The motive was to highlight the bilingual attitude of local Pakistani especially Punjabi Urban Speakers regarding three languages they use in daily life i.e. English, Urdu, Punjabi. I was pre-mature at that time, but the effort was done to create quality content. Of course it was an assignment.
Bilingualism
Bilingual
or multilingual is a person who can speak two or more than two languages with
equal or less equal proficiency.
A
society is called bilingual or multilingual if the people there speak more
than one language.
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Bilingualism and multilingualism are
referred to same thing mostly. Bilingualism may mean that the users of language
are using more than two languages and multilingualism may also mean that the
speakers are using two languages in the community or society.
About half of the world's population
is multi/bilingual. It is, in fact, very hard to find a monolingual community
or society like Japan etc. While talking about sub continent in general and
specially Pakistan we come to know that we are a multilingual community. We use
Urdu as a language of communication between different domestic language
speakers, thus Urdu working as a lingua franka, we use domestic
languages at local level such as Punjabi, Hindko, Barahwi, Sindhi, Pashto,
Balochi, Saraiki, Kashmiri etc and we use English also as a foreign language.
People of Pakistan are bilingual/trilingual or generally multilingual.
Bilingualism is believed to be a
gradeable system so we can distinguish among its various kinds. Here it will be
tried to discuss some concepts relating to multilingualism and then it will be
tried to relate them to the local context of Pakistan specially Punjab. As the
assignee is a Punjabi, Urdu and English speaker so the examples will be related
to these languages mostly, although they will be almost valid for other
domestic languages also.
First distinction can be made in
bilingualism is that the speaker have equal proficiency in both or all the
languages he can speak or write. Such a bilingual is called a balanced
bilingual or equilingual. This is not the absolute criteria, there
may be some situations where a bilingual's abilities in a given language suffer
due to pressure of situation etc. There may also be a situation of more
receptive knowledge of once language and more active knowledge of another i.e.
he may understand a language but may not speak it and he may speak and
understand other language very well. There are also some situations in which
bilingual is familiar with the spoken system of one language and written system
of another.
If we compare this kind of
bilingualism distinction with our situation we can find certain similarities.
Punjabi and Urdu are two languages which are believed to be known by a person living in Punjab. A
Punjabi speaking child learns Urdu along with Punjabi at almost same age.
Exposure of both languages at the same time enables him to be proficient in
both languages almost equally. But here we come to the point of above para. The
difference of reading and writing system hinders here. A Punjabi speaking child is not necessarily
believed to learn writing Punjabi also. He writes in Urdu and it is considered
sufficient for him/her. In particular situations where the learner optionally
learns Punjabi at school enable him/her to read and write it otherwise it is
seen that young speakers of Punjabi avoid reading or writing Punjabi and they
feel it convenient to do it in Urdu. So their proficiency suffers here in
Punjabi in writing and reading while in Urdu they are proficient in all fields
reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Second kind of distinction in
bilingualism can be drawn by the acquisition of language. There are two main
processes to learn a language. Acquisition and learning are two methods to
learn languages, former is natural and primary while the later is artificial
and secondary. A language acquired by a person interacting with his parents,
sisters, brothers and friends etc at home will be the native language. Another
language he learns at some institute by formal education will be called a
foreign or a 2nd or 3rd language. Former bilingual will
be called primary and later will be called secondary bilingual.
In case of Urdu and Punjabi we are
primary bilinguals. We learn these languages at home, from our surroundings in
typical natural situations. While in case of Urdu and English or Punjabi and
English we are secondary bilinguals because we learn former from home and later
from an institute usually a school.
A third kind of bilingualism
distinction is socio-psychological distinction. The people may feel it additive
having another language which enrich their ideas and knowledge. And they may
feel it subtractive or loss of their language and culture by another
languages (usually a dominant language). In our context this thing is applied
to Urdu and English connection in both ways. People feel it additive to their
knowledge, considering English as a language of latest knowledge and
information and thus enriching their knowledge. People also feel it subtractive
in a sense that English is acquiring the place of Urdu in our local life, its
words are used and those of Urdu are ignored. So it can be a cause of loss of
our culture and identity and there are people who are against its usage.
A very useful way to describe the
bilinguals is the domain specification. A domain is an empirically
determined cluster of consisting a location, a set of role relationships and a
set of topics. For each domain the bilingual has a pre-defined language to
be used. We can see it in this table
Location
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Role-relationships
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Topics
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Home
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Mother,
Father, Son, Daughter etc
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Domestic,
Personal etc
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Neighborhood
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Neighbour,
Shop-keeper, street-cleaner
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Weather,
Shopping, social greetings
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School
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Teacher,
student, principal
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Social
greetings, educational
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Mosque
and Religious Places
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Imam,
Muqtadee, Listener of Sermon etc
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Sermons,
Prayers, Social talks etc
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Work
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Boss,
Subordinate, Peer
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Professional
Matters etc
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By comparing this theory with our
practical use of language we can see what languages we use at each domain. Most
likely we use Punjabi at home, talking with parents and other family members on
different domestic and even non-domestic issues. With neighbours we also use
Punjabi talking with them in different relations. At school the language
changes to Urdu, when we talk to our teachers, co-teachers, principle or junior
staff and peers etc. At mosque and religious gathering once again we use Urdu
usually, sometimes local language is used for better interaction (specially in
villages Punjabi is used). At work level or at higher education institutes our
talks are a mixture of Urdu and English switching to English when talking in
meetings and very formal sittings.
