From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Monograph on Indian English
Date: 16 Aug 92 18:25:55 GMT
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

In article <1992Aug4.000042.22460@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> mmmirash@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu (Mandar Mukund Mirashi) writes:
>    As much as I hate to do this, it has got to be done. There were some
>articles in a.u.e, posted by a misinformed Indian (SB), who claimed that
>constructs such as "cousin-brother" which are commonly used by Indians
>colloquially, are improvements to the language. 

Where's the misinformation?  It's perfectly obvious that
"cousin-brother" conveys some information that "cousin" does not (a
problem in English; most other Northern European languages do indeed
have this distinction, e.g., "Vetter/Cousine" in German,
"Cousin/Cousine" in French--and you can imagine the loanword process by
which English lost the ability to make this distinction simply).
Moreover, in the stuff that follows (I've deleted some of it) I don't
find anything that supports your claim of misinformation.

>Readers who do not wish
>to read about Indian English, please skip this article. I honestly did 
>not expect anyone to take such an interest in these flawed constructs
>framed by Indians.

Again I ask: where's the flaw?  The phrase is not only useful but easy
for people used to other dialects to understand.

>1. Relations
>=============
>     When you wish to specify a cousin in an Indian language, there is 
>a whole gamut of adjectives which can be applied to this relationship,
>to make the underlying relationships clear. Besides, the gender of the
>cousin is always specified (translated literally, "brother" or "sister"
>is appended to one of the adjectives mentioned earlier). In essence, there
>is no equivalent in Indian languages, for the "ambiguous" noun "cousin".
>This perplexes most Indians, who are not used to the non-specificity of
>the English language. 

So far, so good.  Note that people from *lots* of other languages have
this problem.

>They mistake cousin to be an adjective (instead
>of a noun) and append either brother or sister to it! Voila! The problem
>of specifying the gender is solved. 

They *mistake* "cousin" to be an adjective?  No.  They don't mistake
anything.

THEY *USE* "COUSIN" AS AN ADJECTIVE.

That's right, they *use* it.  Just as English-speakers all over the
world (including Merrie England) use nouns as adjectives, and also use
adjectives as nouns.  Nouns and verbs, too, often transform themselves
into one another.  This process has been going on for a millenium.
English has very few inflections, so it's easy to do.

For example, I'm sitting here in a salt-and-pepper  tweed jacket.
"Salt," "pepper," and "tweed" are all nouns -- but I've used them all as
adjectives.  I added hyphens to a multi-word phrase that was being used
as a single adjective, but that's because I'm old-fashioned.

>Additional adjectives, such as 
>"maternal", "paternal", "avuncular", etc. may be prepended to this construct 
>to formulate a "new" relationship which translates literally from the
>Indian language. These ridiculous constructs are framed usually by Indians

What's ridiculous about them?  My friend Michael has 100 cousins.  He'd
*love* a set of simple, colloquial terms to distinguish the
relationships further.

>who learn English at a later stage in their lives, and try to compare it
>with their own language. I still cannot understand why Indians cannot
>adjust to non-specificity in relationships, when they adjust so well to
>non-specificities in gender for inanimate objects (if you have studied
>a foreign language such as French, where inanimate objects have a gender
>associated with them, you'll understand what I mean). 

Could it be that Indians, like other people, actually *use* the languag
to communicate and get along, and find that they NEED the terms you call
"ridiculous"?  It's not a matter of "inability to adjust" -- it's a
matter of adapting the language to one's needs, which every human being
does.  Gender non-spec. doesn't cause problems, but cousin non-spec
does.  So people do something about it.  You call it "ridiculous." I
call it practical.

>There is no equivalent
>for the word "cousin" in Indian languages. The "cousin", translated literally
>from an equivalent construct in an Indian language, yields Indian colloquial
>English constructs such as "maternal cousin brother", etc. 

There you have it in a nutshell.  You can't say the same things in all
languages; accordingly, you either have to adapt what you're saying, or
adapt the language you're saying it in.  And some of us consider what
we're saying to be more important than the standards of a language that,
when you get right down to it, *has* no fixed standards.

>      These constructs are found only in colloquial speech. Written English
>in India follows the English English format and spellings. 

Not true.  Check out some articles in linguistic journals on just t his
subject.

>Furthermore,
>these constructs cannot be regarded as "improvements" because they make
>improper use of the word "cousin" (as an adjective). 

