Saturday, September 01, 2007

What's with the accent?

Every once in a while, I switch off from NPR and tune into one of the Indian radio stations that you can catch here in Dallas. Just so that I can pretend to be up to date with the latest music in Bollywood, or listen to oldies (or occasionally even catch some Tamil songs that they air on weekends).

Anyway, while I have no complaint with the content, here's something that doesn't cease to puzzle and annoy me. What's with the language of the RJ's and hosts on these shows? I perfectly understand hosts speaking in English with an American twang. We're in America, and many of the hosts were raised here, so that's fine with me. I can also tolerate some hosts who speak English naturally with an Indian accent, but try to put on an American drawl (usually failing miserably, resulting in something that is neither here nor there, but mostly unintentionally funny). That's fine too, you're trying to assimilate or whatever.

But what I really, really cannot stand is hosts who try to speak Hindi (or Tamil or Telugu or whatever else) with a ridiculous anglicized accent, and a terrible vocabulary. What's the deal there? Why murder a language which you obviously are a native speaker of, by putting on a terrible accent, and killing all semblance of grammar, just to sound "cool"? If we're having a show in Hindi (or another language), why can't that show be in Hindi (or what ever language), with a reasonable diction and without an overuse of English?

I'm almost tempted to call some of those shows and tell the hosts what I think.

Or maybe I'll just go back to listening to NPR, and my cds and mp3s with Indian music on them. I'm probably just a fusspot, that's all.

Bah!

2 comments:

Veo Claramente said...

bah indeed. my particular peeve? when they start putting senseless english words in hindi film songs. sucks.

Sunil said...

veo...heh. I've become quite tolerant to english words in hindi/tamil songs now, though it used to annoy me a lot earlier. It still sucks, but I ignore it.