Code Mixing and Code Switching
In a situation, community or a
society where there are bilinguals and they interact with each other in more
than one languages, due to the factor of language contact a situation arises
which is called code mixing and code switching. This situation can lead towards
the language interference in which a language is influenced by another language
on the levels of semantics, grammar and phonology.
A bilingual can talk to another
bilingual in each language common between them. He can also use the words of
one language into other, knowing that the listener understands the other language as well. Such
kind of mixing is called code mixing.
Code mixing is also called
conversational code switching. Code mixing takes place usually in spoken
language as we are less conscious about our language and we have not much time
to replace foreign words with native ones. We take it forgranted
that other person is understanding us. Code mixing is not only the mixing of
words but clauses are also included in it, a part of sentence from one language
and other part from other language, and in similar syntactic structured
languages such as English and Spanish the grammatical inflexions are also
mixed. It is very much related to
domains and situations. At a very formal situation bilinguals can use a mixed
code of formal and informal variety in their leisure time. The language in
which education is received also influence the choice of words from another
language and people tend to code mix who are high educated and specially in a
foreign language. It is observed in many countries that teachers having degree
from a foreign institute mix their code while delivering lecture.
If we consider our situation we can
find that domains related to education, media and profession are those where
people use to mix the code. This code mixing is of two high level formal
languages of the community i.e. Urdu and English. Teachers while talking in
classroom use frequently the terms of the discipline from English. Media men
and specially hosts at TV and radio etc mix the code frequently. They use a
blend of Urdu with English and English with Urdu in talk shows and live
programmes. An example of a female host from government tv channel PTV is
quoted here.
اس وقت آپ کو لگ
رہا ہوگا کہ میں بہت ہائپر ہورہی ہوں بڑی ایکسائٹڈ ہورہی ہوں ویسے
تو میں ہر وقت ہورہی ہوتی ہوں نہیں بھی ٹی
وی کے سامنے ہوتی تو ہر وقت باتیں کررہی ہوتی ہوں لیکن ہمارے سٹوڈیوز
میں بڑے سپیشل دو گیسٹس موجود ہیں انھیں میں سلیبریٹی کپل
بھی کہوں گی تو بالکل بھی غلط نہیں
ہوگا۔
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She is mixing English noun,
adjectives and verbs in Urdu frequently. We can see the plurals as well used as
they are in Urdu from English.
Code switching is the umbrella term
as compared to code mixing. It involves code mixing as well as the switching of
language. Code switching is distinguished from code mixing as here people
switch to other language for relatively large chunks of language.
In our context, if we see, even in
classrooms of heigher education levels, the teachers switch to and from the
native to foreign language during their
lecture. Similarly media men, professionals also mix and switch their code
highly while talking. Here is an example from Pakistani filmstar Javed Sheikh's
interview. He is mixing the code and at the end totally shifts to English.
جن کو مجھ پہ کانفیڈنس
ہے میرے لیے یہ بہت ضروری تھا کہ ان کا یہ کانفیڈنس برقرار رہے۔ اللہ
تعالٰی کا کرم ہے کہ میں نے جو بھی کام کیا ہے “کھلے آسمان کے نیچے” میں انشاءاللہ Every Pakistani will be proud of it
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Borrowing
Borrowing is very closely related to code mixing and
switching. A single person using a foreign word is code mixing while lots of
people doing this is called borrowing. Borrowing is to get a foreign language
word into native language. In this process its pronunciation may be changed or
it can be kept as in Urdu we use English word Policy as palicy.
Borrowing can be at semantic level translating certain concepts from foreign to
native language. It can be at syntactic level or morphological level to adopt certain
language systems in native language.
Borrowing has a very interesting
problem. The meanings of words are changed some times from native meanings
and word is used in local language in a different sense. An EFL teacher at
Korea reports such problem on his blog. He says that people are using English
words in Korean in different sense, these words are when spoken to native
speakers of English in local meaning create problems of understanding.
In Urdu we have some examples of change in meaning of a borrowed word. Committee
is an English noun used in Urdu also as a noun but it is used as a verb also. کمیٹی ڈالنا is a verb which has totally different
meanings as compared to the native meaning.
Code mixing, switching and borrowing is also taking
place in domestic languages but it is relatively rare as compared to Urdu. But
we can find such examples while traveling in a local bus or standing at a stop.
اینہوں کنٹرول چ کر
This is utterance of an old man, who
is using an English borrowed verb in Punjabi as a verb and applying the grammar
of Punjabi very unconsciously.
Inter language mixing of Urdu and
domestic languages is also taking place. People in cities are tending to use
Urdu words to purify their
domestic language. Specially in cities like Karachi it is reported that words
of Urdu are frequently spoken in domestic languages like Pashto. The young
Pakhtoons are marked by their Urdu-mixed Pushto when they visit Peshawar or the
domestic areas of their parents.
Considering our language situations a
diglossic community we can make a continuum of languages according to
their formality level.
Bibliography
Sociolinguistics by R.A.
Hudson
Sociolinguistics by Bernard Spolsky
The Linguistics Encyclopedia edited by Kristen
Malmkjer
Introducing Language and Society by Peter
Trudgill
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