01. Teachers with superficial allegiance to English

02. Building artificial antipathy

03. Pronunciation issues

04. Arrival of feudal codes

05. The entry of putrefying profanity

06. Tales of ingratitude

07. Terrific profanities and expletives

When speaking about pristine English and its current faded form, there is much that I need to speak of. There are quite a lot of varying facets to the dirtying of English.

Teachers with superficial allegiance to English

The first one is the issue of English being taught by persons who have no basis in English other than a very superficial exposure to it. They do not know the depth of the English heritage, the historical experiments and experiences that are embedded in this language, and of the huge content called English classics. Their general impression is that English classics are just like any other literature in any other language.

The understanding that English classics are a sort of repository of an extremely positive social communication system that possibly never existed in most other nations of the world is not known. The difference is not in the stories, but in the manner of communication and interpersonal relationship between the characters and the social setup that is reflected therein.

Building artificial antipathy

Second issue facing English is the general antipathy to English that is deliberately built-up by persons who really do not want English to come and liberate persons who they hold as slaves using the chains in their native languages. They cunningly give wrong impressions about English. An example was the general idea that it is English that is bringing in moral depravation in the social setup.

The funny thing is that this idea is disseminated by persons who are neck-deep involved in corruption and bribery. Moreover, in nations like ‘India’, a huge section of the female folk are very placidly exploited for various needs, including sex. There is a huge market for selling of lured females in Bombay and other places. No one is really bothered, not even the media, which really writes only things that cater to the interests of the cunning and powerful vested interests.

Pronunciation issues

Third issue is the problem of wrong pronunciation. I am not speaking about accent here, but only about pronunciation. English words are spoken as they would sound when written in the native ‘Indian’ language alphabets. So What will become Vaat, Want will be Vant, Is will be Ees, Was will be Vaas, and so on. In fact every English word is thus affected.

Arrival of feudal codes

Fourth issue that is atrophying English is the embedding of English with the native language feudal codes. So that Mr. Philip will become Philip Saar, or Mrs. Sonia will become Sonia Maadam and thus.

The idea that young females have to be addressed formally with a Miss. prefixed is not there, and if mentioned would be rebutted with sarcasm. To insist a ‘Miss’ on a person, who they would address with a Thoo or Nee, and refer to as USS or an Aval, in their native language, would be seen as quite cranky. This is a sort of English which I have named as Gandhi English or Coolie English. In this kind of English, there definitely are Mahatmas and Coolies. Both on the opposite extremes.

The entry of putrefying profanity

Beyond all this, there is another terrible affliction that has befallen pristine English. I really feel sad about that. When I was small, the English that came to me was more or less connected to the English Education lent to a small section of the common man in Malabar during the British rule of Madras Presidency.

The most terrible profanity in vogue in Malabar was Son of a Bitch. {Actually it was: Son of a dog/daughter of a dog (Naayinte mone/Naayinte mole)}. Other expletives might include Dog (Naaye) etc. Another one I remember hearing was Polayante mone (Son of a lower caste Polaya man). This last one has somewhat disappeared. It might be due to the fact that it is statutorily a crime to call a lower caste man by his caste! It can be slightly equivalent to calling a Black man a Negro or a Negro being called Black and ending up in jail for that! {Here again, there is much to be discussed. Starting from the point that calling a White man a White cannot be a profanity, but calling a Black man a Black can be!

Actually, compared to negative impact of lower indicant words, the word Nigger is next to nothing. It is just a case of the black improving to such an extent that they can’t bear to imagine a time when their forefathers were from the underside of barbarian social systems. It is like Indians going to English nations and reacting with vehemence at the word ‘Native’ being used about the natives of India.

SEE this sarcastic comment attacking my comment on HuffingtonPost:

honeybear July 13, 2012 at 6:09am

Victoria Institutions - Thank you for your apt demonstration of archaic British “think” toward the colonials. If I had not read your posts...I would have thought that such arrogant attitudes only existed in fiction. I notice in your posts that you refer to East Indians as “natives” and of course Martin Luther King should owe a debt of gratitude to the English for making him aware of black oppression. Also, I see that you are full of “class” distinctions. Didn’t you know that class discrimination went out with the advent of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover?”

