"Engrish"

Rising from the ashes of Phonix:
In a class today, while studying phonix (?!?!), I was made to say the pronunciation of the consonants of the English alphabet, and it was like a light bulb... yeah yeah, u know the cliche.

I realised that not only was I put in a questionable state by being asked to say 'Q', I had to put the question to myself - "what in the world was I doing?" because clearly something was hugely amiss. One aspect of it was the Q-question - does the letter Q have its own valid sound? Of course it does, but is it the sound in 'queue' or as it is in 'queen'. I had to remember my linguistics course and the fun phonetics classes to regain my balance, after being rudely shoved into a state of insecurity- did i really belong here? Teaching English pronunciation when I didn't know it myself? Who was I kidding?

I took comfort in realising that it was the very nature of the English language that allowed such questions to be asked. The vast, open-endedness, in the mesh of signifiers, language must not be bound up and tied down to one thing only.

The question raised by Q also took me into the deep depths of my thought where I was having one of those conversations with my self. (notice, my self not myself). I was telling self that the whole 'internationalisation' that I was here for really only meant Americanization, 'cause seriously will I be allowed to teach my Japanese students an Indian accent? As everyone there wanted the students to learn the American accent. But by nature I don't have an American accent. I would like to think that I don't have any particular accent but my own. It may have very many tinges of Indian in it, but I'd rather that it not.

Anyway, that I try to negate a huge part of my identity is beyond the topic at hand. What the real point I was trying to make was that -

1. the Japanese speak the 'katakana-engrish', just like Indians have an Indian accent, Americans, an American one, the Britons a British accent and so on...
2. therefore, is 'katakana-engrish' really so bad?

Well, yes, sometimes. When words 'r' metamorphosed into another until one doesn't have a clue as to what is being said. ('love' become 'rabu'). But isn't it this process that gives Indian-English writing the unique quality we admire? That made H. Hatterr one of the most stylistically brilliant texts ever written/read? And English especially has been subject to assimilations in I believe, every corner of the world. There are a numbers of Englishes in the world today, so why can't Japanese-English also be one of them? Why lay so much stress on an American accent? Why not work first at getting the students to build a working vocabulary and a comprehensive grammar before working on their accents?

Till that day arrives, we shall continue the debate alongside continuing to take pleasure in the numerous interesting instances where engrish provides us with a good laugh....

rabu rabu tsu aru! (read translation: love love to all)