#being Maharashrian

[minyminymo]

शि‌ंपल्यांचे शोपिस नको, जीव अडकला मोत्यात

[pravasichhokro]

Languages I learnt over the years…

The cliché goes like “language is a means of communication” but for me, a language was more than that. I am a Maharashrian and hence my mother tongue is Marathi. I only spoke my mother tongue for the first couple of years of my life in childhood. I grew up till the age of 16 in Gujarat, mainly in Ahmedabad. I went to Gujarati medium schools till I passed standard XI (SSC). Hence the main language of communication outside the home was Gujarati. I was proficient in reading, writing and speaking Gujarati as well as any native. Even during these years, the “kitchen” language at home was Marathi as my grandmother and mother did not speak Gujarati nor I knew the names of Marathi food items in Gujarati. I also heard my father speak Kannada with his mother (our grandmother) when a “secret” topic was to be discussed as both had lived in Dharwad.

Hindi was introduced as a language in Standard V and I learnt a new script and could read Hindi. Before that I had heard only Hindi film songs. I was not yet able to speak Hindi fluently. In the Standard VIII (high school), I was to learn two completely different languages – Sanskrit and English. The scripts were different, the grammar was quite illogical and pronunciation a big effort. I was lucky to focus only to read and write these languages. Sanskrit could be crammed but not English. In SSC (Std. XI), the board syllabus expected a student to know only 1800 words of English. Gujarat Govt followed this low priority to English as a policy. I recall my father (Ph.D. in English) jokingly told me that I would know more words that President Charles de Gaulle used in his public speeches, which was 1600 word of French.

I wanted to join Science stream after SSC in 1966 and that too St. Xavier’s college with English medium. I was requested by my father to read all English medium science textbooks in the summer vacation before results were out in June. This helped me a great deal to improve my English as I already knew the subjects. Once in St. Xavier’s college, I was admitted to a division where all other students came from English medium schools. I took extra efforts to prove my merit and was among first 20 students (Roll of Honor) in the first Unit Test among more than 450 students. English was still a subject, but Gujarati and Hindi had disappeared. But language to communicate with classmates was Hindi or English.

I then joined BITS, Pilani in 1967. I was to improve spoken Hindi and English on the campus (read hostel) and there were a limited occasions to use either Gujarati or Marathi. Two of my friends helped me a great deal to improve my English, specially spoken by suggesting me to read English fiction books (Perry Mason and Western) loudly. Only for first year, English was a subject. In all, I studied academically Gujarati for 11 years, Hindi for 7 years, Sanskrit for 3 years and English for 6 years. I never studied Marathi. On the campus I heard many Indian languages and was taught Punjabi (mainly abuses) by my classmate and a close friend, who hailed from Amritsar. Those days Haryana roadways ran buses between Pilani and Delhi. The driver and conductor used Haryanavi dialect, which was fun to hear. English remained the main language as it was the medium of instruction. I started thinking in English language from Gujarati, a major shift.

I took up my first job in Delhi and use of Hindi became the norm. I heard Bhojpuri at my friend’s residence for the first time. English was the language for business- commercial and technical documents were in English (for next 40 years). When I got married in 1977, my wife spoke Konkani (coastal/ Goa dialect of Marathi), which was unknown to me. Luckily, she spoke and understood Marathi. We moved to Mumbai in 1979 and Marathi re-emerged as a language of communication but the Mumbai (bhai log) variety. Later we shifted to Pune and a purer Marathi was being used. Since I always was associated with execution of projects located in various parts of India, I got a chance to hear local languages. I did not learn any new language due to limited use of them in my work. I also found that the unfamiliar and complicated scripts of many languages was a hurdle to learn a language.

Coming to foreign languages, I first heard German and Dutch from my Indian boss at the Dutch MNC I got my first job in 1972 in Delhi. Later I came across Japanese when a Project Coordinator from Kobe Steel, Japan was deputed to Engineers India Ltd., New Delhi in 1976. In 1979 I heard French when I was coordinating a feasibility report being prepared by a French Company, Aluminum Pechiney. Later I was coordinating a project with a Japanese company and had frequent interactions with Japanese people in 1985 for three years. I also joined this company in Japan and lived there with my family. My work did not require me to know and use Japanese, but I took to learning it as a hobby. Japanese is very unusual language. It has three scripts- Hiragana (old), Katakana (used for foreign words) and Kanji (Pictorial, like Chinese). All three get mixed while writing a sentence which can be vertical or horizontal. Hiragana has only 10 basic alphabets and each has 5 variations. Katakana has similar alphabets. This limited sounds make it difficult for Japanese people to speak other languages, especially English. Kanji has more than 8000 pictorial “alphabets” but only 1000 or so are in everyday use. I could write Hiragana and Katakana but no Kanji. I spoke a few sentences for everyday use but could not master it to converse.

I executed projects in the Philippines, Thailand and Latin America. This gave me an opportunity to hear Spanish and Thai languages. But I had no incentive to learn them.

I spent a couple of years in Oman but had no need to learn Arabic as English and Hindi were spoken by many. The business language was English for contracts, commercial transactions and client was Shell Oil promoted Omani Govt company.

In conclusion, I can say that most languages are easy to speak but many are difficult to read and write.