For one thing, there's a regional tendency to render initial vowels as if they started with a "Y." A classic case from several years ago: A friend telling about his trip to Dubai asked us if we'd ever been to the UAE, leaving us blank-faced and blinking, clueless about this place called Yooyayyee.
There also is a tendency to name small businesses with spelled-out initials. Like this:
If, as another example, Sara Marvin were to start a company in this fashion, it might be called Essem Enterprises. At home, maybe.
But in South India, would it be Yesyem? Judging from these signs, my acronym would indeed become a Yakronym:
Besides signs,consider the evidence of vehicle window stickers:
And names of buses:
"Yech" presumably, is the 8th letter of the English alphabet, more commonly called "haitch" in India.
But my favorite bus name has to be:
.... which leads me to wonder if its mechanical breakdowns occur once a month?
Now for my favorite Yakronym -- or is it just a note of positive encouragement to students?:
That's all for now. I'll send another yee-mail when the next post is up.
Yours truly,
Yesjayyem
Ha ha :)
ReplyDeleteI can relate to these ... until I came to the US for grad school, I didn't realize that I had immense pronunciation problems. I don't mean the accent, but the mere pronunciation of the letters. I quickly realized it when I had to spell my name to people ... "Yes, are, i, are, yay, yem"
So, before the end of my year 1, I had learned pronouncing the alphabet enough for others to jot down the correct letter ... I had successfully completed my kindergarten on my way to a PhD :)
And when I went back to India the first time, I noticed that almost everybody were saying it my old way. It was an immense relief of sorts that it wasn't any learning disability at my level ...
It was aso then I noticed lots of strange pronunciations. The one that stands out even now is how the number "5" is pronounced. Instead of "five" it comes across as "fie" .... my hypothesis is that it is related to the "v" versus "w" issue, about which I have blogged too ... http://sriramkhe.blogspot.com/2010/09/ban-w-in-india.html
Over the years, I have come to an understanding, however unscientific it might be, that there are lots of dialects of the English language in India. When I use that kind of a framework, it makes a lot of sense to me. These local dialects are also influenced by the unique sounds in languages across India. Becomes one highly interesting kaleidoscope of sounds even though it is all the same English language.
BTW, re. my accent too, my students have often remarked that I have a very strange accent that is not the "Indian" accent they know about ... I suspect it is because movies and TV shows fail to convey the idea that English with an accent varies from sub-regions to sub-regions in India. Viewers then lose out on understanding the vast and varied India ...
You're absolutely right about the myriad accents within India! But almost all Indians we meet complain about the inscrutability of American accents. Harumph. :( Is it any wonder that Hollywood movies over there are subtitled -- in English -- so the viewers can follow what's happening?
ReplyDeleteThe easiest English for us to understand in India usually comes from the mouths of native Hindi speakers. Their mother tongue has mostly the same sounds as ours, or close enough to pose no difficulty.
Your students have a point: Your accent is so subtle that it's virtually unidentifiable -- now that you're no longer Yes-Are-I-Are-Yay-Yemming. I'm not sure I'd recognize it as "Indian" -- of any ilk -- myself, either. :)
This is way too funny. Before I make my first trip to India, I will practice putting Y's in front of all words starting with vowels. Kind of like practicing double-dutch or gibberish. Then I will be able to understand at least some of the people. LOLOL.
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