Well...well! Aren’t you just the grand Lady Who-Ha!...frowning on all those who should recognize their betters.

Thomas Paine was right! END OF QUOTE

MY COMMENT: See the reaction to the word ‘Native’ when used about Indians. It is a just a mental indoctrination that this ‘N’ word is insulting. The same is the case of the other ‘N’ word. If the blacks can define any white man as White Thrash, then I do not find any problem with defining a black man as a Nigger. If blacks are not thrash, then they should move to the level of disclaiming all legislations that aim to give them exclusivities.

I am not very sure what one would understand from my own experience in this regard. Many years ago, when I was studying in Trivandrum, (in erstwhile Travancore kingdom), the local people did not know what a Thiyya was. As for me coming from a Colonial British-lend-English educated family background, the aura of a lower caste mentality was not in me. So, when I simply mentioned that ‘I am a Thiyya’ when a discussion was going on about caste, it was seen as provocative.

One person (a lower caste man of that area) later told me, ‘You are very caste spirited. You feel that you are superior just because of your superior caste’. It was quite a funny argument, in that he took my extremely casual attitude of mentioning my caste with no feeling of an inferiority complex to denote that my caste was a higher caste.

In the current area, where I am currently residing, a Thiyya tag is one of lower social caste status. However, I care two-pence for others’ evaluation. As to the elevated Thiyyas, they cannot bear the lower caste stature. They go on claiming that they are superior. In fact, one can find an immense of writings on the web by Thiyyas that they by ancestry do not belong to India, but to such other nations like Greek, Kazakhstan. So much is their repulsion to other ‘Indians’. This repulsion naturally comes from other ‘Indian’ castes claiming that Thiyyas are part of their caste!

Thiyyas currently get a reserved quota in professional courses like Medicine, Engineering etc., and also in government employment. So a very terrible tragedy occurs regularly in the nation. A better quality person would end up as a peon, while a lower quality person would end up as an officer. Now, what is ‘reservation’? It is just a claim that a particular section of people are mentally handicapped and hence have to be given special seats and reservations to survive.

This is the current black attitude towards such words as ‘Nigger’. If others define them as Niggers, well, who should care, if they are of higher quality. The word Nigger would then come to define higher quality. It is like the word Mallu. It was once meant to means a menial class Malayalee worker in the gulf. Now, it is a word that is generally used by the Malayalee panorama all around the world, as if it is a superior tag.

Tales of ingratitude

Basically I feel that if the Blacks of the US and other English nations cannot bear being identified as Blacks, it is basically their own inferiority complex. However the fact remains that the Blacks of the English nations, including the slave descendants of the US, owe a huge compensation to the English nations for lending them so much chance and opportunity to improve. They got this opportunity without any effort and so they do not feel any gratitude or value for that. They lend their loyalty to such persons as Martin Luther King and Mandela. It is doubtful as to what quality of improvement they would have got from either of these persons.

There are many more Martin Luther Kings and Mandelas in the African and Asian nations. If they feel that they would get more liberty and personality development from such leaders, they should move back to Africa or even to Asian nations such as India. Then they would really get to see the reality of what they had been given as a boon. The chance to live and improve among native-English speakers.

Actually, this goes not just for African natives, but also for persons from Continental Europe also. Many of them come from such nations of dubious social quality as Italy, France, German and East European nations. They improve dramatically in the US, but never chance to admit their gratitude to England. For it is the English codes that run in the US. However, it is getting more and more diluted. In days to come, it may resemble India, in many ways including chaos in planning and execution of many things.

Actually there is a part of the US population who are just the sitting ducks over there. The original people of English content. It is they who would provide the social communication framework for all others to come and live in an English ambience. Yet, they are simply neutralised by the rank cantankerous attitude of these new comers, who feel that they are the geniuses of their own native nations who have landed in the US. It is not true.

