Will 'British English' survive?

Will 'British English' survive?

JAKARTA (JP): The purpose of a language, according to an
English author, "is to get an idea as exactly as possible out of
one mind into another".

English is owned by all the English-speaking people on this
planet. English is no longer a British language, nor can it
become "American English" either. However, puritans may be
shocked at the way English is spoken around the world.

For instance, Australians pronounce the word "day" as "die".
For "today" they say "to die". "Today" is such a powerful
resource at our disposal that it's a pity Australians associate
it with "death".

Socio-cultural factors influence how a language evolves. For
instance, foreign businesspeople are often exasperated trying to
figure out when a Japanese means "Yes" or "No". The Japanese
don't like to say "No" directly, it is felt to be impolite. So,
instead of just saying "No", they seem to have perfected many
ways to avoid saying "No". They may respond vaguely, remain
silent, ask a question or just get up and leave.

Indians, on the other hand, have the habit of rotating their
heads, left to right -- meaning denial or agreement, depending on
how you perceive it.

Indians also say that someone is "pretty old" -- a nice way to
describe older people, I suppose. Of course, some elderly people,
particularly couples, do look pretty despite their advancing age.

Only in India can you hear people pronounce the word "receipt"
with the letter "p" clearly enunciated.

Human communication, it is said, is composed of three
elements. The words we use make up 7 percent, the way we say
something 38 percent and body language 55 percent.

Push-button telephones have been in use for many years in
India, but Indians still have the habit of pointing and making a
dialing motion in the air with their index fingers to convey that
they intend to call you.

I've heard educated Indonesians using "you know" in
conversation, apparently to give themselves time to think of what
to say next.

In official correspondence in Indonesian firms, an assistant
manager is abbreviated "ass. manager"!

An Indonesian manager once said "my under" referring to his
subordinate. "I am forget" is another phrase commonly heard here.
To say "monthly", some Indonesians utter "monly" without the
"th".

Here's yet another example from a prerecorded message on
telephones in Jakarta: "The destination you are calling is
'injured'" -- what's to be understood here is "engaged"!

Above all, where else, other than in Indonesia, would you find
a store selling "adult milk"? Have a look at the sign in the
aisle selling milk products in Carrefour!

It was amusing to read the other day in The Jakarta Post that
the gorillas shortly arriving from England can only understand
English. This is rather a tribute to the gorillas, for humans are
still struggling to learn the language!

The late E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker (EVR, for short), a great
social reformer in India, once asked his assistant to send a
telegram using as few words as possible, with a view to reducing
the cost. The assistant duly complied with the instructions.
When he returned, EVR queried how many words were used and the
assistant replied that the message contained just two words:
"ALREADY TOLD". EVR scolded him, saying he could have simply used
"TOLDED", thus saving even more money. Quite ingenious, isn't it?

In my younger days, in a letter to my father, I used the word
"actioned", meaning "action taken". Promptly, I received a reply
from him that I shouldn't have converted a noun into a verb. My
Dad, who had worked for British bosses during colonial times, was
a stickler for using proper English, and used to say: "If English
rulers had known that this was the way Indians would speak
English, they would have packed their bags and left the Indian
shores at least 100 years earlier."

At an Indian company in which I was employed, we had an office
boy who relished speaking English. One day he was reading the
newspaper aloud, and we heard him read "troducing". We couldn't
make out what he was trying to convey. He insisted that the word
was actually "troducing".

We pulled the newspaper out of his hands and examined the
relevant passage. The word "introducing" had been split, as "in-"
on one line followed by "troducing" on the following line, and he
was merely reading it as two different words. From then on, he
was known by the nickname "troducing"!

Another day one of my colleagues was suffering from an upset
stomach, and the same office boy, who overheard our conversation,
intervened and commented, in a sage-like manner: "My
'satisfaction' is that your pain may be due to an ulcer in the
stomach." All of us were appalled by his statement. How could
anyone derive satisfaction from someone else's suffering?

It transpired that he meant to say "suspicion" but ended up
saying "satisfaction". Poor man, how was he to know that there
was a difference between "suspicion" and "satisfaction"? We, of
course, pardoned him for his "tongue of the slip" (I mean "slip
of the tongue"!)

At another company, during a job interview for a clerical
position a candidate was asked: "What's life insurance?" Pat came
the reply: "If you die, you'll get the money, Sir." The
interviewer was flabbergasted, to say the least.

Indians have long ceased to regard English as a "foreign"
language. It is theirs to use and they are entitled to mould,
pound and batter into any shape. Many Indians, in fact, think in
English -- "Indian English", to be precise.

A language created in the daily illogical lives of people need
not necessarily be logical. Should British English be an
exception?

-- D. Chandramouli