– Guyana’s Linguistic Heritage
by Petamber Persaud
(excerpt of an interview with Harry Hergash, Georgetown, Guyana, September 2013.
Hergash was among the first batch of students of the University of Guyana. He was taught Hindi by his parents then studied the language at the Hindu College, Cove and John.
Hergash’s publications include, ‘A Collection of Indian-Guyanese Words & Phrases and their meanings’)
PP I’d like to start this discourse by quoting a few words of commendation by Harry Persaud and cited in the book: ‘Words are essential symbols expressing multiple experiences, values and customs in the daily lives of a people, hence, we come to know the construct of a culture and its reality by its language usage’. There is a whole lot being said in these few words. But I know you have your own reasons for writing this book….Let’s hear those reasons.
HH Yes, there are several reasons but the driving force to a large extent is tied up with what Dr Persaud said there in his commentary on the book. I believe language is an essential part of a people’s cultural heritage and in Guyana as far as I know the Indian ancestral language or if I may say languages because there was more than one language brought to Guyana
PP Namely.
HH Like Bhojpuri, Bengali…Also if we look at the Southern languages – we have Telegu
PP I hear of a Madrasi language; how does that fit into the picture, if it’s a language?
HH My feeling is that Telegu and Madrasi are southern languages which fall within Dravidian group of languages – there were called Madrasi because in those days Madras was a Presidency under the British and the people from South India came from the [state] Madrasi Presidency; today Madras is a state in South India but in those days it was a presidency – the British had three presidencies around that time so I think it was an all encompassing term for the languages.
PP Oh, here’s something of interest – my wife comes from a Madrasi lineage and she still uses some of the more colourful words
HH That’s interesting, now that you mentioned this, allow me to jump ahead – I am doing something else looking at [the novel] ‘Hendree’s Cure’ with the permission of the author, Moses Nagamootoo.
To tie that with the impetus for writing this book – the words and phrases and the language have been in a decline to an extent where I have to say the Indian ancestral language is in danger of becoming extinct.
PP There are still a handful of speakers here….
HH Which you may be able to count on the fingers of one hand. But such speakers are mostly overseas. In the case of the South Indian languages, they are almost completely gone. Just a few words existing and those few words are not as well established into the Guyanese creolese as the North Indian dialects. Incidentally several of the languages that came were grouped together and called Hindustani; it wasn’t called Hindi or Bhojpuri as we are now hearing from scholars. Bhojpuri was only one of the many dialects that came from North India
Now you would know from history that the North Indians were the majority of recruits who came [to Guyana as indentured labourers] so it is not surprising that their words and phrases have dominated the scene. Now there is a danger in that although some words like mamu and cha cha have a greater usage in the wider society their usage within the Indian community is dying out.
PP Danger? I’d look at it as fortunate – if the wider society is using some of those words (and many such words are in currency in the foods and songs we consume)
But let’s take a closer look at this decline.
Allow me to return to the text, page 12 ‘However, in their [Indian immigrants] struggle for survival and acceptance, they were unable to unsure the continuity of their ancestral languages/dialects’. Were there other subtle factors that caused the decline?
HH There are a number of factors and it is interesting and I am hoping in the near future to ventilate my thoughts on that. But one of the reasons is the snobbery associated with the use of the English Language and the looking down upon the Indians who could not speak proper English – that was a major factor.
I remember when I was studying Hindi…
PP In Guyana?
HH Yes, Hindi was being taught in the temples in the evening and many people passing on the road would make noise and mockery. But there were far more compelling reasons, for instance, the language did not have currency to be accepted in society, and social mobility depended on the use of English.
PP So there was nothing to gain by retaining such a language?…..
HH Another example could be found in that the dialects that came were not literary languages, there were not written and at the time the Brahmins were the educated class and they perpetuated Sanskrit and not Bhojpuri …
PP Let me get this right before moving on. I am under the impression that all the languages came out of Urdu.
HH Urdu is a combination of languages. It is a beautiful language. In fact, Bollywood uses Urdu, the songs are generally Urdu.
PP We have touched on the decline of those languages and dialects. Let’s now look at the continuance or areas where language has survived.
HH The survival is in doubt except if there is an attempt to perpetuate it.
PP How can we do this?
HH I really don’t know. What I do know is that the language has survived in Suriname and to a certain extent in Trinidad. And there could be a revival in Guyana ….
PP Before we continue – is it important for the language to have a revival, is it important for the language to survive.
HH I think and I may be a bit controversial here, I think, in the future, that India and China will be two of the major powers of the world. And I know that India is involved on many fronts in Guyana. So it would seem to me, wise, not only from a cultural heritage point of view but from an economic standpoint to perpetuate the language.
I know in Canada, in the provinces which are having a lot of trade with China, and in other parts of North America, Chinese language is gaining prominence. So it seems to me because of the global importance of those two superpowers will play in the future, I think it is advisable to know something of those two languages.
PP Let’s focus on the book and the Hindi language. Let’s look at the more entertaining part of the book – the glossary – at some words that have gained currency in the mainstream, mindful of something you wrote under the heading ‘a historical perspective’ and I quote, ‘Some African friends of my parents and my paternal and maternal grandparents also knew and spoke Hindi’.
HH Let me start with one that is used and misused by almost everyone in Guyana – ‘aapan jaat’ which is used now to mean – voting for your own kind or race.
PP I know what ‘jaat’ means so it was puzzling to me its place in the combination. So let’s hear what the complete phrase means.
HH I touched a bit on Bhojpuri and a bit on Standard Hindi which is the grammatical Hindi. In Hindi ‘your’ would be ‘aapan’; the difference in Bhojpuri will be ‘apan’ – so the last ‘a’ is placed before the ‘n’ while in Hindi, it goes to the end. ‘Apna’ is Hindi, ‘apan’ is Bhojpuri. Now that is ‘your’. ‘Jaat’ refers to your community, loosely it has becomes race. Although that is not the strict translation of ‘jaat’; a whole lot of people will take objection to the use of ‘jaat’. The problem with the word ‘jaat’ in particular is that if it is not pronounced correctly, then it has an indelicate meaning which I would not want to use publicly. Now this is an interesting piece because very often people would say it doesn’t really matter how you transliterate a word when you write the Hindi version in English but it does matter…for instance, in Creolese, there is a tendency to drop the ‘h’…now if you add the ‘h’ to ‘jaat’, it gives a completely different meaning than ‘community’ or if you want to say ‘race’…..
There is also the difference between the short ‘a’ and the long ‘a’. Let’s look at ‘bal’ as oppose to ‘baal’. If your say ‘bal’, it comes out as ‘strength’ but if we say ‘baal’, it’s ‘hair’. In the Hanuman Chalisa, which is one of the religious books, there is a request: give knowledge, strength; now if you change ‘bal’ to ‘baal’, then you’d be asking the Lord or Deity for ‘hair’ …..
Responses to this author telephone (592) 226-0065 or email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com
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