Language standards: whose version of our reality should we inhabit?

'Power lies in the ability to make other people inhabit your version of their reality'
- Peter Gourevitch

There's a line that people frequently use when they want to convert people to their way of thinking: 'you don't know...' It is a simple trick. You confer ignorance and the moment you do this, you establish a knowledge-hierarchy; 'I know, you don't'. It is a short distance from here to 'listen to me' and 'do as I say'. This is how we got the White Man's Burden. This is how the Christian missionaries operated ('You are a heathen, you do not know, come, let me enlighten you!'). The appeal is not to reason. The proposal is to have faith. And more often than not is accompanied by bayonet and bullet and other instruments of coercion.

I couldn't help thinking about this age-old colonialist device when reading Michael Meyler's response to my article on the subject of 'Sri Lankan English' where I referred to his piece titled 'Sri Lankan English: state of the debate' (in www.groundviews.org). I objected to the project that Meyler has in his second piece basically admitted he's invested in, that of promoting a 'standard' (sic) SRI LANKAN English that is neither the English spoken by an upper-middle class Brit nor 'a free-for-all in which the messy grammar and the miss pelt menus become the norm'. I also objected to his inability to distinguish snootiness in some of the Sri Lankan 'Englishing' that is thrust into English theatre. This is perhaps due to the fact that he is largely ignorant of Sri Lankan, Sri Lankans and Sri Lankanness(es), in which case he should desist from commenting on cultural nuance. He has not responded to that comment.

Meyler, in his response ('A snooty English speaker's reply' in the Sunday Observer of June 6, 2010) says that I have unfairly accused him of rubbishing language standards when in fact, he says, he has argued in favour of establishing standards for THE (his choice of word) local variety of English and that this is why he's trying to codify Sri Lankan English. If this was theatre and I playwright, I would say, 'We really needed this Michael!' I might even humour him by putting it this way, 'Anaa darling Michael, so sweet of you machang!' Or maybe do it the 'yakkho' way, i.e. in Yak English and say '........' (nodding my head vigorously in acknowledgment and any non-Sri Lankans in the audience who are not conversant in our body language would think I was objecting furiously).

So he has a project. He wants a 'standard' SRI LANKAN English. He tries to preempt the obvious charge, 'who the f*** are you, Meyler, to tell me how I should speak?' by confessing that he is indeed a speaker of Snooty English (he concedes my point, though he doesn't think the term is constructive). Why then does Meyler bother so much? Who contracted Meyler to do this for us, will Meyler or anyone else tell us? Meyler concedes the class element that I have referred to and tells us it is evident in England too, where he says the Prime Minister had to be an Estonian (Etonian?). Well, that's quaint and all that but not relevant to us.

The man has compiled what he has pompously (and there's politics in both pomposity and product) 'A Dictionary of Sri Lankan English'. He now back-tracks: 'in truth it is not really a dictionary; it focuses only on the differences between "standard" British English and "standard" Sri Lankan English.' He adds that 'a true "dictionary" of Sri Lanka English would include all the words and expressions which are common to every variety of English and the distinctively Sri Lankan bits would suddenly become an insignificant part of the whole.'

If Meyler doesn't know the meaning of 'Dictionary' then he should not have used it. And given the second part of his confession, why is he sweating so much here in Sri Lanka and for whose benefit? Why does he not in the very least be true to the language politics he champions by using the 'English' that he is trying to codify for us (poor natives) in the manner of the happy and benevolent colonial, the converter of heathen?

Yes, this is the key point of the debate. Who really speaks this 'Sri Lankan English' that Meyler is trying to codify? If this Sri Lankan English basically amounts to a few distinctive words and phrases which are not found in any other English plus the phraseology and vocabulary that is common to all Englishes, what's the big deal about Sri Lankan English? Why do the speakers of the English that Meyler is codying refuse to use it in what they write? Why is it that they use non Sri Lankan English to comment and describe (say in a novel or a short story) but throw in Sri Lankan English (awkwardly, I must add) into dialogue? Why doesn't Meyler recognize the class and elite politics embedded in these Englishings?

Meyler admits the class/elitist dimensions of language. He admits that those are thick with him in his Sri Lankan Englishing agenda are at the snooty end of the English-related cultural continuum. He acts as though he's for a dismantling of hierarchies when he says 'giving people the confidence to speak in a way that comes naturally to them, without having to feel inferior or stigmatized helps democratize language'. No, not if the overall context is not democratic, Meyler. Only one's mother tongue is spoken in ways 'that come naturally'. Others have to be learnt in the sense that there has to be far more instruction/guidance than in the learning of one's mother tongue.

We can't have the snooty speaker advocating Yak English and saying 'darling, now you are language-free'. Doesn't happen that way. Meyler's politics is far more pernicious because he comes wearing the garb of liberator but is batting for the Snooty and doing f-all to dismantle the structure of language-snootiness.

I would offer that Yak-emancipation (in terms of English) would require the Yakkhos to learn all and not some Englishes, but if one has to pick and choose, then the non-negotiable is all the Englishes that are used in class and cultural politics as swords, Sri Lankan English a la Meyler included. Tooth-pick English will not win any battles for the Yakkhos.

Sri Lankan English, a la Meyler, is a close cousin of English-English, Meyler knows this, and is still a foreigner to the Yakkhos. Still, when it comes to fight guess what the Snooty will use against the Yakkhos. Sri Lankan English? No! Indeed, they will be the first to say that there is no such thing as 'Sri Lankan English', that they speak the Queen's language, 'God' Bless Her 'Soul'!

There's a bottom line: Meyler is enjoying our hospitality, so stay and do your sun-bathing or whatever. DO NOT ADVOCATE. There are two reasons. First, Meyler is by confession confused and on 'dangerous ground' (the logical thing to do is to get on firm ground). Second, he does not have the right to tell me what my reality is and then ask me to inhabit his version of it. The relevant politics requires us to learn all Englishes, especially the Snooty versions and requires us to know our native languages. I doubt if many of Meyler's fellow Snooty English Speaker friends can speak Sinhala or Tamil with the kind of fluency with which they speak English (of whatever variety). That should tell us something of the politics involved.

Here's the NB beneath the bottom line: Imihami Mudiyanselage Ratnamalala of Divulgane, Galgamuwa passes his A/L exam, enters university and gets a First Class in Sociology. He picks up Meyler's (Sri Lankan) English along the way. He wishes to read for a PhD in Sociology at Columbia University, New York. He fills the relevant application, writing his proposal, personal statement and other essays in 'Meyler English'. In Kandy, there's a boy by the name of Jude Dissanayake. Passes his A/Ls, enters the university and gets a Second Class (Lower Division) in Sociology. Same age. Same batch. He too applies to Columbia for a PhD in Sociology. He too perfects the relevant forms. He uses Snooty English.

End of the day, it's 'Jude in, Ratnamalala out'. Someone is having a quiet laugh in some other part of the world as Jude reads his acceptance letter and Ratnamalala reads his 'sorry, but no' letter from Columbia. I think it is Meyler's chuckle I hear.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who can be reached at [email protected]