In India also, there are plenty of people (mainly children of government employees who loot the people, and of the exploitative rich) who move to the US. Once they are in the US, their attitude is that they are some kind of a higher intellect people from India. The others stuck there in India are idiots according to them.

Terrific profanities and expletives

Now coming back to the issue of the atrophying of English. In Travancore area, the profanities were of a hundred times higher intensity. They included such usages as Pundachimon (son of a whore), Poorimon (Son of a cunt), Koothichimol (daughter of a whore) Thayooli (mother fucker), Thayooli mon (Son of a mother fucker), Ammayepanni thayooli (Motherfucking motherfucker), Pattithotti Thayooli (Bloody motherfucker), Oomben (Sucker), Oombeda (Go and suck eda), Pariyan (low caste pariyan/cockman), Parinakki (Licker of a prick), Pooran (Cunt), Polayadimon etc. The major issue with all such swear words were that they were all of a very horrid sound. In fact, the very scratching sound in them could irritate.

The only exclusive things that I learnt from my college were these profanity words. Academic knowledge I derived from textbooks. Not from the low-quality lecturers, who I detested. I was not an avid speaker of the local (Trivandrum) dialect and so these words were quite new to me. However, it was understood as a sort of personality training to be adept in these usages. The idea that this type of personality training was going to make the social communication quite troublesome and irritating was not there. For, there was no one of real quality to come out and mention that social quality is not connected to being rude and offensive, but in being able to create a soft social living environment.

There were many reasons for this. The major one being that Travancore kingdom never had the full experience of British rule. For, between the British Resident (English official representing the British administration in Madras Presidency) and the people, there were a number of higher castes and also the royalty. The second one was the very belligerent mood of competition between the newly unfettered Ezhava caste and their next-in-line superior Nair caste (who the Ezhavas mention with vengeance as Sudra*, which definition is met with homicidal violence by the Nairs).

Nairs had to naturally view the emerging position of the Ezhavas as a real social threat as they were growing up with no one to enlighten them about a softer version of social improvement. (Ezhavas were given a huge percentage of reservation for government jobs as well as seats in professional education. This was again to make the Ezhavas more or less callous about the need to improve in refinement. Their social suppression was a reality. However, social improvement is not in simply cutting off the chains, but in acquiring refinement through pristine English learning. However, there was no one to mention this, to any of the competing castes, both high and low).

[*This I have mentioned just to denote the repulsion that an Indian group has when being attached to certain Indian socially defining words. The homicidal mood would be more terrible than can be spurred by calling a Negro a Nigger. In their sheer terror of this word Sudra, the Nairs go into a mental frenzy claiming that they are Kshatriyas. See this comment that came on Wikipedia suggesting not to mention this word. It seems to be worse than calling a Negro a Nigger. However, the fact remains that Sudra is a word that is becoming repulsive through modern Indian education. For, current-day Indian education defines it as the lowest ‘caste’, which it is not. It is only the lowest of the Aryan Castes.]

Look at this quote from Native Life of Travancore: for in the South of India, Sudras, and especially the Nayars of the Western Coast, though not regarded as “twice born,” are yet not socially a low caste, but constitute the mass of the respectable population — the landowners and employers of labour, the agricultural and military classes. “This caste,” says Monier Williams, was probably formed from the more respectable of the aboriginal inhabitants, who joined themselves to the conquering Hindus, and preferred serving them to leaving their homes.”

However, in all these writings, one can see of one group of natives of this geographical area showing repulsion to being identified with another group of natives].

I have again digressed a bit. When I was staying in a college hostel there, profanity was a sort of greetings as one would mention Good Morning, or some other such word. A hostel mate would enter the room and simply use the highest of his vocal capacities and greet the other person with these words ‘Enthadapoorimone? (What is it, you Son of a Cunt?)’

