Truth About Generation Differences

Hi to all my bloggers and readers,

As a Nepali teen who is a part of a world that is dominated by English language I have come to realize how much of an affect the Lingua Franca of the world, English, has made on us and our culture as a whole. English is a widely famous and spoken language and used as the primary medium of communication between people of nearly all nations. In English class last week, we discussed as to how widely spread English is and its status as a parasitic language. I took time to think about how English has been a dominant language as it has come to my notice of how, even when I speak my mother tongue, I naturally tend to use English words to replace the ones I can’t express in Nepali. I was rather amazed by myself, how could this be that I was comfortable with not my native language but English?

English has affected not only one language but, being the ‘parasitic’ language that it is, English itself derives words from a myriad of other tongues. After the British Empire spread out to India, China, Africa and the New World, it appropriated words from these languages and made them the Empire’s own. The English words are mostly derived from languages like Late Imperial Latin, Germanic Anglo-Saxon and Norman French. Due to this, English can be easier to speak as it consists of words from almost every non-tonal language. The English language derived words from almost every nation that the British Empire colonised.

So now let me tell you all a story based on what I myself experienced. The idea as to Nepal’s status before the English language spread around the globe made me very interested. When I told this to my parents. Referring to the fact that I am living in the 21st century they told me how I could actually experience it myself. To my amazement it was all possible by interpreting videos in a way which would make me feel like a part of a world where English wasn’t the lingua franca. My experience as a student of the IBDP and part of a culture to which English is important, made it rather difficult in even simple situations like asking for directions to not use English. People all around me were talking in various ethnic languages. English words that were so commonly used, even between people who had very little or no knowledge in English like “please”, “sorry” “yes” and “no” or even in a where most of the people started their phone conversation with the English word “hello”  hearing basically no English words in conversations astonished me.

The huge communication gap that was created through English being a secondary language for most of the youth in the 21st century was not evident and having very little personal knowledge about English and a deficiency of Nepali vocabulary was a huge problem for conversing. The wide usage of words from the English language while communicating in one’s native language is evident and is prominent when I speak Nepali.  When I try to communicate with my elderly family members or people around me I have a difficulty relating to them or understanding how they feel. In turn they feel the same way about me, they cannot relate to how I feel about certain situations and how I cannot understand some issues that only they can.

 It is said that language shapes one’s mind and how one thinks of situations. Language also sets boundaries as to what one can think or feel. Insufficient vocabulary confines ones thinking capability, example: the words “nakalli” doesn’t exist in the English vocabulary therefore cannot be understood by a native English speaker. Due to this the idea of this word is not there in the speaker therefore one cannot think of such a situation where this is to be used.

In my perspective, having a deficiency of understanding and speaking a mutual language can create not just a communication barrier between people in terms of speaking itself but also loss in understanding ones feeling or ideas. I as a person am much more used to and at ease speaking English rather than Nepali where as my grandfather has a low understanding and usage of English, this has created barriers between communications due the loss of understanding in languages. I communicating with someone who cannot understand English decreases my opportunity to understand how they feel about the situation through their cultural insight. Therefore, as I communicate with people around me who don’t have an idea as to how the English language works, the communication gap is large as they and I don’t share the same idea to situations. Our insights and ways to assess situations automatically have differences. Our cultural values and notions are also different due to which we may differences in our cultural norms and we may also have disagreements. To avoid this people of different generations may not have to converse about. The communication gap that has been built between the generations is due to the youth of Nepal having more usage of social media and English being a compulsory language to learn in schools. The amazing truth about how the world is evolving as a global village is evident through the usage of English being the lingua franca and how people of different ethics groups, cultures or countries and on the run to learn English and to make it a medium of communication with people of different nations.

With this I wrap up my blog for this week, see you soon. Till next time…