Indian-English Could've Been Better

I hate the Indian-English accent. I have been on the internet for about 9 years, Indians making tonnes of video/audio content only became a phenomenon in the past 5 years, maybe to a greater degree. And I have consumed a lot of these over the years for various academic reasons. And I absolutely love the fact that these exist, I definitely do not complain about any of them. But my dislike for the accent is not so shallow.

I like to think of spoken language as a form of an art. When spoken beautifully, you want to hear them speak all day long. I have grown up listening to about 5 language almost regularly and I can fully comprehend only 3. But my experience with all of five of them is similar; regardless of the dialect, they all sound equally beautiful. There was never a point where I could point out a language call it “ugly sounding” when spoken by any non-native speaker. The beauty of Indic languages lies in the similarity of the sounds. It isn’t very hard for one to adapt and learn to speak non-native languages.

But I have a lot of complaining to do when I bring up English. It is an officially recognized language & India happens to be one of the largest English-speaking nations. And yet, listening to an average Indian speak is insufferable. I would not be so harsh in judging if they were from schools that didn’t teach English. But all of the people I have spoken to, have spent 20 years with English as their medium of communication during education. Most of them lack basic vocabulary to have a meaningful conversation, it is saddening.

I point all of my fingers and toes at how the Education system is built around the language. No where do they ever teach the importance of intonation, the basics of which are first introduced when you are 13 years old, which already is too late to fix your language. It isn’t particularly helpful if the teacher is reluctant to correct you on your mistakes.. anyway, this digression is for another time.

The root of failure of Indian-English is, borrowing of intonation from native languages(When used within the context of Indic language, this adoption of intonation is often bearable, thanks to similar sound system). English then becomes disconnected, it is hard to articulate emotion in an impactful manner. I am not a master of English either, but my criticism comes from a point of emotional attachment to the language. When you grow up using a language every single day of your life for all purposes, would you not take offense when you realize how degrading it is? It has been hard for me throughout my childhood to ever read a book written in English (books outside of academics) and have a vivid imagination. It was extremely difficult for me to self-learn. The impact of language on life is far exceeding than just using it as a tool to get things done on the daily.