Isn’t it strange that every generation that is otherwise ahead of the previous one in most aspects looks back at the latter with a sort of contempt when it comes to language skills and articulation? Language, it’s believed, changes but changes in it are perceived as distortions and new usage is thought to be corruption. Let’s turn to Guy Deutscher who in his book ‘The Unfolding of Language’ has succinctly captured this phenomenon which seems to be universal. ‘Tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration’, writes Samuel Johnson in his Dictionary of the English Language’.

Jonathan Swift wrote in 1712; ‘’I do here, in the Name of all the Learned and Polite Persons of the Nation, complain . . . that our Language is extremely imperfect; that its daily Improvements are by no means in proportion to its daily Corruption …’.

In 1819 Jacob Grimm, a German linguist, declared: ‘Six hundred years ago, every common peasant knew – that is to say practised daily – perfections and niceties of the German language of which the best language teachers nowadays can no longer even dream’. Guy tells us that writer Serge Koster declares that changes in the French language are ‘corrupting a system of grammar which was constructed throughout the centuries, and which has stayed almost stable since the eighteenth century’.

Is what our literati and academics say about the corruption of languages we use any different from what has been quoted above? People use multiple languages in Punjab, for that anywhere in the country. Upper class usually employs English while middle classes generally use Urdu. Working classes are comfortable with their mother language; Punjabi.

Use of multiple languages by a community can be its intellectual strength but here no language is used neatly especially by upper and middle strata. The English used by upper class has sprinkling of Urdu [derived from Persian and Arabic] and Punjabi. Middle classes cannot express themselves in Urdu without the smattering of borrowed English words and phrases. A number of English and Urdu words have crept in the Punjabi spoken by common people but it still is less laden with loanwords in comparative terms. The overall scene is inelegant, rather it’s quite messy to say the least.

Take, for example, the case of TV anchors most of whom pretend to be public intellectuals and opinion makers. A large number of them cannot speak three or four straight sentences in Urdu or Punjabi without the help of teleprompter. They can’t avoid unnecessary use of English words or phrases. Same is the case with guests participating in their talk shows. One of the reasons is that they have no command over any of the languages they are supposed to know. Nor they have been trained to respect the language(s) they use. Tossing of English words whose equivalents are easily found in peoples’ languages by the high profile users establish them, they believe, somehow ‘more literate’ than the literate. The English language, a vestige of colonialism, of course carries class prestige setting its hoity-toity users apart from ‘hoi polloi’. If a non-English speaking foreigner who knows only Punjabi or Urdu comes to Punjab, it would be the Tower of Babel for him or her; a baffling mixture of diverse languages, little more than an unintelligible articulated noise.

But it’s also true that purity of language is an idealised notion, not a historically verifiable fact. Every language is product of linguistic interaction. What keeps a language in a state of perpetual good health is what it takes from other languages. Borrowing and acceptance of what seems extrinsic lingual influence makes a language dynamic by osmosis. So it’s never a question of either and or. It’s a matter of give and take though the process is not even. Language of a dominant culture/society dominates; it gives more, tales less resulting in its cultural hegemony. But changes in a language do not necessarily mean its degeneration and corruption. ‘Let us put our trust in the eternal spirit, which destroys and annihilates only because it is the perpetual creative force of all life. The urge of destruction is, at the same time, a creative urge’, said Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin. Positively required changes, in the opinion of Guy, are less noticeable because they appear slowly and gradually in an almost invisible manner through processes of creation, renewal and regeneration.

Shahid Mubashar’s’ Qissa Jinn Pari Ka’ can be a good case study in this context. Don’t be deceived by the title. It’s a book of unusual poetry in Urdu. Multan-based Shahid Mubashar is a little known but highly creative poet with an inquisitive mind and musician who shuns limelight and self-projection. His mother tongue is Urdu. His ‘Qissa’ tells a tale of a society groaning under the dead weight of misogyny, patriarchic norms, hypocrisy, jealously, double standard, superstition and moral decay. ‘Qissa’ is a scathing expose of a moribund culture. The poet effortlessly employs all the literary tools he has in his arsenal such as narration, description, satire, humour, irony and dialogue to name a few. But what we are concerned with for the moment is his ability to play with the Urdu language especially his penchant for creating a new Urdu idiom with the borrowings from Punjabi, Seraiki and English which are in everyday use all around him. Let’s savour for example some of his verses. ’style cool, lehja uss ka tha curt /libas uss ka tha jogger, jean, T shirt’… Ye dhammki sunn ke jab aamil hoay chupp /kaha Jinn ne lagao zehan ko dhupp…Hye runn, zunn, zaal, dhi, kamzor pasta /bechaari, sunji, shohdi aur khasta’.

Shahid Mubashar’s ‘Qissa’, a book of remarkable gravitas [which needs to be seriously reviewed by Urdu critics in its entirety] shows how the language patronised by the state and zealously promoted by the Urdu speaking ‘Muhajir’ and Punjabi literati is redolent of the changing linguistic landscape in Punjab.

That a language changes is a fact. Such changes are more manifest in a multilingual society like ours where diverse linguistic groups and communities compete for intellectual, cultural and political domination. In order to deal with the unwelcome influence of language of power suppressed linguistic groups need to understand the dynamics of change rather than denying it as void ab initio. The denial would help the language of power instead of power of language used by the people. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2018