Well, that renders EVERYBODY'S speech improper, because EVERYBODY uses
nouns as adjectives now and then, so often, in fact, that the nouns take
on adjectival manings in the common tongue.  

(Look up "head" in your desk dictionary.  This was originally a noun.
My dictionary gives 31 meanings for the noun, 12 for the verb, and 4 for
the adjective.  Which ones are improper, I wonder?  All but one came
about by the extensions you describe as "improper.")

>They are common 
>mistakes committed by foreign speakers of the language. 

Actually, they demonstrate *skill* at the language, as unskilled
speakers simply parrot the usages they have learned so far.  They are
applications of a general rule: that ouns may be used as adjectives in
many cases.

>I believe you'll
>find such peculiar constructs of the language, all over the world, where
>English isn't taught as the first language, 

And in London, New York, etc.

>and persons who encounter the
>English language for the first time, come up with constructs which are
>wrong grammatically, but parallel a similar construct found in their
>native tongue. 

What's wrong grammatically with "cousin-brother"?  It's not common usage
in London, but there's no problem with the grammar of the expression.  I
will admit that, if one created the phrase in England or America, one
would very likely put "brother" first, as modifiers generally go first.
So we would likely say "brother-cousin" if we felt the need to coin
something like that.  But then, we might not.

>      Let me relate a funny incident. Many words in English when used
>in a different context, convey a different connotation. Similarly, in
>Marathi (one of the Indo-Aryan languages), the word "rikama" conveys  
>2 different meanings, depending on the context of its usage. It may
>mean 1. empty or 2. not busy, unoccupied, etc. One of my brother's 
>professors, when asked to clarify a doubt by one of his students, used
>to respond with "Please meet me after the class when I am empty"! Obviously,
>he wasn't aware of the fact  that the word "empty" in English conveyed
>just one of the 2 different meanings listed above, resulting in his  
>inadvertent and incorrect usage of the word. I certainly cannot call
>this an improvement!

Nor has it anything to do with "cousin-brother."  Here the professor had
to choose one translation or another, and chose the wrong one.  In the
case of "cousin-brother," there is *no* correct translation that conveys
the meaning that certain people feel the need to convey.

>2. Tense
>=========
>     Indian languages frequently make use of the present continuous (e.g. I am
>hearing) tense in conversations.  However, this is not the case with 
>English. 

Listen again.  We use it quite a lot, but in different ways.

>Once again, we have an example where native speakers of another
>language try to use similar constructs found in English incorrectly. 

"Incorrect" implies a standard of correctness.  What standard are you
using? 

Choice of tense varies across English dialects, too.  Why not simply
state the obvious: that Indian spoken English is not London dialect?
Why fool around with useless concepts such as "incorrect"?

(Also, look at your sentence.  They don't *try* to use them incorrectly,
I'm sure.)           

>This colloquial corruption of the language 

What constitutes the corruption of a language?  How can you tell?
London dialect of 1950 is quite unlike that of 1850, with regard to
certain preopsitional constructions, tense choices, etc., to say nothing
of vocabulary.  Is one a corruption of the other?  Of course not.
And, yes, 1950 English is influenced by other languages and dialects
spoken nearby (American, French, German, the changes in non-London
dialects, etc.).  So why is a change that happens in New Delhi, with
entirely similar sources, suddenly a "corruption"?  

It's a dialect, is what it is.  No more, no less.

>is so prevalent in India, that even
>persons like myself, who have learnt English as a first language, tend to
>commit occassional blunders in speech. 

You mean, you lapse into another dialect.  

>If you wish to call this "Indian
>English", fine! But remember, there is no such thing as Indian English in
>the written format of the language.

You've said this before, and repetition makes it no more correct.
Plenty of people have studied it, and have found differences.

>    A similar example would be the case of Chinese who learn the English
>language. My presumption is that there are no future or past tenses in
>the Chinese language dialects. Hence, you observe many Chinese English
>speakers who express their ideas, only in the present tense.

Well, let's say that the expression of future and past are not
accomplished with tense shifts in Chinese.

>If you are interested in Indian written English, I suggest you read
>"The Times of India" (the most popular English newspaper in India) OR
>"India Today" (adjudged the best magazine in Asia) OR
>the works of a few Indian English authors. (SB take note!)

And if *you* are interested in the subject, check out a linguistics
journal or two.

>    I am sure you'll find it the same as English written English. 

The experts disagree.

Roger
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english