English was a useful tool whose flexibility ensured acceptance and longevity of usage

 Truth to tolerance to terminologies taking tall tasks to turn temptations to totally turn towards top thoughts , things, technologies tuck trace to T.

There are a few things that have had a greater acceptance, spread and longevity due to various reasons. 

In this, acceptance and longevity of usage implies something or perhaps many things inherently interesting, important and easy to adopt. 

English language is one such, it does not mean it is the best or most perfect or more beautiful and expressive than the rest.

My views towards the West in general are ambivalent because of their colonial loot, wrongs and wrecking of civilizations ( which were vulnerable and allowed to get wrecked). 

However, a few things like their exploration of resources in far off lands, landing their version of planned institutionalisation, institutionalised imparting of knowledge, knowledge preserved for posterity through documentation, documenting whatever were advantageous to hegemonize and to homogenise, homogenising through colonialism etc had to use certain tools and those tools were constantly subjected to fin​e tuning to deliver the results. 

The English language was one such tool. If they had to travel and conquer far off lands as well as interact to loot or to rule. 

They could not have carried on only with invasions and killing forever nor could they have wasted their time and resources trying to learn the native languages wherever they went, but had to communicate to know the whole depth and breadth of culture, civilization and resources. 

So, they kept imposing their lingo in many places and to do that they had to make sure the language was  flexible and sound pleasing and logical  to many. 

This, one among the good things that the English did was imposing their language with rewards. 

The Portuguese and the French could not do that because they refused to be flexible in their language. 

There have been lots of books and researches in the English Alphabet. The best among them is a brief but comprehensive one. 

Euphonics: a Poet's Dictionary of Sounds (Paperback)By (author) John Michell

 

 I am giving below samples for two letters ‘B’ and ‘M’ in Euphonic from this book

Alphabet ‘B’

‘B’ the shape of B can be described as double or binary. It is an oval squashed into two bulges, like the bi-focal spectacles and the ‘b’’ sound is predominant in the names both proper and vulgar, given to the bipartite bulges of the body: bust, bosom, breasts, boobs, bubs, bums, buttocks, butt, base, beam, bottom backside.

A bull has balls or bollocks, and a beer-bobber grows a big belly like a tub, barrel or bloated bladder.

An image evoked by the B sound is of balloons blown up near to bursting. They are broad, bluff, burly, obese, bulging, bulbous, burgeoning, billowing, blooming, blubbery blimps. These bouncing orbs attract adjectives bounty: blessed, benevolent, benign, abundant, bland, buttery.

But bulbous bubbles also have the sound of bumptious bullies, who are :bold, brash, brazen, bothersome, beefy, brawny, bellicose, brutal bigots or bossy blunders, given to brawling, blustering blundering, squabbling, slobbering, blubbering, biffing, bashing, brow-beating, butting, bumping and boring. Bucolic and flabby, they boom, bawl, bray, bleat and belly-act and are bombastic, boastful, braggarts, babbling bullshit blah-blah and balderdash.

The brutal bluster of a blundering buffoon is the type of energy expressed by a big bill as broad as a barrel of beer. At bruising and boozing he hadn’t a peer. A burly club bouncer he drubbed one and all until clobbered and bashed in a brutal pub brawl.

Alphabet ‘M’

‘M’ the double-arched shape of the letter ‘m’ in the its mother’s eyebrows and breasts is the first pattern to be experienced by an infant, and its first sound is likely to be murmured, muttered M, which seems a natural symbol of mammals and maternity. Mother is mild, merciful, mollifying and mollycoddling. Her home is humble but warm and comfortable as the womb. Sometimes it is moderately merry and mirthful, yet home can become monotonous, hum-drum and gloomy. Making one morose, miserable mean, melancholy, mournful, moody, mosey, dim, grim and glum,

The association between the cycles of women and the moon that measures the month has caused these words in many languages to be dominated by the ‘M’ sound. Under the moon occur mysteries, romances, marvels, miracles, magic and the mantic arts, stimulating imagination or madness and monomania.

The ‘M’ sound evokes images of the dark, mysterious aspect of the female spirit, such as the mystic moon-maiden, the Madonna .....

