Language, accent, pronunciation and the "I-am-so-cool" syndrome
Haven't you all realized that everyone of us has subconsciously (or maybe even deliberately) developed notions regarding the use of languages and their accents and pronunciations of some words in a way so that we *think* we look cool :-).
I can't think of theories to explain this so let me directly jump to examples.
I come from a city whose official name is Pune. However, inspite of it being a proper noun, I wonder why some people keep referring to it as Poona. I'm quite sure everyone knows that the official name is Pune, so saying "Poona" doesn't come out of lack-of-knowledge :-). Plus, more often than not, its people usually speaking in English who keep referring to it as "Poona". Some people (whether they admit it or not) think its more "cool" or more "hip" to use the word "Poona" instead of "Pune". I don't really understand why. If you see English news channels, this is quite evident.
More than the Pune-vs-Poona debate, we see people using the word Bombay when the official name of the city is Mumbai. Again, its usually the English speaking(and therefore supposedly more "hip") population using the word "Bombay" and not Mumbai. Again, if one proper noun replaces the other, why is one supposed to be better(as in "more hip") than the other?
We recently saw a case where a supposedly more "cool" film producer (suave, sophisticated, urban, good-at-English-sucks-at-Hindi, etc.) had to apologize to a political leader (no "hip" at all :D... always-ready-with-the-"Marathi"-sword) because he used the word "Bombay" instead of Mumbai in the movie (interestingly, a good chunk of the movie revolved around "Mumbai beat"). Who made these unwritten rules that "Bombay" is more sophisticated than "Mumbai"?
I understand that the transition from "Bombay" to "Mumbai" happened recently and not everyone was happy with it. But then, this decision was taken by a democratically elected government. So people should go by it. Not everyone agrees to the increase in taxes but people still pay it, right?
Then comes the most hilarious part. Accent!! People have this notion about a hierarchy of accents :-). The western accent is supposed to be right at the top. The more western your accent is, the more "hip" you are....
WHAT??
Yes... but for some reason, this seems to be the unwritten rule about accents. One easily finds Bollywood film stars speaking in these accents just so that they look cool [the most hilarious piece was; recently Rakhi Sawant was trying to do this accent (in an interview to a Marathi channel)... she tried to speak one sentence in English using this accent and forgot some word in between... then switched to Marathi... again forgot some word... then simply started shaking her head and moving her shoulders up and down hoping that the interviewer would move to the next questions :)) ]
Even within the various parts of India, unfortunately, the hierarchy of accents exists. So people from the northern part of India, esp. Haryana, are supposed to be not-so-hip since their accents don't quite exude too much "hipness" :D. But I think this is similar to the accent and attitude of people from Texas :-).
Aishwarya Rai had made an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and it was so weird seeing her faking the western accent. Neways... let's not even get started on Aishwarya Rai!!
And last comes the unwritten hierarchy of languages. Speaking in English is supposed to be coolest, followed by Hindi and the last is the regional language (this is the hierarchy I've seen people conform to, it might be different elsewhere). In college (undergrad), this would result is some really really funny situations.
Two perfectly Marathi speaking classmates meet each other. But #1 is supposedly more "cool" than #2. So no matter what, #1 will always speak in English. #2 will make some futile attempts first, then switch to Hindi and eventually simply get back to what he knows best... Marathi. When both have a language in common, why can't they simply talk in that language? After all language is supposed to be a medium to convey your thoughts.
Why is one language supposed to be more sophisticated than the other? These hierarchies completely beat me!!
I can't think of theories to explain this so let me directly jump to examples.
I come from a city whose official name is Pune. However, inspite of it being a proper noun, I wonder why some people keep referring to it as Poona. I'm quite sure everyone knows that the official name is Pune, so saying "Poona" doesn't come out of lack-of-knowledge :-). Plus, more often than not, its people usually speaking in English who keep referring to it as "Poona". Some people (whether they admit it or not) think its more "cool" or more "hip" to use the word "Poona" instead of "Pune". I don't really understand why. If you see English news channels, this is quite evident.
More than the Pune-vs-Poona debate, we see people using the word Bombay when the official name of the city is Mumbai. Again, its usually the English speaking(and therefore supposedly more "hip") population using the word "Bombay" and not Mumbai. Again, if one proper noun replaces the other, why is one supposed to be better(as in "more hip") than the other?
We recently saw a case where a supposedly more "cool" film producer (suave, sophisticated, urban, good-at-English-sucks-at-Hindi, etc.) had to apologize to a political leader (no "hip" at all :D... always-ready-with-the-"Marathi"-sword) because he used the word "Bombay" instead of Mumbai in the movie (interestingly, a good chunk of the movie revolved around "Mumbai beat"). Who made these unwritten rules that "Bombay" is more sophisticated than "Mumbai"?
I understand that the transition from "Bombay" to "Mumbai" happened recently and not everyone was happy with it. But then, this decision was taken by a democratically elected government. So people should go by it. Not everyone agrees to the increase in taxes but people still pay it, right?
Then comes the most hilarious part. Accent!! People have this notion about a hierarchy of accents :-). The western accent is supposed to be right at the top. The more western your accent is, the more "hip" you are....
WHAT??
Yes... but for some reason, this seems to be the unwritten rule about accents. One easily finds Bollywood film stars speaking in these accents just so that they look cool [the most hilarious piece was; recently Rakhi Sawant was trying to do this accent (in an interview to a Marathi channel)... she tried to speak one sentence in English using this accent and forgot some word in between... then switched to Marathi... again forgot some word... then simply started shaking her head and moving her shoulders up and down hoping that the interviewer would move to the next questions :)) ]
Even within the various parts of India, unfortunately, the hierarchy of accents exists. So people from the northern part of India, esp. Haryana, are supposed to be not-so-hip since their accents don't quite exude too much "hipness" :D. But I think this is similar to the accent and attitude of people from Texas :-).
Aishwarya Rai had made an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and it was so weird seeing her faking the western accent. Neways... let's not even get started on Aishwarya Rai!!
And last comes the unwritten hierarchy of languages. Speaking in English is supposed to be coolest, followed by Hindi and the last is the regional language (this is the hierarchy I've seen people conform to, it might be different elsewhere). In college (undergrad), this would result is some really really funny situations.
Two perfectly Marathi speaking classmates meet each other. But #1 is supposedly more "cool" than #2. So no matter what, #1 will always speak in English. #2 will make some futile attempts first, then switch to Hindi and eventually simply get back to what he knows best... Marathi. When both have a language in common, why can't they simply talk in that language? After all language is supposed to be a medium to convey your thoughts.
Why is one language supposed to be more sophisticated than the other? These hierarchies completely beat me!!
Labels: accent, india, Language, Mumbai, pronunciation, Pune
posted by Shri at 2:39 PM
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