We learn English unwisely and randomly the way most grammar books and English lessons present. I find it a reflection of legacy. As much as 80 per cent of English words came from as many as 350 languages. For that reason, standardisation of the grammatical structure and pronunciation was impossible. Look at the irregular verbs, irregular nouns and even irregular pronunciation. Within irregular nouns, there are irregular plurals. Wherever there is an arguable subject-verb agreement, ‘concord’ protects it. The challenges of many grammarians to give interpretations on the language structure over many years made the bristly Anglo-Saxon language into gentle modern English. Now neither the language of the Father of English nor the Father of English literature is prevalent. You may see British and American English with variations in spellings and grammatical structures. We Indians manage all the conflicts and take all advantages of English learning away from the British as we rule all software colonies of the world now. With the same strength, we have invaded the voice-service business of the world also.
The British rulers taught us their language intending to make us feel subservient. They wanted us to feel inferior without being English educated. First, a suppression of our self-respect, then a replacement of it with a snobbish personality. We have realised it earlier. Our ancestors knew their plots. And they warned us of the dire consequences of British policy. Yet, we tried to learn it with a sense of nobility and snobbishness.
We did not show our civil disobedience and non-cooperation to English learning. That was the reason, along with the British rulers, the language had not exited India. Instead of relinquishing it, we preferred to make it our compulsory language since the beginning of upper primary schooling. We were proud of teaching and learning it.
Today we have more than 125 million English speaking people. That is more than a third of the population whose first language is English. Of course, the English speaking population of India is twice the number of the entire British population. Each Indian above the upper primary standard learned at least the English alphabet. Many of them regret not learning it more if not learned further.
The once Babu English became fashionable English because of the clout that English speaking segments wielded in our society. The influence ensured respectability to English speaking conventions. It remained unquestionably and undoubtedly aggressive. We accepted it, finding no harm in our endurance with the foreign language. What we learnt would not attribute to enslavement but be a holier lesson.
In the 90s, on the other side of the Atlantic, Indians stole away the advantage of the British complement of English language imposition. India became a super software powerhouse and voice-service outsourcing hub, obviously because of our English literacy. Now the global financial system will not function without India’s software. We built the clout in the world and an invincible colony of software on the edge of our English literacy. The United States, which has the world’s largest English speaking population, cried foul over the job shipment to India.
A decade ago, the American polity shouted harshly on India’s advantage without realising that India harvested only the British plantation of sin. The curse was a blessing, or we made it thus.
Time is a great teacher and healer. Britain’s Education Act 1944 encouraged grammar schools while making education free after the age of 14. The grammar schools filtered pupils to create an elite class in future. The grammar school was an egalitarians’ vanity. Free education focused on trade-class. The proposed technical schools under the Act to make another division of pupils that never came up. The Act sharpened the social division, soon compelling British politicians, including Tories, though reluctantly, to shut the grammar schools. Nevertheless, the British influenced Indian education policy did not leave behind an unhealable division. What we endured, the British could not.
Now what Indians and the English have in common is the deterioration in the language learning quality. We continue the incomprehensive and cluttered way of English teaching and learning with no fundamentals. The language misery is starker in Britain. Two years ago, a BBC Politics Live interview with a former British Education Minister, Michael Gove, mortified the British society with his nonstandard English equipped with multiple errors.
The British taught us the errors that they knew. Still, we conquered the world of software with our English skills. However, let us not learn anything unwisely and randomly the way most grammar books and English lessons guide us. Helpless, as much as 80 per cent of English words came from as many as 350 languages. A conflict within is hence natural.