Language debates and English

1.   Unending language debates

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/08/language-debate.html

2.      Language its limitless limitation

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/06/language-its-limitless-limitation.html

3.  Language and human beings

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/01/language-and-human-beings.html

4.     Evolution of language

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/10/language-evolution.html

5.  Sounds and words

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2012/08/sounds-and-words.html

6.     Language must be alive and kicking

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/08/my-20-point-observations-on-languages.html

7.     Benefits of English

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2010/02/our-language-policy-hypocrisy.html

8.     The 26 letters that rule the world

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/01/my-sincere-lifelong-lovers-26-gems-who.html

9.     Macaulay made a great gift to India why? 

       http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/10/macaulayism.html

10.  Impact and importance of English

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/06/english-its-impact-and-importance-for.html

11. Language and its DNA

 ttp://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/09/language-and-its-dna.html

 12.  The Treasures of English adjectives

http://adjectives-balayogi.blogspot.in/2010/05/adjective-finder-or-reverse-dictionary.html

or

http://www.scribd.com/doc/103216417/Reverse-Dictionary-of-Adjectives

13.  Enjoy word associations/groups/clusters

http://wordenjoy.blogspot.in/

14. Words - how they evolve, grow or get mutilated

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/01/words-how-they-evolve-grow-or-get.htm

15. Language, meaning and context

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/11/language-meaning-and-context.html

16. Context and contextual priorities matter more than anything else

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/11/context-and-contextual-priorities.html

17. Languages and language teachers

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/07/languages-and-language-teachers.html

18. Thoughts and language

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/08/thoughts-and-language.html

19. Language fanaticism, Linguistic fanaticism

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/11/language-fanaticism-linguistic.html

 20. Language hegemony

  http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/01/language-hegemony.html

  21.   Sanskrit- Why it is a great language?

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2012/09/sanskrit-why-it-is-great-language.html

22. Why only few words for smell in most languages?

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/11/why-only-few-words-for-smell-in-most.html

23. WORD INCLUSION IN ENGLISH -JUSTIFICATION

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/07/word-inclusion-in-english-justification.html

24. Terminological aberrations and importance of context

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/07/terminological-aberrations-and.html

25. Telugu -its greatness

http://andragreatness.blogspot.in/2012/11/telugu-its-greatness.html

26. Language a very interesting article

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2012/09/language-very-interesting-article.html

27. Spelling reforms in French

 http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/02/il-y-des-milliers-des-moyens-dameliorer_5.html

 28. Literature’s Impact

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/02/literatures-impact.html

 29. Language and language teaching methods

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/01/language-and-language-teaching-methods.html

  30. Words evolve how and why?

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2016/02/words-have-colourful-wings.html

 31. Length of a sentence

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/11/length-of-sentence-in-language.html

32. Elaboration is indeed important-why?

 http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/11/elaboration-is-indeed-important.html

       

 33. Why only few words for sense of smell in most languages?

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2015/11/why-only-few-words-for-smell-in-most.html

English its impact and importance for India and Indians

Let us respect facts over half- hearted and hypocritical ethnocentric affinities to language or culture or tradition and be pragmatic

Random Reflections on the English language in India

We may recall the momentous debate that took place in Calcutta on   in February 2, 1835, in which a thirty-five year old Englishman argued for introducing English as the medium of instruction in British-occupied India. The debate was about whether a substantial sum for opening new schools in India should be spent for education through Arabic and Sanskrit media, or through English. Thomas Babington Macaulay: scholar, historian, liberal, and very British, argued with great passion that the Indian people would benefit more in the long run  if they were initiated into English and to European thought and science than if they were trained in the languages and worldviews of Arabic and Sanskrit literatures. He was convinced that English would bring Indians to the modern world better than any other language. Also, the British could  "form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, words and intellect."

Macaulay's opponents argued that with the awakening that would come from English and modern science, Indians would become intellectually so strong that the British could no longer have their hold on India. To this Macaulay replied, "It would be … far better for us that the people of India were well governed and independent of us, than ill governed and subject to us; that they were ruled by their own kings, but wearing our broadcloth, and working with our cutlery, than that they were performing their salams to English collectors and English magistrates, but were too ignorant to value, or too poor to buy, English manufactures." Not many critics of Macaulay, some of whom shamelessly circulate spurious malicious quotes from him on the internet, care to refer to these words.