Immediately the retort should be something like, ‘Nee poda, Pundachimone’ (You get lost, you son of a whore). It was generally seen that persons who can communicate at this level of usages, were macho, and those who could not were seen as real sissies.

The issue here is that actually there is not much a personal capacity required to arrive at this level of communication. However, to refrain from doing this and remaining committed to refinement required real inner profundity. That is something that the British education had given to a very few in Malabar area.

When these thus educated persons remained the role model in Malabar, there was a general focus of social direction towards refinement. However in Travancore the opposite was the focus. Later, when Kerala was formed with the amalgamation of Malabar with the erstwhile independent kingdoms of Travancore and Cochin, everything set-up by the British were slowly erased.

DIGRESSION: I must interject here and mention that I never got an opportunity to get an aura of British education, either colonial or post colonial. However, I could discern the quality enhancement in those who have had the opportunity to experience it. END OF DIGRESSION

That much I wrote to setup the background to what I was mentioning about one of the most tragic fouling done on English. I was used to such profanities as Bastard, Son of a gun, Son of Bitch etc. and other swear words like ‘I will eat my hat’, and such exclamations as ‘Oh, My Sainted Aunt’, ‘Goodness gracious’, ‘Oh My God’ ‘Oh, My goodness’ etc. It was true that the English had been afflicted much before I had contemplated on what would happen to English as the persons from feudal language software came and impacted and pierced into English.

I used to wonder as to what would happen when these people, who used such terrible profanity as an everyday usage, entered into English. They had no idea about any English heritage or of any English classical literature or English classical writer. They had no loyalty, affection, respect or adoration for English. All they had was a feeling that it is quite easy to communicate in English, with anyone high and low, with no qualms. I feared the worst.

I am not saying that terrible profanities were not there in English. However, the fact remains that English did have a traditional heritage of commitment to refinement and quality, and an undercurrent emotion of aiming for common good. When I read the book Godfather by Mario Puzo (way back in the last years of ‘70s), the text was full of the word Fuck.

{I need to mention here that there is no equivalent word for Fuck in Malayalam. However, I did hear a word Oatha in Tamil, when I heard some Tamilians in Tamilnadu mentioning the usage Oatha Malayalathaan, meaning Fucking Malayalee. It was curious to see a corresponding word in Tamil and not find it is Malayalam. Maybe there is a reason for this is the language codes}.

Mario Puzo’s book was quite interesting. However, the moment I read it, I knew that the book was not a story of an English social system, but one delineating a very feudal language social system. It was this book that made me suspect that Italian language (or at least its Sicilian dialect) is having some kind of hierarchical social structuring or feudalism in it.

Now almost all the words that I had seen or heard in Travancore are in the English language. I am not saying that it entered from Travancore Malayalam. It entered from all round the world. Well, the English nationals have been quite prodigal of their national heritage. It has been dispersed and squandered and allowed to be made into mincemeat. By others.

I have seen the same kind of dirty swear words in *Mulk Raj Anand’s Seven Summers, in which the Hindi-speaking ‘Indian’ characters of the British rule period using more or less the same words. However those words were just literal translation of Hindi communication of the characters in that book. Now, these words are more or less ubiquitous in most English writings.

A feeling of having arrived in English is felt when one starts using such words. Ass, Fuck, Asshole, Fucker, Stink, Dude etc are commonly used. As to the word Dude, it is said to have a non-impolite meaning. However that is not the sense it is used. For example, I have had the occasion to be thus addressed in certain emails by low stature persons as a means to cause mental disturbance. It is not a word that they would dare to use to their parents, teachers, local policemen, government officials or to the political leaders.

*Mulk Raj Anand who was born in the geographical area of current-day Pakistan, was also British educated (in London)

I have seen persons with bare English standards reaching the US and then start using these words and such other words like Buddy (not profanity) etc. as if to show that they are now good in English. Actually what they display is their real shallowness in English. This level of English, any un-educated person can display within hours of practice.