A New Language....

Lingua Nuova

I wrote this a pretty long time ago, but its still worth posting here.

I have always been jealous of the Germans, French, Japanese, Chinese etc. Germans speak German. The French speak French. Indians don’t have a language called “Indian”. Well, we do have our National language Hindi and a couple of hundred other languages each spoken in a dozen different dialects. But well it is a really a disturbing thought that we do not have a common language that every Indian speaks.

But recent happenings have led me to realize the evolution of such a language and I would like to call it “Indian”. Some people tend to confuse it with “English” without realizing what a grave offense they are committing. Indian is a far more powerful and better-evolved language. Furthermore, India being the second largest population in the world, this language is expected to be spoken by 1/5^th of the world population by 2007.

The language derives its vocabulary from English and all other Indian languages, but has evolved a grammar of its own. In its rudimentary stages, the sentence structures used in the language were pretty simple. Indian sentences were initially derived, by constructing a sentence in any local language and translating each word into English. Typical examples for such structures are “ Your good name please” and “The cake is good, eat and see ”. With the evolution of the language, sentence structures became more complex. New words were soon coined to cater to the diverse vocabulary requirement of our diverse country. A useful example would be “Afterwards when you have finished fillupping the form and byhearting the poems, can you catch some water for me no”.

I was under a misconception that one can understand Indian if they are proficient in English. I was shocked when I was proved wrong. The language has evolved to such a stage that it demands recognition and awareness.

I was at my work place and was expecting to receive some instructions from my mentor. Unable to find him, I walked up to a graduate trainee and asked him if my mentor had told him anything about it. The reply left me both bewildered and confused. He replied, “Ask somebody open there in the next room”. I took a few deep breaths and tried to contemplate what that really meant.

Should I ask somebody to open the next room?

But then, it was already open.

Should I ask somebody to open up in the next room?

Well, that’s interesting. But then, my mentor wouldn’t ask me to do something like that.

Should I ask if there is somebody open in the next room?

Doesn’t make sense.

Then like a bolt from the blue it struck me. He was a genius. He had propelled parsimony of expression to a new level. I was astonished by the amount of information he was able to pack into such a small sentence.

The next room is open

There is somebody there

Ask that person

It then dawned upon me that Indian has evolved to such an extent that it is no longer comparable to English and truly deserves to be respected as a separate language.