A language without limits
Deena Kamel
Staff Reporter
That eve-teasing man thinks he's such a ranjha, but he's really a badmash. Chi-chi.
In other words: "The man who sexually harasses women thinks he's such a Romeo, but he's really ill-mannered. Ick."
That sentence, with its Hindi-English mix, might have folks at Merriam-Webster scratching their heads.
But all around the GTA, if you listen carefully, you'll hear English increasingly spiced with flavours from foreign languages. Hinglish, Chinglish and Arabizi are just a few of the variations.
With its ethnic neighbourhoods, Toronto is the perfect city for a revolution in spoken English, historically an "absorbent language." The language we are hearing today will be very different from the English we will speak in future, as we borrow more words from dominant languages like Hindi or Chinese.
Academics call this mid-conversation and mid-sentence hybridization "code switching." It is disliked by some native English speakers, but not by language experts.
"It is perfectly normal and linguistically fascinating, but people sometimes find it embarrassing," says Jack Chambers, professor of sociolinguistics at the University of Toronto. "They think it is a sign of incompetence when it is really a sign of resiliency and creativity."
Siham Ben, 27, a Moroccan medical student, came to Canada when she was 7. She switches between English and Arabic, producing a hybrid dubbed by Jordanian youth as Arabizi – a slang term for Arabic and "Inglizi" or "English" in Arabic.
"I don't feel it when I'm doing it," says the Toronto resident. "I don't pay attention to it."
For Ben, code-switching is a way of maintaining her identity. "I feel Moroccan first, then Canadian second. If I don't use Arabic first, I don't feel true to myself. It's a way of coping with life here."
Zina Alobaydi, 20, is a telecommunications sales representative living in Scarborough. "I feel my head is a dictionary," she says, as she thinks in Arabic and speaks in English. Alobaydi speaks the Iraqi dialect with her parents, as a sign of respect to them, but uses Arabizi with her friends.
Alobaydi uses more Arabic, with its richness and depth, to express emotions that cannot be conveyed as well in English.
"Take the word 'bahr' for example," she says letting the word for `sea' roll in her mouth. "It gives you the feeling of a big, unlimited space. It has an echo. It rhymes in your head and stays there."
But she uses English when talking about culturally taboo subjects, such as dating, which are harder for her to convey in Arabic.
Hinglish, a lively hybrid spread quickly by the Internet and satellite channels, is the language of globalization. In 2004, David Crystal, a British linguist at the University of Wales, predicted that the world's 350 million Hinglish speakers may soon outnumber native English speakers in the United States and United Kingdom.
About eight years ago, Telus started to run Hinglish ads as part of a campaign to reach out to Canada's growing South Asian communities. The ads appeared in South Asian and ethnic print and broadcast media including Can-India News, Voice Weekly, and Hindi outlets abroad as well as Omni Television, according to Telus spokesperson A.J. Gratton.
But with the popular mixing of Hindi and English, we may even be seeing Hinglish ads in Canadian mainstream media in future, says Telus marketing director Tracy Lim.
Pepsi ran a campaign in India with the slogan 'Yeh Dil Maange More!' (this heart wants more) and Coke followed with 'Life Ho To Aisi' (life should be this way).
A dictionary of the hybrid, The Queen's Hinglish: How to speak Pukka, was compiled in 2006 by Baljinder Mahal, a teacher from Derby in England.
Rena Helms-Park, an associate professor of linguistics at the University of Toronto, Scarborough, says code-switching creates a "rapport" that unifies the community.
It can also be subversive. In post-colonial countries speakers are trying to reclaim English in their own way, to create a new national identity. "It's not a lesser English, it's one type of world English," Helms-Park says.
Indian writer Raja Rao writes: "We cannot write like the English. We should not. We cannot write only as Indians. Our method of expression therefore has to be a dialect which will some day prove to be as distinctive and colourful as the Irish or American."
English has always been a sponge language. Since it was written down in the year 700, it has adopted words from Norse, French and Latin, among others. English now has up to 700,000 words – more than almost any other language, according to Chambers.
"That's a direct consequence of international scope, the fact that English has travelled so far around the world and mixed with so many other cultures and has absorbed influences from all those other cultures. It has been an amazingly tolerant language."
Now there is an explosion in English vocabulary comparable to the development of its syntax in the 1400s and 1500s, when the printing press was invented.
"Some people feel threatened because the standard isn't adhered to across the board," Helms-Park says. "There are lots of purists out there."
But times change, and with them, language.
"In a sense it is a true reflection of the 21st century where immigration of groups, permanent crossing of national boundaries, is one of the constants of our lifestyle. The English language has a head start over lots of other languages because it already is so cosmopolitan in its constituents," Chambers says.
Peering into the future, Helms-Park said written English will remain stable, but we will see a "melting pot of Englishes" in Canada rather than pockets of Hinglish or Chinglish. "What we end up with is more local colour."
***
Listen carefully around the GTA and you'll hear English with a multicultural twist.
"Mama, in this country, brother and sister are equal, they are siblings. Hetow ne ahbon aden eyu ze hetet. Kebrat ne ehwatka ahykonen gen ne sedraka."
Translation: Mama, in this country, brother and sister are equal, they are siblings. Any questions or permission are asked from the father and mother. Respect is not for your siblings, but for your parents."
– Naza Hasebenebi, 33, Tigrigna speaker of Eritrean origin, entrepreneur
"I was driving down Yonge St. and this guy cut me off, de man so dotish ah doh no wha kind ah drivin is dat. Sometimes people can do crazy things."
Translation: I was driving down Yonge St. and this guy cut me off, the man is so stupid, I don't know what kind of driving that is. Sometimes people can do crazy things."
– Nohsakhere Ibrahim, 40, Trinidadian-English speaker, bookseller
"Ahlain, Keefak? Everything OK?"
Translation: Hi, how are you? Everything OK?
– Jihad Saad, 53, Arabic speaker of Lebanon origin, construction contractor
"Shoofi hada, mezeiwan. What do you think?"
Translation: Look at this, it's nice. What do you think?
– Siham Ben, 27, Arabic speaker of Moroccan origin, medical student
"Oh, something smells good, shoo tabkheen el youm?"
Translation: Oh, something smells good, what did you cook today?
– Zina Alobaydi, 20, Arabic speaker of Iraqi origin, telecommunications sales representative
"Bary amozesh we have to have a proper environment bary bacheha."
Translation: For education, we have to have a proper environment for children.
– Narges Safari, 29, Farsi speaker of Iranian origin, pre-school teacher
"Don't do that, accha nahi lagta hai."
Translation: Don't do that, it's not good.
– Parul Mehta, 30, Hindi speaker of Indian origin, realtor
"Hey, what's up? Dim ah lei?"
Translation: Hey, what's up? How are you?
– Ben Leung, 23, Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong, Agriculture Sciences student at University of Guelph
– Deena Kamel
Facebook
Google
del.icio.us
Digg
AskJeeves
Windows Live
Post your comment