LANGUAGE IN INDIA

THE INFLUENCE OF ENGLISH ON MALAYALAM LANGUAGE
P. M. Girish, Ph.D.

INTRODUCTION

Malayalam, the official language of Kerala, is classified as a South Dravidian language. About 31.8 million people consider Malayalam as their mother tongue. Possessing an independent written script, it also has an enriched literature. The term 'Malayalam' is of comparatively recent origin. To begin with, it denoted the land itself. It is probable that the term is the resultant of a combination of two words, mala meaning, mountain and alam meaning the land or locality (which lays along side the mountain). Subsequently the synonyms Malayalam and Malayayma came into being as denoting the language of the Malayalam and finally the name of the land itself was taken over as the name of its language.

Influence of Sanskrit is most prominent in Malayalam in almost all linguistic areas. From Sanskrit, thousands of nouns and hundreds of verbs are borrowed into Malayalam. Some items of basic vocabulary also have found their way into Malayalam from Sanskrit.

English stands only second to Sanskrit in its influence on Malayalam. Hundreds of individual lexical items and idiomatic expressions in modern Malayalam are of English origin. This paper presents an overview of the influence of English on Malayalam.

LOAN WORDS

There are some significant studies conducted on the present topic. Kuttikrishna Marar (1971) focuses on the distorted styles in Malayalam because of English influence. For example, oru, an adjective, is used unnecessarily in Malayalam sentences because of the influence of a/an, the indefinite article in English. Anther example of this influence is to present the subject directly in the sentences. For example: Aa pazhaya veedinuchuttum vaazhakal nilkkunnathe ore santharsakaneu kaannaam (A visitor can see the plantain around the old house). It is observed that the word structure and syntactic structure of English have influenced Malayalam (Bhattathiri). Some examples are given below along with their meaning in parentheses.

1. Keralathinte bhasha (Keralathile Bhasha) (Kerala's language/ language of Kerala as in English)
2. Chandrgupthan randaman ( randam chandrna gupthan)
3. Shakespear vayikkuka ( Sheaksprude krithikal vayikkuka)

To show the meaning for the phrase 'Language in Kerala', 'Keralthinte bhasha, (Kerala's language) is used instead of the original structure of Malayalam 'Keralthile bhasha'. Chandran gupta the second's literal translation is used instead of the original Malayalam structure randam Changdraguptan. The sentence construction like Read Shakspeare is quite natural in English. But in Malayalam, normally, it should be constructed as Shakespearude krithigal vayikkuka. But K.M. Prbhakara Varier (2004) has a different opinion about English influence in Malayalam. He says that there may be a lot of loan words in Malayalam. But the influence of English never changes the basic structure of the Malayalam grammar.

P. M. Joseph studied the loan words from English into Malayalam (1984: 447-470) under six categories.

ADMINISTRATIVE LEVEL

It is a fact that the administrative register of Malayalam includes a lot of loan words from English. Here are some examples:

Parliament, Assembly, Cabinet Secretary, Chief Secretary, Additional Secretary, Assistant Secretary, Collector, Collectroate, Village Officer, Revenue, Block Officer, Village Extension Officer, Gazetted Officer, Clerk, Typist, Peon, Scavenger, draft, etc.

Out of these words, Assembly and scavenger have Malayalam equivalents such as niyamasabha and thoatti respectively. Earlier there was a word adhikari to denote the Village Officer, which was later replaced by the English word. Such substitutions show the strong borrowing tendency of Malayalees over the preservation of or continuation of existing Malayalam words.

ECONOMIC LEVEL

The words related to Economics are borrowed mainly from English without much change. For example: commission, discount, toll, brokerage, market, shop, cheque, dollar, dividend, note, bank, share, and share brokers. Of these there is a frequently used Malayalam equivalent, kizhivu, for the word 'discount'. But both words are used widely.

MEASUREMENT

The English words such as Ounce, Pound, Quarter, Ton, and Kilogram, etc., are used to imply the measurements in Malayalam.

BUILDING/ INFRASTRUCTURE WORDS

The English words like Chimney, Drainage, Balcony, Shed, Hall, Electricity, Bulb, and Pipe are used to refer to the infrastructure of buildings and construction.

DRESS CODES

There are a lot of loan words from English used in Malayalam to express various social activities and practices. As a cultural code, 'dress sense' could express the social attitude of a speech community.

Underwear, Slack shirt, Pants, Shirt, Collar, Tie, Coat, Pocket, Bra, Nickers, Blouse, Jacket, Jumper and Petticoat are frequently used English words to refer to various garments worn by Malaylaees. It may be treated as a conceptual borrowing from the British since they had introduced some of these dress items.

