English- Vinglish....... My English is almost like our Bangladeshi Hero Ananta Jalils type English - Man r u fom Ghana!!! Yes it is, less than one decades ago only the finest, most cultured, highly educated people in Bangladesh spoke English. If you were one of these people, those were wonderful times. Just speaking the language made you ‘high class’. This rarified set was less than 1% of the population and just saying ‘Hey, how are you?’ instead of ‘Aapni Kemon Achen?’ would set you above the 99%........... As the number of English speaking people has increased, the quality has decreased accordingly by the same proportion, today even a university professor cannot write a simple application without grammatical mistakes rather blunders- indeed a reflection in poor quality in teaching the language at the school level-it may be an influence of American English or whatever it is ! Some of Bangladeshis are competing against each other to become English . Our sense of aesthetics , speech, language, fashion, mannerism, culture, dressing sense ,living, philosophy, intellect etc have all become westernized. many of us dont realize that we are westernized and are up for being judged by these westerners as we have already become 2nd class citizens in their scheme of things. I see this nothing more than character assassinations of that kind....... Class system exists and manifests itself in different ways in different societies. We have a so-called higher class of people who live in different neighborhoods and/or drive different cars and/or go on expensive holidays to exotic places etc..... The problem we have in making English accessible to the deprived masses is that of lack of good English teachers. those who can teach good English get much better paid jobs (even as a call centre staff) than being a teacher in a rural or deprived school. perhaps what we need is an equivalent of khan academy......... Some of Bangladeshis riffraff received English in mega doses. This riffraff knew the language was a ticket to gold and lapped it up. Of course not all of them had access to the best methods of learning English. They did what they could.......... That’s when the elite club needed a new paradigm. No, you could no longer separate the elite from the riffraff with a simple English-Bangla divide. What the club needed and created was a new class system, depending on various proficiency levels of English.......... Did you pick up English the elite way, or the commoner way? Did you learn English in Bangla medium or English medium? What’s your accent like? Oh, you have an Bangla accent? You are still low class. You cannot use words like dexterity and temerity? Hahaha, such an idiot......... To be denied English, or to be mocked at over not having elite class proficiency, is harmful to the individual as well as our society. We don’t need to dismiss English, we need to dismiss English snobs. We need more empathy and compassion towards our millions of English learners, who despite having scant resources are trying hard to learn the language for one reason — to make a better life.... Elitism towards these people is insensitive, mean and simply harmful. This is at the heart of the English-Bangla debates. English vs Bangla is no longer a choice. Every Bangladeshi should and will have access to a basic level of English. Basic English should be seen as a life skill, to be given to all Bangladeshis on an urgent basis. Elitism about the language should be nipped in the bud. Let there be English. But let there be no class system about it.......... Why should someone feel proud of being able to speak or understand English? it’s just another mode of communication to a majority of the world, Isn’t it?.........Thanks.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 15:25:54 +0000
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