Sunday Commentary

Accents and pronunciations on TV:

Shakespeare in foreign garb...

Prasad GUNEWARDENE

A few days ago, a young news reader from a private TV channel read out in a wildly contracted accent with a rap styled pronunciation - "Over to you Mr. Minister of Nation-ol Entigration"- (Minister of National Integration). Listening to this latest `gobble-de-gook' creation of TV comedy in this country, my mind flashed back to the early 1930s, a period in which an Advisory Committee of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) advised announcers to pronounce certain words in different ways. It was recommended that `Landscape' be pronounced as 'Landskip'.

Those recommendations by the BBC Advisory Committee angered the British public and a BBC fan named Charles J. Boyden from Surrey wrote to the BBC in 1935, stating he had heard many people talk English in different lands, but never had he heard the word `landscape' being pronounced in such a degrading manner contrary to the letters of denote. The Advisory Committee of the BBC was forced to withdraw its recommendations in the face of public pressure.

The newly contracted accents and rap styled pronunciations by some of our young media personalities of today, looks similar to a discussion about a `sizemograph', and to put the accent strongly on the first syllable of `Bel-fast'. It is also like an announcer or a news reader attempting to stumble over a Greek name having no knowledge about the Greek language. Young news readers and announcers may act on their own views and ideas, but the authorities over them are responsible for the distortion of the language used. By permitting such injury, they put greats like William Shakespeare in foreign garb, if you carefully follow the words of Shakespeare in the true sense - `Little knowledge is too dangerous' .

In an analysis of the changing trends in the noble profession of media and journalism, we, look to have reached a stage where arrogance has over taken knowledge, a too dangerous phenomena in a democracy. In a professional journey, the key to success is the belief - `Knowledge is Power'-. Novices and the inexperienced in this noble profession, should not overestimate the extent of their knowledge. A little experience should not be allowed to assume or capture that a person knows all and everything.

Arrogance and the display of ignorance of knowledge and language recall to memory an interesting story of a student who attended a banquet. The young man was seated next to the great scientist, Albert Einstein. The inquisitive young lad, hardly sixteen in age asked the great scientist what he practised as a profession. Einstein responded, - `I teach Physics'-. `Oh! That's brilliant...quite interesting to me, as I know much about Physics having just finished the subject in my last term', the young man proudly shot back. Albert Einstein sporting a sympathetic smile on his face, being the greatest Physicist of the 20th century, observed that the young lad hardly knew the depth of the subject and had no idea of a scratch on this earth. But, the young lad continued to look at Einstein in an outsmart manner displaying confidence to show he was fully qualified in Physics. That was an instance where arrogance overtook knowledge.

Whatever the profession, none should think or claim to know too much as all professions are spectrums, that are much deeper and vast. That would cost the opportunity to learn from the experienced people, in the respective trades. Knowledge is certainly a gift. Arrogance will only supply a limited knowledge which would be unhealthy to practice. Especially, arrogance over knowledge in those who deal and deliver to the people, would lose integrity and probity before the public eye. Deliverance to the good of public, over the attempt to create a personal cult, should be the true sense of trust in all professions. Only then it would look an obligation discharged with respect, dignity and decorum.

Copying wild accents and to succumb to rap styled pronunciations, which are not even practised in the land of origin of the language, would only identify our young media personalities or scribes as witch doctors. Those experienced in the noble trade of media and journalism view such `witch doctors' also as `spin doctors' or `sound-bites' suffering from an undiagnosed epidemic. Those are reasons to believe that arrogance over knowledge and ignorance over language, combined with wild accents and rap styled pronunciations may appear too dangerous in the long run of any profession. The continuation of such a trend, will only put the Shakespeare types in foreign garb by these witch doctors, spin doctors and sound-bites.

The `excellent sense of humour' provided by these `rap styled' news readers, certainly fit the `Dead Man's Creek', a small town in Mississippi, USA with a population of 2000 people, always starved of entertainment. And, not in a literate country like Sri Lanka in South Asia!