EDUCATIONAL TERMINOLOGY

There are many loan words in current use that stand as educational register, like Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Botany, Upper Primary School, High School, College, University, Examination, Semester, Books etc.

In addition to this, there are other recurrent words also in Malayalam such as class, school, black board, chalk, bench, pen, pencil, leader, rubber, instrumental box, bound, note book, desk, bread, coffee, soda, current, pipe, tube light, light, bucket, wash basin, dustbin, plate, spoon, cycle, car, bus, driver, conductor, bike, lorry, road, paper, cool drinks, fast food, cinema, film, theatre, talkies, so on and so forth.

PHONEMES

Jancy James (2000) has classified the influence of English on Malayalam in different ways. The use of f, a fricative phoneme, is widely used in the Malayalam phonology. But it does not have an independent script. The letter for the Malayalam phoneme pha, a voiceless aspirated bilabial stop is used to write the phoneme f. The Pha occurs initially and medially in loan words.

PASSIVE VOICE

Frequent use of passive voice is another linguistic area that carries English influence. The Malayalam verb (as is the case with other Dravidian languages) is destitute of a proper passive voice. The passive signification is, however, conveyed in a number of ways. In such construction, it is necessary to give importance to the object of the sentence. For example,

Kumaranasan ezhuthiya kavitha 'The poem that Asan wrote.'
The poem that was written by Asan

The first is the direct translation. The second also is all right, but it introduces the passive sense. Often the second type of construction is used in Malayalam now.

The full significance of the passive is brought to use by adding the auxiliary verb ped to the infinitive of verb.

The use of passive constructions in Malayalam started with the influence of Sanskrit; later it became stronger due to the influence of English. Passive constructions are widely used in the Malayalam dailies. This shows its significance in Malayalam language. Newspaper headlines are mostly constructed in the passive voice. For Example: Vahanapakadathil moonnu per kolleppettu (three people were killed in an accident). The frequent use of sentences of this type in newspapers shows that the use of passive construction has become widespread and strong in Malayalam

ABBREVIATION

Use of Abbreviation is another filed of English influence. For Example: KSRTC ( Kerala State Road Transport corporation), KTC (Kerala Transport Corporation), KPCC (Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee), NBS (National Book Stall), so on. Apart from such abbreviations using English letters, there are some Malayalam abbreviation also available in Malayalam like PU.KA.SA. (Purogamana kalala sahithyam), Sahythya Pravrthaka Sahakarna Sangam (SPSS). This trend in Malayalam is strengthened by the influence of English in modern times.

In addition to these areas there are some other fields, which are not yet studied. The present paper tries to give an outline of these areas.

SUFFIXATION

It is a fact that some English words can also be added with Malayalam suffixes. For example: the English word, bore is added with masculine gender an, and feminine gender athi. It denotes boaran and boarathee respectively.

PLACE NAMES

We find a lot of anglicized place names in Kerala. Some of the place names are anglicized due to British colonization. (Varier, 2004:115). Here are some examples along with their Malayalam forms in parentheses. Quilon (Kollam), Quilandy (Koyilandy), Alleppy (Alaphuzha), Trichur (Trissur), Calicut (Kozhikode), Tellichery (Thalassery), Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram), Badagara (Vatakara), etc.

In 1990 the Government of Kerala has brought out an ordinance to bring back the Malayalam place names. But the use of anglicized place names is as strong as it had been in the past. The word that denotes the state is keralam, instead of Kerala. But the anglicized form Kerala is widely used. One may argue that the continued use of anglicized forms demonstrates the fascination people still have for English.

ADDRESS TERMS

Terms and modes of address are important in any society for purposes of identification and expression of ideas. The use of these terms depends upon the social rank, age, and the gender of the persons involved in any communicative situation.

There are certain honorific words to address higher officials. Some examples are given below:

KINSHIP TERMS

Kinship terms are used either between persons who are related to one another, or between persons who assume such relationship although they are not related to one another as kith and kin. Kinship terms are one of the widely used address terms in Malayalam. Some English words are also used to express kinship relations. For example: Daddy, Papa, Dad (accan, father), Mummy (amma, Mother), Uncle (ammavan, maaman), Aunty (Ammaayi-uncle's wife, wife's mother). Uncle and Aunty have become common address terms.

COMPOUND WORDS

Compound word is a combination of two or more words used to express a concept. The combinations may be among two nouns, an adjective and a noun, a noun and a verb, etc. It is a fact that the influence of English enriches Malayalam compounding. Three kinds of combinations are found in Malayalam as given below:

ENGLISH NOUN + MALAYALAM SUFFIX

Generally, kaaran, the male gender marker, kaari, the female gender marker, and plural marker kaar are suffixed with English nouns. Examples are given below along with their English meaning in parentheses.

