Linguistic Hierarchy in India
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The comedy sketch ‘Herouxtyville’ as described in Das’ book reminded me of the linguistic hierarchy that exists in India. The sketch depicts the conversation between a couple speaking in International French, and a truck driver speaking in a less refined, non- standard Quebecois French.
Having grown up in South Delhi (wealthier region of Delhi), and attended an English medium school where most of my peers came from relatively well-off families, I am much too aware of the elitist rhetoric that exists among people my age when it comes to language. Keeping aside the ever pervasive Hindi superiority complex that North Indians hold, there also seems to exist a hierarchy among dialects of Hindi.
As in the Herouxtyville sketch where the truck owner is presumed to be culturally ignorant due to his rural Quebecois accent, I think regional dialects of Hindi and other similar languages tend to be deemed less than when compared to mainstream, ‘posh’ Hindi. [I would like to note that these are my observations, and not objective truths]. This has become all the more evident to me with the advent of Instagram reels.
With Instagram reels giving people in rural areas an opportunity and platform to post content on, I often find that the comments on these videos tend to make the way they talk the butt of the joke. Regional dialects and languages typically stemming from places like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Bihar seem to be deemed ‘funny’ and ‘less than’ by the elitist narrative of mainstream Hindi as the ‘right’ one.
This reading also reminded me of our assigned reading by Rajiv Mohabir where he felt the need to correct his grandmother’s pronunciation of the word Kekahi “to the more bookish Kaikeyi” (Mohabir, 17). I believe Mohabir’s embarrassment of his Grandmother’s usage of a Bhojpuri pronunciation as opposed to a more bookish and mainstream one highlights the existence of a linguistic hierarchy in India.