Macaulay won the debate. The die was cast. English became the medium of instruction in Indian schools. Within a generation a new class of Indians was formed. They were English in words and intellect, but not all were English in opinion and taste. Many became very patriotic. Versed in English and alerted to the notions of freedom, equality, and liberty through English books, they led a movement that overthrew British rule from India. All that is history that has flowed down the river of time.

Never before or since had  the convictions and eloquence of a single man affected the  course of a culture and history of a whole nation in so dramatic and irreversible a way. English is now an integral part of India's mind. It has brought together the educated classes from every region, such as India had never seen before.  The Sanskritic bonds of earlier times were largely for the upper castes. Mogul Persian influence was also only for the select cream of society. The vast majority of the people spoke and thought only in their local languages, as they still do, and seldom communicated with people from other regions. There was nothing unusual or bad in this situation. It was not unlike the situation in Europe such as it is even today.

It would be wrong to argue that English was indispensable for India to be unified as a political entity. Nor can one say that Indians needed English to be ushered into the modern world. Russians, Poles, Koreans and Japanese, to name a few, have all been modernized without English being imposed on them. What may be said positively about English is that many Indians have reaped valuable fruits from familiarity with English in many ways. Most of all: Aside from the fact that English is enormously rich in its literary treasures of great quality, no matter what subject you take, whether cultural, historical, scientific, informational, or whatever: you are likely to find a book or article on it in English such as in few other languages. French may be the only competitor of English in this regard.

Yet, English education has done some serious harm also: It has created a huge chasm between the English-knowing (perhaps 3% of the) population and the rest. More regrettably, these English-talkers tend to regard themselves as superior to the latter, exactly as the West, which English-speaking Indians rightly condemn, tends/tended to do about the non-West. When Indians are so mesmerized by English that they lose touch with their own culture, are unable to appreciate its finer elements and sensitivities, then they become what one derisively calls Macaulayites: Not just “Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, words and intellect,”  but also  mindlessly adoring whatever comes from the West and contemptuous of whatever is culturally indigenous. But this need not be so. Some of the greatest pan-Indian cultural patriots in all of India’s long history were formed by English education in British-established universities: Sri Aurobindo, Swami Vivekananda, S. Radhakrishnan, Prafulla Chandra Ray, Lokamanya Tilak, and C. Rajagopalachariar, to name only a few. Even the much maligned Jawaharlal Nehru was a greater enlightened patriot than many who are bad-mouthing him today.  Most movers and leaders in India are converts to English and English education.

As modern civilization is dependent on the computer, India (like many other nations) has become dependent on English for its survival as a modern nation. As of now, India cannot have her universities, IITs, banks and communication systems without English. This intellectual and cultural dependence may not be very healthy. Sad or not, this has become a fact.

Here again, English speaking Indians find it easier to get jobs in the world market, teach in universities all over the world, they are able to have pan-India meetings, they feel an oneness as citizens of the same country, and they participate more easily in international discussions. Some of them have also contributed to English literature.

There is no question but that English has played an important role in the rejuvenation of India. No, English has not destroyed the Indian mind. It merely awakened it to perspectives and values, knowledge and information of which the Hindu mind, and other ancient minds, did not have an inkling before.  In the nineteenth century, modern secular literature in every Indian language was created by authors who had read English/European literature. English translations of India’s sacred books have opened the eyes of countless Hindus and people all over the world to the treasures of Indic wisdom which few beyond a handful of Brahmin pundits, Sanskrit and Tamil, had ever heard of. Neither the Bhagavad Gita nor the Upanishads were as widely read and appreciated in classical India as they are today. It is equally true that a knowledge of English serves people well in opening their minds to new perspectives. As long as Indians use English as a useful and enriching instrument, for its beneficial rather than culture-destructive potential, the language can serve them well.

