An obsession with correcting other people’s pronunciation, especially words of foreign origin, is a favourite hunting game of a certain kind of Indian. I know because I have met many people like this. The worry about mispronouncing words, especially those of foreign origin, is a relentless source of stress for a certain kind of Indian. I know because I am one.
These two sets of people are constantly bumping into one another in the small bubble that is English-speaking India. The usual vibrations that this produces became a loud buzz recently when renowned academic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and a student at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University engaged in a stand-off over the name of American sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois.
In the viral video of this event, Spivak, who is famously the author of a seminal work, ‘Can the subaltern speak?’, stops the student mid-question and insists he pronounce Du Bois’ name correctly before proceeding with his question. In this interaction, both Spivak and the student are curt with one another, and arguments (about the specific circumstances of the lecture) can be made on both sides to justify their behaviour. But this confrontation in itself is an interesting illustration of class war, because disputes of pronunciation are not usually about names or words, they are about the chasm between privilege and aspiration.
Indulging the foreigner
In India, we are indulgent of outsiders who mispronounce our names and words. Check out social media accounts of foreigners, especially Caucasian women tourists in India attempting to speak an Indian language, and you’ll see the comments are all about how cute they sound. We love that they are making an effort. However, we do not extend this courtesy to ourselves and any mispronunciation in English or a foreign language by an Indian is immediately pounced upon for a rigorous bout of trolling and teasing.
In order to know how a word is pronounced, you should have heard it spoken. For most people who have learned English by reading, this becomes a stumbling block. Despite being a competent speaker of the language, I too have spent many nights cringing about my terrible mispronunciation of a word earlier in the day. For example, for many years, I said the word ‘segue’ as it is spelt and not ‘segway’ as it is supposed to be pronounced. I was horrified when I later discovered the correct pronunciation. I wish someone had pointed it out to me earlier, than teased me about it behind my back.
Sometimes there are words I know the correct pronunciation of, but cannot get my tongue to move in the manner required to be able to say it. The word ‘queer’, for instance, completely defeats me, because I just cannot say it without a prominent Malayalam-accent barrelling in. Now that I am older and less worried about people’s opinion of me, my way of dealing with this is by owning up to it before saying the word. “I just can’t say this word properly,” I say and then go on to spell it. But for a younger person, this can often be a debilitating experience. As for people’s names, my philosophy is that if I am speaking to them, I ask how their name is pronounced, but if I am speaking about them, I don’t worry about accuracy.
Passing judgement
Spivak’s insistence on Du Bois’ name being correctly pronounced is because of the intricate and important ways it ties up to his identity. This is significant because how we speak too is a substantial part of our identity. You need to listen to only a few words in order to make fairly accurate assumptions about a person’s class, region of origin, and level of education. Implicit in this understanding is also a kind of judgement. It helps us figure out how we should deal with this person and assess whether they are deserving of our time and respect. We can be dismissive of the rustic, devoted to the refined. And yet, we hate it when someone puts on an accent. If they stay the same, we disrespect them; if they try to do better, we mock them.
In the class system based on language competence, I have realised, there is no winning for the people who are not at the top. No matter how much you practise the right way to say Du Bois’ name, the subaltern’s cover will likely be blown at some point, and their true origins will be revealed. It is a pointless exercise. You may as well be yourself.
The writer is the author of Independence Day: A People’s History.
