast intruding into semi-urban areas as well.

In another instance, referring to some students in a class where Sinhala is the medium of instruction, an emotionally charged Montessori teacher in a semi-urban area while continuing her conversation in English made a sweeping statement : 'These students learn fastly.'

This is also a daring innovation by a person whose first language is Sinhala. Here, too, the grammar is immaterial since the audience can get the message. However, this instance clearly demonstrates how people struggle through a foreign language when the conversation could well have been conducted in Sinhala with effortless ease.

So, most people, especially professionals, have started using predominantly English in their conversation in semi-urban areas, too. This is certainly a threat to the sustainability of Sinhala as a first language.

I have also noticed that some television channels in Sri Lanka often have their programs cast in a mixture of Sinhala and English. This can certainly influence the majority of their viewers to imitate such hybrid linguistic variations in their conversation, thus polluting the first language which is perhaps the most precious cultural asset of a community.

One might argue that media reflect an element of social reality; that is media project what is commonly seen in society. While this is true to a great extent, we must not forget the fact that media, especially televisual media including the Internet, can change peoples attitudes.

Viewed from this perspective, media in any country have a positive role, not necessarily a didactic role, to play in promoting and enhancing cultural values of a nation.

Another related dimension that one comes across in semi-urban areas is the abundance of advertisements and sign boards in English. For example, you may encounter several 'communication centres' in semi-urban areas and they have prominent signs displayed in English.

If one counts the advertisements on either side of a main road in any semi-urban area, one might notice that the percentage of English advertisements is very high when compared to the ones done in Sinhala.

Advertisements are there for people to read or view and participate in a discourse of commercial product being advertised. Every advertisement has thus got a discourse surrounding it, and people try to approximate such discourses in the language of the advertisement.

In other words people are persuaded, often without their knowledge, by these advertisements to use the linguistic potential conveyed through advertisements in English for their general communicative purposes.

In most countries people are disciplined by themselves to use their first language. If people can discipline themselves to use their first language without adulterating it, then it is conducive to the sustainability of the language just as much as road users disciplining themselves or being disciplined by others is crucial for road users themselves.

In India, Hindi is the language used by the majority of Indians. However very seldom do Hindi speakers resort to English for social transactions. There is of course frequent code switching among Hindi speakers.

That is the use of a couple of English words or phrases, for example "fantastic" in between their conversation in Hindi. They certainly do not use English as much as Sinhala speakers do in Sri Lanka for conversational purposes.

This is not because their knowledge of English is poor; it is the people's attitude to appreciate their own identity by expressing themselves in the language which is intimate to them.

Similarly, Tamil speakers of Sri Lanka often stick to their mother tongue for social transactions regardless of which demographic area they live in. In China, the majority speak Mandarin; code switching or the use of English is not noticeable at all.

The only English (always written below Mandarin) we can see in China today is confined to recently erected road signs and bill boards in Beijing, looking forward to the Olympics in 2008.

Recent research on the benefits of first language amply demonstrates that a first language always facilitates the acquisition of knowledge. This cognitive factor significantly accelerates the learning process at any level.

It is not being suggested here that the use of English in higher studies jeopardise Sinhala. Students indeed immensely benefit from English in their higher studies since most of the texts in most disciplines are not made available to them in Sinhala.

Translation of academic textbooks and other materials from other languages into Sinhala is a gigantic task which requires expertise and resources, and also considerable time. However, it would be an ideal situation if students in higher studies are provided with texts in their first language.

Countries like the Peoples Republic of China, Japan, and even Vietnam have proved to the rest of the world that their first languages are capable of meeting diverse needs of the masses at local level. It does not mean that these countries have abandoned English.

English is always used for specific purposes, but they retain the identity of their first language.

The significance and the richness of a language do not lie in the volumes of books kept on library shelves or archives alone; it is the active usage of a particular language that demonstrates its dynamic nature.

This usage I believe should be more prominent in conversational mode of communication. The use of English or a combination of English and Sinhala for general community-based conversational purposes by people whose first language is Sinhala seems to be strange, if not lamentable.

However this is a "unique" phenomenon especially when compared to what is happening in the rest of the world. This uniqueness may eventually lead to linguistic uprootedness, which is undoubtedly catastrophic for Sinhala to be a sustainable medium of communication. It is not the purpose of this article to find solutions to this problem.

However, it is worth realising whether people deindivdualise themselves or not when using a foreign language instead of their mother tongue in general communicative events with people of the same ethnic background. The bottom line is that if bilingualism is not disciplined, then it can lead to linguistic pollution.

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