There are valid reasons for regretting the introduction of English into the Indian educational system. Anglo-indoctrination created a whole class of Hindus who lost touch with their own roots, between whom and the vast majority of their compatriots who have not been exposed to English and related thought modes, there is even today a gaping intellectual chasm. But this has happened before. Historically, people with command over a more sophisticated language (i.e. a language with more books on a greater range of subjects) invariably were at an advantage and considered themselves superior Greek-speaking Romans looked down upon their fellow citizens who did not know Greek. French-knowing Russians in the former centuries looked down upon fellow Russians. In medieval Europe Latin-knowing scholastics looked won upon those who were Latin-illiterate. Sanskrit knowing Tamils looked down upon Non-Sanskrit knowing worshipers of Murugan at one time.

I respect the concerns of Hindus who see more of their time-honoured culture slip away from India’s sacred soil. But this is not due to English. It is due the tornado of modernity that is sweeping across the world. The West was the first to see its Christian heritage challenged, modified, even overthrown by modernity. This has happened in China too. The alternative is stagnation with medieval worldviews and values.
This is the predicament of many English-educated Indians (indeed, English-educated citizens of other former British colonies as well) today: On the one hand, they want to kick out from the very core of their being the British (and the French and the Dutch, and the Portuguese, etc.) and everything these exploiting colonizers have left behind, lock, stock, and barrel. The massive body of literature that argues about, condemns, bashes, abuses, and verbally spits upon the West in books, articles, and internet postings is growing in magnitude in our own times.

Yet, these authors are more at ease in the world of discourse with fellow English-educated West-haters than with millions of their own Non-English-educated compatriots. For my part, though I detest the British from the bottom of my heart for all the terrible things they did to my forebears, I am glad their intervention saved me from having to pay obeisance to a descendant of Bahadhur Shah Zaffar or even of Shivaji, as my most exalted monarch, Mogul or Maratha. I am very grateful too for parliamentary democracy and the penal code in India. I know I am not speaking for many of my fellow Hindus, but perhaps I am also speaking for at least some of them, when I say I am glad my worldviews have been moulded by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, and I feel more fulfilled because I have derived aesthetic delights not only from Kamban and Kalidasa but also from Shakespeare and Shelley. My mind has also been immeasurably enriched by the physics of Galileo and Newton, and by the equations of Einstein and Schrödinger.


I know very well that we did not need humiliating British colonialism for all this and that the British did not have in mind my aesthetic, scientific or intellectual thrills when they inflicted their grammar and vocabulary on India. But, on balance, Hindus have benefited immensely from Macaulay’s victory in the 1835 debate. If his motives were malicious, so much the worse for him. Our road to heaven (cultural/linguistic richness) was paved with (his) bad intentions.

There has been enough of this carping on ancient alien demonic deeds, and pronouncing passionate curses on Western devils.  This accentuates historical rancour, but it is not going to alter the past in any way. Also, while the West plundered us economically for more than a century, we have been beneficiaries of the fruits of modern (Western) science, technology, and medicine in many ways. From the bicycle and the printing press to tap water and nuclear reactors, India has been enriched immeasurably on the material plane by the knowledge, discoveries, and inventions that came from the West. That must be enough quid pro quo for past exploitations. It should not be forgotten that Hindus suffered far greater cultural damage from the previous occupiers of Hindu India: a long range consequence of which has been that the land of the River Sindhu (Sind) and the lake of Sage Kashyapa (Kashmir) have been snatched away from Hindus.

Time has come for all cultures to join hands, recognize one another’s richness, and strive towards solving humanity’s many serious problems. Preaching separateness and insisting on our differences, especially in hateful and self-superior terms are not helpful in solving the myriad problems of the twenty-first century.

This does not mean that Hindus must not keep watchful eyes on similar machinations whether by Western mischief-makers or by India’s (currently no less  dangerous) neighbours across India’s borders. Nor should Hindus ignore and be ignorant of their traditional culture: music and art, language and literature, philosophy and spirituality.

I make no apologies for taking whatever is best from the East as well as from the West. Though I am at ease with English and French, German I relish Sanskrit poetry and the Tamil language, let alone ecstatic bhajan songs and morning meditations.  But I do revel in the standard model and have read  Milton and Molière, Goethe and Dante, and enjoy Bach and Beethoven also. If some   Hindus think this is distorting the Hindu mind, or intellectual enslavement, that is fine by me.

My point is that knowing English or tasting the fruits of other cultures need not necessarily instil disrespect for one’s own.
Also read my article which was published some 20+ years back in my blog
http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2010/02/our-language-policy-hypocrisy.html

Observations about English.

