The goal of this essay is to showcase the lexical varieties of the English language used in different cultures, with an analysis of the differences between the Asian and Western use of the English language.
The novel “Fire on the Mountain” was written by Anita Desai in 1977 which belongs to the late modern English era. She is one of the famous novelists of contemporary India. The main themes the novel deals with are existentialism, sexuality and the Indian patriarchal society. This novel is divided into three sections which is I. Nanda Kaul at Carignano, II. Raka comes to Carignano and III. Ila Das leaves Carignano. This book sensationalizes the eccentricities of life and living styles of three ladies who set out to guide their lives to the one generally driven by Indian ladies. They are guided or persuaded by their strict energy; they take the uncommon course that no Indian lady in a conventional Hindu society seeks. Also, an important aspect of this novel is the argument between the need of an individual to isolate in order to cope with the pressures of life and the need to stay involved in life. At last we faced with a conclusion that is either very satisfying or too gloomy. As it handles the existential stress faced by the character Nanda Kaul, an old woman disengaged from society, Raka, a little young lady with curiosity by the feeling of uselessness and thirdly Ila Das, who struggles with issues that are too powerful to even think about, which brings her to the awful ending of her life.
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The reason that I chose this book is because it is relevant to the objective of this essay, which showcases the Indian culture and how the author used her own English variety. The main features contributing to South Asian English is distinctively featured. The scholar B. Kachru points out that English is a supplementary language in South Asia. It might be the first, second, or–nth language in a South Asian's linguistic repertoire. Second, English is acquired in South Asia's traditional sociolinguistic, academic, and pragmatic contexts. It depends on the teaching of English and the specific areas that use English. Thirdly, English has always been taught as a classical language in South Asia, as a written language (Kachru 2005:43). In addition, English spoken in India has been under the very powerful impact of the subcontinent's vernacular languages, stated in its lexicon. In the local English language that is spoken worldwide, several words from the native Indian dialect have been developed, some of the famous examples would be jungle, bungalow, punch, shawl, and veranda.
When reading the novel carefully, we can identify how the author has used linguistic variety including phonemes, morphemes, syntactic structures, and meanings. ‘Fire from the mountain’ is a book where we can see numerous examples of language differences and lexical differences, for instance, we can see that the author has borrowed words from their local language and where she has used Asian cultural terms to emphasize the situation. When we consider those borrowed words, they are taken from another language (the source language) by speakers of one language. For example, the author has used many borrowed words. The word “coolie” gives the definition of an unskilled native laborer in India. And also, the words like “sahibs” and “memsahibs” it’s a way how you address an upper-class man and a woman in India. Moreover, in terms of grammar, some features are shared by all English users in South Asia. For example, Repetition is a common feature in many South Asian languages and its used in both spoken and written varieties it involves different language groups. In the novel the author uses such repetitive words such as quickly quickly, stir stir, very very slightly, come come all of you, I am yours, yours again. little, little things, down, down and water, water everywhere. These repetitive words indicate that the Indian English's reduction of adjectives can imply different qualities: emphasis, distributive sense, or indefinity. However, when it comes to Asian generation of questions there is a strong desire to ask questions about information without modifying the subject's position and the auxiliary items. If we take an example from the novel like “what she would like to eat?” When we convert to the stranded English the correct format would be “what would she like to eat?” and also, “Child how ill you have been?” Where it should be “Child how ill have you been?”. Furthermore, considering the Asian language there is no field of practice where native languages words have not been used in the English language of South Asia. Local language words reflect native sensitivities and are seen as improving the English language's expressive capabilities. Likewise, English lexical objects are ideal for utilize in a variety of states and implant in other languages of South Asia. Even all South Asians prefer and use English words in politics, law, government, and order, legal and court systems, education, entertainment, raw goods, mass media and materials. According to grammatical features in Asia, it appears that in a number of Asian language varieties include the lack of plural marking; omission of third-person singular –s; use of invariant question tags (isn’t it); the weakening of the count/mass distinction with nouns (as in equipment’s, furniture’s, etc.); and inverted word order in indirect questions. However, current research into the linguistic differentiation of individual varieties points less to the characterization of such Englishers as uniquely-constituted entities and more to an appreciation of the ways in which the structural features of such varieties develop as a result of the complex interaction of substrate influences with developmental processes as simplification and overgeneralization (Schneider, 2007). From the novel “Fire from the mountain” Anita Desai has used those question tags as well, for example ‘I didn’t wake you, did I? Nanda?’, Asha’s child, isn’t she? She’s like a queen, isn’t she? These kind of Similar question tags can be seen throughout the novel. Moreover, the verb aspects can be seen as well, the use of present progressive with stative verbs are usual If we consider some examples from the novel, I hate him! I am loving it, and I am growing old! These kind of verb aspects can be found. According to Asian English, it provides various distinctive dialect scenarios and hence our knowledge about the kinds of remotely spurred dialect alter that can be extended.
English involve in a very significant place in South Asia, and it’s evident from the above discussion. English is one of the languages spoken by South Asians, it has often been said that English has been so nativized as it is used in South Asia quite frequently and it is not considered a foreign language. According to the novel ‘Fire from the mountain’ by Anita Desai, we can discover how the author has brought Asian English and met the cultural demands of the Indian language. From this novel we can clarify that even though the Indian language has some lexical differences with native English, the Asian uses English as to the British English standards. According to a famous philosopher it has been said that A 'mistake' may be defined as any 'deviation' which is rejected by a native speaker of English as out of the linguistic 'code' of the English language, and which may not be justified in Indian English on formal and/or contextual grounds. A 'deviation,' on the other hand, may involve differences from a norm, but such deviations may be explained in terms of the cultural and/or linguistic context in which a language function. Kanthapura (London, 1938) Anita Desai has brought a new volume by writing a book of Indian fiction like 'Fire on the Mountain’ in English, exploring deeper into an invisible pit of the human psyche, bringing the unseen outline into a sharper focus. She has acquired a vital place for herself in the fiction writings of Indo-English via transferring the abstain of her fiction from the outer truth of internal reality and by bearing the drift of the intellectual adventure of its characters. The author has demonstrated the potential of the post individualistic authors in English. It is true that Desai has her restrictions, yet she repays the strength of her material, which she requires in the form. She integrates her local language seamlessly with English enabling the reader to get a better understanding of the story the way she meant for it to be told. She keeps the uniqueness of the story with the borrowed words and tells the story in its pure form. Desai’s indisputable existential and psychological concerns have eminent her from other novelists of her time.
Reference
- Deterding, D., 2007. Asian Englishes beyond the Canon , by Braj B. Kachru. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 11(3), pp.437–440.
- Čenejac, J. (2019). Characteristics of Indian English | LATG. [online] Languages Around the Globe. Available at: https://www.latg.org/2018/06/24/indian-english
- Google Books. (2019). English as an International Language in Asia: Implications for Language Education. [online] Available at: https://books.google.lk/books
- Tandfonline.com. (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00437956.1965.11435436
- Anon, (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.academia.edu/6270301/South_Asian_English?auto=download
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