Someone said to G.B. Shaw that "sugar" is the only word in English that says "sh" for "s". He asked that man, "are you sure?"
I got an email from TOEFL for a survey this afternoon. It was surprising because I never expected to hear from them, when I suddenly realized it has been exactly six years since I took this test. Funny, though it sounds, I have never thought of English as a "foreign language". Now when I converse with other non-native English speakers, I sometimes feel that I have done a good job in learning this foreign tongue which I should call my "foster language".
I have forgotten when I started learning English, but I remember that technically it was before I learned to read or write my mother language. The reason for this was if I had to get admitted to a school whose medium of instruction was English, I had to learn the English alphabet before Bengali. There is a mixed feeling about people from "English medium schools" of South Calcutta. Some of those students have airs about "not knowing Bengali" and some students of vernacular schools have an inferiority complex for not being able to converse in fluent English. It's a convoluted social situation, I should say. Anyway, good for me that even though English and Bengali were parallely stressed upon by our school, we didn't turn out to be snobbish "can't-speak-Bengali" people (বঙ্গ মায়ের anglo সনতান ).
Like there are many Bengali writers who have molded my thought process, there are many English writers too who have expanded my horizon, given me enough to think about and have made my "to visit" list longer. Would I ever long to visit 221B Baker Street if I did not gorge Conan Doyle's books? Or would I dream of a mansion in the countryside of England with blooming rhododendrons and azaleas along the driveway if I didn't visit du Maurier's "Manderley"? Who would have urged me to put on my "free thinking cap" if Carl Sagan's treasure trove was unknown to me? I do owe a lot to these people...who have taught me the language which I write in most of the time and speak for a third of my day every week day. Indians should be indebted to the British for this. I can't imagine a Bengali and a Tamil conversing in Hindi!! Just impossible!!!
The English writers whom I like most are so different than the Bengali authors I like. The style of writing is different, so is the type of content in most cases. Take for example, an autobiography or a travelogue. Bengali authors hardly ever excel in these categories. It will be difficult to choose my most favorite writer, but then I think there will be a tie between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Dame Daphne du Maurier. Both of them have the capacity to make me oblivious of the surrounding when I am reading their books. Especially du Maurier. I have never been so mesmerized as I was while reading "Rebecca"! Almost same for "My cousin Rachel". Another person coming close would be Jerome K. Jerome for his "Three men in a boat". I'll probably have to dedicate an entire article for this. Jerome, George, Harris and Montmorency has made me laugh laugh laugh till my sides ache. I like Agatha Christie's work as well, more for her style of writing than for the content (I always think she suppresses the clues, which is a poor way of writing a detective story) so I like her autobiography more than her detective stories. Also, my English vocabulary in indebted to her (so is my dad's). I have said about Carl Sagan already. He is the one to come into my literary life the latest, but then "vini vidi vici" :-)
Before I were able to read all these, Enid Blyton and A.A. Milne were there. Pictures of the English countryside were vivid in my mind from the Magic Faraway Tree and Pooh's "100 aker" woods. I still love reading those books and now that I can get them from Amazon real cheap, I have got the entire collection of Pooh's and Blyton's magic series. "The naughtiest girl" takes me back to my own school days at times. I remember reading one of those books in school, when a boy in my class commented "Sayari is reading her own biography"!!!
Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" and "Good Wives", especially the tomboyish Jo is well intertwined with my own teenage days. The pangs of growing up, the pleasures of breaking free, heartaches (for self and others), Jo's crazy poems and stories, her friendship with Laurie...they are all mirrored in my own life very clearly.
Some other writers I should mention here are - Arthur Hailey, Anna Sewell, George Orwell, Charlie Chaplin and Edward VIII (yes, the king!). They have all written so well and so different stuff that I can't help admire them!
There are another set of people, not mentioning whom would be very unjust. They would be the poets. Though all the acquaintance I made with them were through my text books, but that doesn't mean I don't like them. Alfred Lord Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade", "The Lady of Shallot" and especially "The Brook" are my all time favorites. So is William Wordsworth. When we were flying from Frankfurt back to Seattle and were soaring over the Scottish highlands, I couldn't not think of "The Solitary Reaper"!!
