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Lingo leele
S.R. RAMAKRISHNAS.R. RAMAKRISHNA
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Why can't we say bidugadeya habba for Independence Day? Why are we always ashamed of everyday language?
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Why don't we simply call it `kemp bus'? — Photo: Sampath Kumar G.P
WHY DO Kannadigas speak Kannada in English? Because English is more accessible than Sanskrit. Everytime a new word needs to be created in Kannada, our official translators go for inspiration not to Kannada (or its Dravidian roots) but to Sanskrit. Invariably, the new "Kannada" word turns out dense and forbidding, and we reach out for the easier-on-the-tongue English word. And Kannada becomes more English than Kannada.
This short piece is a plea for more Kannada, and less English and Sanskrit, in Kannada. Our official translators will justify their ways by talking about the varied sources from which Kannada borrows its vocabulary, and the great role Sanskrit plays in enriching Kannada. Of course this is an easy excuse. Because our officials are so linguistically lazy, words coined in Hindi by the central government find an easy entry into Kannada, or at least into Kannada officialese. And Kannada gets more and more difficult to pronounce.
Independence day is swaatantrya dinaacharane. An eye hospital becomes netra chikitsaalaya. Why can't we say bidugadeya habba and kannaaspatre instead? For the Kannada mind, a word like saalnadige can conjure up a parade better than the heavily Sanskritised pathasanchalana. Why have we given up words like dodbeedi, chikbeedi, oni and tiruvu for the awkward mukhya raste and adda raste? Many people now think there is no Kannada word for "colony". How could they forget that simple word keri?
Karnataka has a bandikhaane sachiva (minister for prisons). The assumption must be that bandikhaane is a grander word than seremane, a more accessible Kannada word for prison.
The success of the Kannada tabloids, which as a policy turn down ads and run solely on the reader's money, must have something to do with the way they use language. They always go for the familiar Kannada word instead of the "weighty" Sanskrit one. They are not shy of using street language, which is often more picturesque and expressive than the bookish terms that officials think up. The dailies paraphrase police hand-outs and talk of "miscreants" which in Kannada officialese has become dushkarmi. Synonyms used by the Kannada papers are rowdy and goonda; strangely, they have all forgotten the easy Kannada word for trouble-maker: punda.
The fatal Sanskrit obsession is very strong in government offices, but it is not just an establishment malaise. The almost forgotten Kannada word for "spic and span" is chokka. The private sector campaign for a clean Bangalore uses the word swachcha. Even Udupi restaurants, where the medium of communication is Kannada, struggle to coin new words for dishes whose names they already know.
So the common uppittu becomes an erroneously named khaara bhaat. (Khara means spicy-hot, and bhaat in Marathi means rice, but no rice is ever used in making khaara bhaat!) Similarly, what is called sajjige in southern Karnataka homes is given the name of kesari bhaat. Huggi takes the Tamil name of pongal.
A bus conductor is supposed to be a nirvaahaka. Have you ever heard any passenger casll out, "Nirvaahakare"? Such words, borrowed from Sanskrit, turn out to be tongue twisters that ordinary people find impossible to use in everyday situations. Similarly, no one ever talks about "Ka Ra Ra Sa Sam" buses.
There was a folk way of referring to Bangalore city buses, "kemp bus", which has now been sabotaged by the change in their colour. A savvy Sindhi businessman has adopted the word and branded it for his garment stores!
And Kannada, for Radio City's Lingo Leelas, has become a ready object to poke fun at. Why hasn't it occurred to our AIR that the Lingo Leelas, proud of their English accents, could also be the subject of a similar programme?
Kannada, like other Indian languages, owes a lot to Sanskrit. Historians also tell us how Kannada has held its own against that mighty language. We must learn to play with own language. We must learn lingo leela!
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