Observations about English.

Nothing to beat the leave letters in my office

"As I am the only husband [probably among many ] to take care of my sick wife I ask you only to ensure help my wife become normal then only I can be able to come to office. You only know about my wife condition already”

Well coming back to English as a language, by absorbing, assimilating and adopting words and expressions plundered from other languages and wonderfully injecting them not only in its literary forms but also in the layman’s lexicon has evolved as a preferred and user friendly language and in this lies the strength and secret of the growth of the English language. In addition to the number of users of a language, its geographical spread, the wide range and variegated vocabulary to communicate and express as many ideas or events as possible in as many fields of human activity; it has syntactic plasticity, flamboyant flexibility suited to both simple and complex modes of expression, and an enormously evolved derivational morphology and because of all these it stands as the unrivaled champion as a global language but having said this

1] Inherently it has lot of weaknesses like many other languages but at the same time it is a user friendly language but not a very good language in the sense, easy to use and you can express anything and because of its enormous utilization even the most nonsensical communications are accepted, understood and often in many contexts it is like your AKBAR BIRBAL STORY. In most contexts it is an exclusive privilege of mutual understanding between the communicator and listener. Like I saw in Bihar bachelor lodges with boards 'sleeping alone only lodge' means I hope you understand.

2] Many of the problems are created due to mistakes in syntax either wantonly or unknowingly like in the following context, a person who has a father in law who has the habit of changing his residence very often, instead of asking him where is your father in law's latest residence you ask him 'where is your latest father in law's residence'.

3] Like in many languages English too has some totally illogical usages which are the inevitable parts of speech like prepositions and further complicated by wrong use of them like what are the animals that eat and drink with their tail. All the animals that have a tail, for, they do not remove their tail when they eat or drink.

4] Many problems arise in English also due to its incoherent role like a person wanting to both bowl and keep the wickets. While it is used universally it has originated basically from a place which had a very secluded and sectarian culture and only later on in its evolutions it has grown by adopting and assimilating expressions and words left right and center from where ever it has penetrated. So like an international whore it has and can communicate a bit about every culture but cannot be expected to have in depth knowledge and detail about any culture.

5] Its growth and spread has been only in the past few hundred years because the native speakers of this language ruled most parts of the world in the past few hundred years and since they were incapable of learning the local languages they forced their language, i.e. English on other people and subsequently their illegitimate off spring the Americans who subsequently dominated trade, technology and commerce enabled and enhanced its spread further.

6] It is surprising that it is one among the very few languages that does not have a verb for birth. You cannot say X or Y pirandhan as we do in Tamil or Il naît as in French you need an auxiliary as X or Y was born.

7] It is the least suitable language for explaining many of the oriental cultures, ways of life , philosophies, spiritual experiences etc

8] Its growth in terms of its social acceptance and surge as the most widely spoken language has been not due to the splendor or superiority of any linguistic or cultural aspect but because of extraneous factors mentioned earlier like political power, commerce and trade in the last few hundred years.

9] It is the best language suited for diplomatic wheedling and intentional ambiguous statements.

10] Its idiomatic side is again very interesting and funny. If I were asked to complete a half completed idiom as 'those living in glass houses must not_______________[ complete] I would spontaneously write it as ' walk naked'

Since you had put an upper cap let me conclude. You may refer to my article in my blog for further journey into English

http://contentwriteups.blogspot.com/2010/02/our-language-policy-hypocrisy.html

HI ALL,
Using 'ONLY' in the same sentence at 8 different places makes the difference every time.

1. ONLY I hit him in the eye yesterday. (No one else did.)

2. I ONLY hit him in the eye yesterday. (Did not slap him.)

3. I hit ONLY him in the eye yesterday. (I did not hit others.)

4. I hit him ONLY in the eye yesterday. (I did not hit outside the eye.)

5. I hit him in ONLY the eye yesterday. (Not other organs.)

6. I hit him in the ONLY eye yesterday. (He doesn't have another eye.)

7. I hit him in the eye ONLY yesterday. (Not today.)

8. I hit him in the eye yesterday ONLY. (Did not wait for today.)

How strange our english language is....................!