#english shouldn't be a status symbol anywhere please

[ajab-leher]

i think there's something to say about how much english is valued in the whole entire world, in different parts, and how it's undeniably a status symbol.

in india, of course it is, english (the language) and furthermore english (the culture!) are relics from our colonial past that cannot be classified as 'relics' because your knowledge of english does determine your opportunities.

beyond aspects of like the job market, that i admittedly don't know anything about, it's really important to recognise how your knowledge of the english language can function as a sort of unconscious bias?

as in, how there's always some element of shame (that you're forced to internalize in schools many times) in not being able to speak english fluently. how english as a language is accorded such a central position in determining your intelligence, and in extension many times, your worth?

at how teachers treated you more respectfully, or rather more favourably if you spoke good english.

(i'm sure and also hoping that my experiences aren't universal, but i spent my early years of schooling at a convent and there is no denying that the whole 'convent educated' and 'english medium' student is seen as something very desirable, in india.)

apart from that, after internalizing the apparent worth of the english language, one comes to the point of thinking for themselves. and what followed, in my case at least, was this sort of pride in my ability to speak the language, or having some command over it?

the school that i grew up in, it was common practice to poke fun at someone's mispronunciations, any muddling of tenses or grammar, and it did take me a long time to unlearn that and realise how disrespectful it is to mock someone for how they speak.

but what i'd like to emphasize is that we would do this only for english, even if there were jokes made about anybody's lack of fluency in any other language, it was clear that there was no malicious intent behind it. this i can say for sure is because the authority figures, our teachers, would very openly mock students who would make mistakes while speaking english.

it's important to note how knowledge of the english language is equated with being smart and capable; it's an unconscious bias and god, it's so difficult to be rid of it considering how engrained it is in our psyche.

i think something i've continued to struggle with, especially now, is how i have gone from being somewhat proud of my ability to speak better english than other languages (and that i consumed english media!) to being rightfully disappointed that i couldn't write anything as long as what i have written up till now in my mother tongue.

in a lot of the content i consume, even if passively, i see how this bias seems to exist in people of indian/south asian origin in u.s.a or the u.k (just generally the 'west').

it's treated as a joke, a very central part of these skits that among other things highlight the difference between the parent and the kid, and these are the classic kind that lilly singh popularised a long time ago.

i can't help but be hyperaware of how the more indianised parent (who has a very distinct 'indian' accent, mispronounces words, and just has this very identifiable manner of speech) and the more westernised kid (who usually has a british/american accent, speaks more calmly).

i don't mean to hate on these content creators, and genuinely, i don't!

i lack any experience to really dictate what their experiences with their families are like and the inter-generational nuances of assimilation to another cultural environment, but it is a little strange.

another thing about the whole english-as-a-status-symbol thing is that something very central in the indian 'i'm not like the other girls' phenomenon was that the 'cool' kids consumed british/american media (tv shows, music, cinema, youtubers!).

(i emphasize on girls because i don't have any clue about how it affected guys, because my school had none.

and also that my phase occurred at the same time as my sister's did (and she was five years older so).

i used to think i was special or somewhat smarter than other kids my age because i was involved with lord of the rings and sherlock, pirates of the caribbean, x-men etc. and musicians like lorde, troye sivan, imagine dragons, one direction.)

i think it still exists, but in a different form now. my friend and i were once talking about how everything is considered 'cool' only after it's popularised in the USA.

i could name so many pieces of media (from other parts of the world) that i began to consume only after they were popularised in USA. and i can also see it in how a very vast majority of all the content creators i watch and interact with are american, canadian, or british (or rather, of origins from other countries who are citizens of one of these countries!).

i may have started this whole essay thing with some conclusion in mind but it's just how english is a force that's way too powerful for any language.

sure, it's a global language that is spoken all around the world, it has taken in and absorbed features of other languages and developed into distinct dialects.

(and um, that's at one level because virtually most of the world was colonised by england. or rather, in the present scenario, influenced widely by USA which emerged from the whole european/primary british colonisation of the americas)

but it really doesn't seem like a good idea to have this one language act as a force of bringing about cultural change, as a weapon of soft power exercised by the west.

firstly, the predominance of english starting to cause the disappearance of languages and dialects spoken in different parts of the world because people just simply stop learning and speaking them.

(my mother tongue, konkani, is starting to die slowly because people from my generation onwards are starting to communicate exclusively in english, and the kids being born now, in all probability, will never be fluent in konkani as i am.

and i too, speak a very anglicsed version of my mother tongue, because i don't know words or phrases for everything.)

and secondly, no cultural force yielded predominantly by one society should become so powerful.

no language should be considered a mark of refinement! classes of people should not be judged by their fluency in a language!

and finally, we really really don't need another round of one group moving ahead to 'civilise' another by forcing them to give up their own cultures and languages and adopt those of a more powerful society!