It’s official, Malayalam’s a dying language! The National Language Commission’s report on Indian Languages last year put Malayalam in the perilous category of ‘Endangered’. With all the NRI Moolah, and burgeoning love for the Queen’s language we Mallus share, it’s not surprising. In fact, ‘Fraud Mallus’ abound when compared to hardcore ones! And that’s the biggest problem faced by Kerala! Why embrace English, when we have a beautiful dialect on our own? The saddest part of the fact is that the bifurcation to English begins right at school levels where kids are forced to speak in English or pay the fine! The effect is quite visible… A good number of guys/gals in my friends’ circle speak a crude variety of anglicised Mallu, which is neither English nor Malayalam! Many people I know choose to speak in English even for random, mundane purposes. Today, for most of us, a perfect English accent is chic, while a perfect Malayalam accent is so passe!
The irony of the situation is that I am writing about this stuff in English! That drives home the spread of English-addiction! Not for long… I too felt pained by the death of MY language and started a Malayalam Blog! Frequent visitors to my blog might’ve seen the link in my ‘user profile‘. But I didn’t exactly beat the drums out of it, because it was in a test stage. I was testing Language rendering in various O/Ses and browsers. Now that it’s almost perfect, I’ve let the cat out of the bag!
The non-descript link in my blogroll
The link is:
http://m.harishanker.net/
I hereby declare my Malayalam blog launched!!
Keep visiting and commenting! 🙂
Regards,
Hari
Oru puthiya blog thudangan ithreyum aarelum thallum ennu njan pratikshilla. That was the first thing that came to my mind. But then reading on, i felt that what ur telling is a serious issue. Even though i’ve never learned Malayalam in my school days, thanks to my central school education, i felt a bit sad. Mainly coz being someone who lives outside Kerala, i know how happy one gets when i hear someone speaking in my mother tongue. Mother tongue, that’s a word always being tossed around without anyone knowing what it means. If they knew then this day won’t have come. It’s similar to a dialogue from the film Shooter where the Colonel says that Patriotism, courage, dedication etc are punchlines for most of us but for a true soldier these are the pillar’s of his life. Likewise there are a lot of people who throw around dialogues about how much they love this language of their’s but do nothing about it. Hope ur not one among those. One doubt, was this post inspired by Chetan Bhagat’s dedication in his new book- To my country, which called me back. Anyways I’m happy to see ur new blog. Hope to see some meaningful posts in it to really address the issues all see, but seldom face with guts. Happy blogging. 🙂
sorry man, my malayalam is CRAP! i fit into none of the categories you mentioned in this post. i am a tamilian who speaks a malayalam-tamil hybrid. the only language i’m kinda ok at is english 🙂
@ Abhi:
Thallu alla chetta… This is something I’ve felt about all through my life; right from my time at Loyola… I was brought up in a predominantly snobbish environment, and I’m afraid I too have grown a tad snobbish thanks to that. No, I’m not saying anything against my school (which WILL FOREVER BE the best educational institution I’ve ever attended!!) but that’s a fact common to all upmarket English medium schools.
This has nothing to do with Chetan Bhagat for that matter. And I’m already doing things by blogging in Malayalam, and trying to add more Malayalam to my lingo!
@ G-Man:
Yours’ is a different case sire. You’re an exception.
And was that “My English is okay” thing an understatement. I thought it was quite a GROSS one! You’re one of the funniest English writers I’ve ever known. Seriously! 😀
Well said
🙂
hey hari ,i am blogrolling u !
will check out your new site asap ..cheers to the new beginning !!
@ manoranjini:
OMG!! Chechi… I’m truly HONOURED by your gesture! Thanks a bunch!
gosh.. I simply cant read malayalam fast even from a book. I speak the language well, but reading takes too much time!
Well, I suck in my mother tongue too. My Tamil is indelibly scarred with a Mallu accent. What I speak at home is a Tamil-Malayalam-English version:D
English seems to be coming along fine.