There can't be anything as a "second language", more so if that language is rich in literature. It's not just a means to communicate between people of different countries (or different cultures within), it opens up a whole new world by introducing us to new books, new movies and new characters (both fictional and true) and gets us a step closer to making this world even smaller.
I got an email from TOEFL for a survey this afternoon. It was surprising because I never expected to hear from them, when I suddenly realized it has been exactly six years since I took this test. Funny, though it sounds, I have never thought of English as a "foreign language". Now when I converse with other non-native English speakers, I sometimes feel that I have done a good job in learning this foreign tongue which I should call my "foster language".
I have forgotten when I started learning English, but I remember that technically it was before I learned to read or write my mother language. The reason for this was if I had to get admitted to a school whose medium of instruction was English, I had to learn the English alphabet before Bengali. There is a mixed feeling about people from "English medium schools" of South Calcutta. Some of those students have airs about "not knowing Bengali" and some students of vernacular schools have an inferiority complex for not being able to converse in fluent English. It's a convoluted social situation, I should say. Anyway, good for me that even though English and Bengali were parallely stressed upon by our school, we didn't turn out to be snobbish "can't-speak-Bengali" people (বঙ্গ মায়ের anglo সনতান ).
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| Second language??!! |
The English writers whom I like most are so different than the Bengali authors I like. The style of writing is different, so is the type of content in most cases. Take for example, an autobiography or a travelogue. Bengali authors hardly ever excel in these categories. It will be difficult to choose my most favorite writer, but then I think there will be a tie between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Dame Daphne du Maurier. Both of them have the capacity to make me oblivious of the surrounding when I am reading their books. Especially du Maurier. I have never been so mesmerized as I was while reading "Rebecca"! Almost same for "My cousin Rachel". Another person coming close would be Jerome K. Jerome for his "Three men in a boat". I'll probably have to dedicate an entire article for this. Jerome, George, Harris and Montmorency has made me laugh laugh laugh till my sides ache. I like Agatha Christie's work as well, more for her style of writing than for the content (I always think she suppresses the clues, which is a poor way of writing a detective story) so I like her autobiography more than her detective stories. Also, my English vocabulary in indebted to her (so is my dad's). I have said about Carl Sagan already. He is the one to come into my literary life the latest, but then "vini vidi vici" :-)
Before I were able to read all these, Enid Blyton and A.A. Milne were there. Pictures of the English countryside were vivid in my mind from the Magic Faraway Tree and Pooh's "100 aker" woods. I still love reading those books and now that I can get them from Amazon real cheap, I have got the entire collection of Pooh's and Blyton's magic series. "The naughtiest girl" takes me back to my own school days at times. I remember reading one of those books in school, when a boy in my class commented "Sayari is reading her own biography"!!!
Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" and "Good Wives", especially the tomboyish Jo is well intertwined with my own teenage days. The pangs of growing up, the pleasures of breaking free, heartaches (for self and others), Jo's crazy poems and stories, her friendship with Laurie...they are all mirrored in my own life very clearly.
Some other writers I should mention here are - Arthur Hailey, Anna Sewell, George Orwell, Charlie Chaplin and Edward VIII (yes, the king!). They have all written so well and so different stuff that I can't help admire them!
There are another set of people, not mentioning whom would be very unjust. They would be the poets. Though all the acquaintance I made with them were through my text books, but that doesn't mean I don't like them. Alfred Lord Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade", "The Lady of Shallot" and especially "The Brook" are my all time favorites. So is William Wordsworth. When we were flying from Frankfurt back to Seattle and were soaring over the Scottish highlands, I couldn't not think of "The Solitary Reaper"!!
There can't be anything as a "second language", more so if that language is rich in literature. It's not just a means to communicate between people of different countries (or different cultures within), it opens up a whole new world by introducing us to new books, new movies and new characters (both fictional and true) and gets us a step closer to making this world even smaller.
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