Wednesday, August 21, 2024

INFLUENCE

 

INFLUENCE                           

The term ‘influence’ can stand for varied implications. The present one pertains to the process of ‘speech styles’ modified by regional dialects that interfere with intonation/ pronunciation of non-native language[s].

 Our fear of interference by regional dialects is valid and relevant India as a  country is multi-lingual, multi-cultural outfit with age-old traditions.

However, except the citizens of English lingual culture , most others reveal  ‘conditioned’ tonality and features of intonation. 

Therefore everyone comes under some influence that tends to cause some change in pronunciation, stress of syllable and so on. The extent to which conditioning happens is largely a feature determined by the local language prevalent in an area.

Some of the aberrations presented herein would make it easy for perceiving what I try to explain as ‘influence of local dialects’ on other languages.

For instance, several Tamils say ‘TEMPARAVARI’ as their way of saying Temporary and fibravary for February, nayan and tayam respectively for Nine and Time. Also there are instances of mis-reading [pronouncing] the term ‘abandoned’ as abundOned.

 One can infer that such vagaries arise from a callous and casual approach to the language and by trying to read the word by its spelling..  Largely, it is a derivative of the practices obtaining in reading of regional languages.

What is worse is, outright change of word sounds as in calling the month of October as aktambar-that being the name of the month in vernacular in some regions of India.

 If one desires being received right and properly responded to, it is his/ her responsibility to appropriately pronounce terms as close to the original as possible; I am too aware that ‘non-natives’ can at best aspire for the nearest approximation as language and its pronunciation are a long-entrenched training.

But, trying to respect and abide by a language’s prescriptions is always an adorable effort.

                                          Good Luck

1 comment:

  1. As usual a very interesting article. Prof. Raman's mastery of the language is astounding. Rk

    ReplyDelete

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