Tuesday, 29 April 2008

• Lost in translation?

  Claire Antao:

   

  I am an Asian. Indian to be precise, and it’s funny how people suddenly change the way they speak when I talk to them.

   

  English is my mother tongue, even though my family is from Goa, the lucky bit of India that was colonized by the Portuguese and not Great Britain - lucky only because our cuisine has Portuguese influence and not British!

   

  This morning, travelling by bus, I wasn’t too sure of my stop, so I asked the driver. He started speaking really slowly, loudly and in broken sentences. However, I’d heard him earlier and he definitely had a strong Scottish accent. The way he spoke to me tickled me so much, besides the fact that I didn’t understand him. I struggled to control myself from laughing in his face. It was hilarious!

   

  I am aware of the distinct accent that many Indians possess. People in any part of the world have an accent and those of non-native English speakers are often very noticeable. The accent of their mother tongue rubs on to their English and you can’t blame these people. Many of those who immigrate here, for various reasons, have to learn this new language, accompanied by a whole new culture and way of life. It really isn’t their fault that English was made the international language. Considering that Great Britain and America, the two dominators of past and recent decades, are English-speaking nations, this is how it is now.

   

  When the British came to India decades ago, the people were forced to accept all things British, as their own. This meant British clothes, British culture and, of course, English.

  Indians and many other colonized people have now adopted English as their mother tongue, or at least their second language.

  Today in India, it’s tough to get a good job if you can’t speak and write good English. Ironic?

  Let bygones be bygones.

   

  The driver this morning probably thought I had no understanding of the language and was just trying to help me. I thought it was funny. But that’s me. To someone else it could have been insulting or hurtful. Stereotyping can lead to cultural friction and misunderstanding between two normal human beings.

  Issues like colonisation, racism, inequality and immigration popped into my head much later.

   

  At that moment however, I couldn’t resist. So I replied in the most accented accent ever. The driver was satisfied that he had helped a poor soul. And I enjoyed a spring of laughter on my walk back home.

   

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