These gender markers are added with almost all English nouns.

ENGLISH NOUN + MALAYALAM NOUN

In this category Malayalam nouns follow English nouns. Examples are given with their English meanings.

MALAYALAM NOUN + ENGLISH NOUN

In this category Malayalam nouns precede the English nouns. Examples are given with their English meanings.

Sometimes a preposition can also be preceded with English nouns. For example: uL + area = remote area.

Meys states that "functionally, compounding is clearly a linguistic economy mechanism allowing to express in a concise way something which would otherwise have to be rendered by -- of an often much more elaborate phrase". It means that compounding is an important field to be observed.

Malayalam Noun + English suffix could also be found rarely in Malayalam. It might have been created for the sake of fun or for literary purpose. Whatever it may be, there are some words of this type that are used frequently in spoken Malayalam. For example:

Chaathan + s
Kuttan + s
Appu + s
Ammu + s

COMPERE'S MALAYALAM

The style of the Comperes, the persons who introduce performers or contestants on a television show on various Malayalam Television programmes, is highly influenced by English, especially in their accent. A compere often switches over to English accent. It is noticed that, due to the influence of heavily accented English code missing and Code switching, the style of giving prominence to certain syllables in a word has affected compere's Malayalam. Usually Indian English is noted for its neutral accent as an effect of various mother tongue influences. Conversely, here, the mother tongue pattern is changed due to the influence of second language English (Sreevalsan, 2000). Keeping the English accent intact, the comperes seem to change their style of Malayalam into an accent language. For examples:

Vakku - ve:kku (Edge)
Kombanaana - kom - ba- na:na (Tusker)
Pustakam - pus- te: kem (Book)
1. girsh - giRish
2. Go:pa: l - Go : ppa : l

Similarly, in many programmes such discussions, debates, interviews and quiz competitions, the participants may often do code switching and code mixing.

CONCLUSION

The impact of English on Malayalam (we may even call it the hegemony of English over Malayalam) had started during the British colonial period. The modern education that was introduced by the British made a profound influence in almost all the linguistic levels of Malayalam. English is used as a medium of education even in the post-independent Kerala. Even today the presence and influence of English language and culture on Malayalam is constantly felt everywhere. Malayalees continue to have a great fascination for English even to the extent of neglecting Malayalam.

Unlike the influence of Sanskrit on Malayalam, the influence of English is most frequent because of the 'prestige attitude' of Malayalees. Most of them attach an exceedingly high prestige attitude towards English. Therefore they promote the English medium schools.

Like a bilingual, Malayalees often do code switching from Malayalam to English to show their 'prestige attitude' towards English, the global language.

Like English, Malayalam is one language that has borrowed freely from its beginning in regular contact first with Sanskrit, then with other foreign languages like Arabic, Persian and Portuguese. Words of Malayalam constantly had been enriched not just by coinages but by borrowing as well. The English influences on Malayalam have been continuing from the period of British colonization. It is not merely borrowing a word from English but some variants of its culture too.

There are some countries that reject the option to give English a Privileged status, either as an official language or as a foreign language. It means, it is inevitable that, in a post colonial era, there should be strong reaction against continuing to use the language the former colonial power, and in favour of promoting the indigenous languages (Crystal, 1997: 114). However, this is not the case with the speakers of Malayalam, and the speakers of Indian languages in general. Gandhi (1908) has recognized it from the very beginning .He says " To give millions a knowledge of English is to enslave them… Is it not a painful thing that, if I want to go to a court of Justice, I must employ the English Language as medium; that, when I became a Barrister, I may not speak my mother tongue, and that someone else should have to translate to me from my own language? Is this not absolutely absurd? Is it not a sign of slavery?" This question is very relevant in the contemporary social context of India, especially in Kerala.

REFERENCES

Bhattathiri,Vasudevan, C.V. 1977. Bhashasatram, Current Books: Trissur.

Crystal,David 1997. English as Global Language, UK:Cambridge University Press

Jancy James, 2000. Enlishinte swadhinamam Malayala Bhashayil, in Malayalam Bhasha Charithram, Venugopana Nair, S.V.(Ed), Maluban Pablications: Thiruvanthapuram.

Josph,P.M. 1984. Malayalathile Parkiya padangal , Kerala Bhasha Institute: Thiruvanthapuram

Kuttikrishana Marar, 1971. Malayala Sailee, Mathrubhumi Pablication : Kozhikode.

Meys,W.J. 1975. Compound Adjective in English and the ideal speaker-listener. Amsterdam: North- Holland

Prabhakara varier, K.M. 2004. Malayalam Mattavum Valrchayum, Vallathool Vidya Peetham : Sukapuram.

Sreevalsan ,T, 2000 Compere Malayalam, unpublished article.

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