So pl excuse me 🙂 Mal blogs are too much for my reading..
@ The Smokin’ WDM a.k.a Sreeram
(Ain’t it time for a new display name?)
Heh. You’re excused… 😀 It’s the same problem every I-speak-tamil-at-home guy living in Kerala…
@hari chetta: I dunno… I’ve had this display name for long and dont feel like I need a new one 😀
Btw, just type @Sriram 🙂 (s-r-I)
@ Sreeram
If you feel/say so! 😛
Good one 🙂
I never knew that Malayalam is in that list !!
I won’t actually blame people who take their children to English medium schools, I will personally do this when its time, ( well, time ayilla ketto )
I have had enough of MTI problems and lot of troubles to speak in English, which was necessary for getting placed somewhere, or even continuing where where I am now ..
But, I am not going to leave Malayalam, in anyway .. I am blogging in Malayalam too .. I am a hardcore Malayali ..
dinu
http://offlineblog.net
well i thought it over… here you are!
absolutely true.. im with u man.. its part of the reason y i decided to go into malayalam bloggin too.. ur observations are accurate too.. wen i spent my first 16 years in dubai, i noticed and even used to speak in this manglish-adulterated malayalam too.. not that im against it, manglish has a beauty of its own.. but if it means the death of he pure form, im against it too..
keep malayalam bloggin :-)..
@ dinu:
You bet! Hindi, Tamil and a few other languages are the only ones that’d remain strong. Check this link out! It’s pretty frightening!
But this does NOT mean we should ignore English. Thanks to globalisation, English is necessary evil!
And congrats for adhering to Malayalam!
@ Sriram:
Congrats to you too for the new name! This one’s far better than the incomprehensible “Smokin’ WDM’! 😀
@ hari vishnu:
Guess we two are on the same boat! 🙂 Malayalam, even in “Manglish” is a welcome relief over chaste English! But yeah, the pure form is needed!!
The fact is that our language is devolving!
Hari,
The issue you’ve raised herein is fantastically correct. You know, the decadence of most languages is not only prevalent in India. While I was in India, I felt really pained towards my fellow Nigerians that we couldn’t even stand with one language that belongs to us. It’s imperatively funny how English has taken over every language. So, the issue of Malayalam dying is a small one. Here in Nigeria, children, as from the day they are conceived, are subjected to English. Instead of a Nigerian mother telling her son in one of the tribal languages, like, ‘Bia’, she’d say, ‘Come’, thinking that with that the child would graduate into an English master. But that’s never simple.
I’m sorry I’ve to make this comment long.
Neverthemore, it has risen to the mode that now what we speak in Nigeria has transcended from English to Pidgin…
Talk to you later…
The style is “enikku malayalm kurach kurach arriyam”(in english accent) immoratlised by all genres of malam comedies progs in and off tv…
hvnt got readable malayalam font in here, vl chk tat wen i log on to the other pc..
@ Onyeka Nwelue
Nice to see you drop by! Well, it’s all part of globalisation! Never knew the phenomenon was SO global in its profoundness…
But the survival of our native language(s) is actually possible by our own sheer will to give it an upper hand; at least in our mind! Maybe we must promote communication in our mother tongues rather than a foreign language.
I feel there’s nothing wrong with conversing fluently in English. The ‘Global-village’ era that this is, the need for English tends to be as imperative. A balance between both languages is exactly what is essential.
And yeah, long comments are utmost welcome! 😀
@ viajero
Enikk malayalam korach korach ariyaam is a classic example! But I know people who’re FAR worse!
Hari,
I would like to know the possibility of starting a website where I can ‘heavily’ blog.
Can you contact me on onyeka.nwelue@hotmail.com. It seems you know better in web hosting and designing.
You know, I was never born and brought in Kerala. And to be honest, I feel good that I am familiar with the language…I don't speak it, but can understand it very well, help you become familiar with your roots 🙂