Language and Youth Culture Amartya Sanyal Avani Samdariya Bhuvesh Kumar Ritika Mulagalapalli Sanjana Garg
Definition of Youth: ●
Youth has long been an intractable concept and no definition of the term has been found to hold across every culture.
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For instance, sociologist Parsons (1942, 1962) claims that youth or adolescence is a social category which emerged with changing family roles generated by the development of capitalism.
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Whereas, Grossberg (1992) believes youth to be an ambiguous concept where what matters is their connection with discourses of music, style, power, responsibility, hope, the future, Americanness, etc.
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Hence, most researchers agree that only way out is to describe the group minimally is as consisting of all those between 15 and 25 years of age.
Youth in South Asia: ●
India has more than 50% below the age of 25 and more than 65% below the age of 35.
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Average age of India is 29 (China has that of 37). It also makes us the youngest nation on earth. (It used to be 26 in 2001)
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It is estimated that around 23% of the population of Sri Lanka can be classified as youth.
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30% of the population in Bangladesh is between 10 to 24 years.
Why study about youth in India? ●
The high population of youth in India will have a dramatic effect on the future of the region in the next fifteen years, when they will be around 30–45 years and will constitute a vocal majority(of about 30%).
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In the history of India, it was the adulthood that was in prime focus and hence most norms and roles were built around adulthood.
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With the rise of youth, there will be a need to form an identity for them that will suit the modern Post-Independence scenario that has emerged.
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Hence, it is important to study the argot used by the youth of South Asia.
Erik Erikson’s thought about Youth and Identity ●
Identity crisis is arguably one of the most vital factors that forces the youth to indulge in the various activities that they do.
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Erikson asks whether “Some of our youth would act so openly confused and confusing if they did not know they were supposed to be having an identity crisis”.
How the Identity Crisis affects the youth ? ●
Psychological stages an adolescent undergoes(C. George Boeree) :
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Ego Identity : Identity one forms about oneself by social interaction(maybe reading books/ watching movies etc too)
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Fanaticism and Idealism : Needs to form some ideals and then gets highly fanatic about it
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Repudiation : Once you are fanatic about it, you are not ready to believe what the other person is fanatic about or what he/she believes in.
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To the extent that the belief “Being bad or being nobody is better than not knowing you are” emerges.
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The ego-identity and the idealism are usually affected by certain external situations. Let’s look at the Indian scenario.
Phenomenon influencing Youth in South Asia ●
Modernization : The need to catch up with what the rest of world is talking about.
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Ability to interact with the west : Experiencing a more independent society (where you can express your ideals freely) makes you emulate the prevalent qualities of such a society.
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Opportunity to interact with peers and mates in a university, college campus(school too to an extent).
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The need to repudiate the prevalent dogmatic views in the society
Characteristics of the Indian Youth Language ●
A medley of languages
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Bengali-English : Case kheyeche!
Code Switching
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Hindi-English : Tension mat le!
Shifting between two languages
The importance of using the community slang to ascertain the membership to the community.
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For eg. crack (IIT Madras) vs chaapna (IIT Kanpur)
Use of English to show sophistication (The same way English use French):
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One who always speaks english (Being a shakespeare or John Peter) Shifting to english when required
Lexicon of the youth: ● ● ● ● ● ●
Clippings Abbreviations and acronyms Inflectional and derivational suffixes Neologisms Nonce formations Relexicalized items that have undergone changes in meaning
Clippings ●
Clipping: It is the word formation process which consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts, it is also known as "truncation" or "shortening."
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Examples:
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Arbit for arbitrary Frust for frustrated Enthu for enthusiasm Apping for applying Info for information
Acronyms ●
Examples:
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Fb for facebook DOSA GD-group discussion BC, MC PNPC (Bengali)
Inflectional and derivational suffixes ●
Derivational suffix: Addition of morphemes that bring considerable change to the meaning of the word
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Bhaat-ash (‘ash’ -fication) Jhaatu(Bengali), Sentu Scope-ax, Chill-ax Pakau
Inflectional suffix: Addition of morphemes that contribute in some way to the insertion of the words in a particular grammatical context, so that the word agrees with this context in terms of tense, number, person etc. The changes in meaning that these morphemes bring are minimal.
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Coordi-s, PORs
Neologisms ●
Neologisms: It is the name for a relatively new or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not yet been fully accepted into mainstream language.
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Examples:
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Bong Bindass Lyadh (Bengali) Harmad (Bengali) Bhaat (Bengali) Sollu (Telugu)
Nonce Formation ●
Nonce Formation: A nonce word is a word coined or used for a special occasion.
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Examples:
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Kat gya Phodd dala Chap kheyeche (Bengali) Beshi bokche vs bokche (Bengali) Light teesuko (Telugu) Dhop er chop
Relexicalized items that have changed in meaning ●
Examples:
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Chata (Bengali) Dubba (IITK lingo) Sarada (Bengali) Boss Google Texts
New words from events ●
Various words that relate to public incidents and accidents are often used by the youth to make comparison. Usually started in the media/ social media, it is quickly adapted by the youth.
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For example:
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9/11 - A terrorist event in the US which was quickly taken up youth all over including the indian subcontinent. It was used to refer to the 26/11 attacks.
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Sarada - A name of a company that caused a financial scam in Bengal recently and is now used to refer to any type of scam
Language as Identity and Class Marker ●
Language serves as a medium to express one’s identification with a particular class which can be deliberate or non deliberate.
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Choice and use of accent and exotic words
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The grammar nazis!*
Language as Identity and Class Marker ●
Language becomes definitive of many generations
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E.g.- Calling female professors as their names followed by Behenji , say Sushma Behenji was considered respectful. Imagine doing that now!
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TVF’s video series : How to train your dad
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Noticeable difference between the way the two generations speak
Ghoti - Bangal divide:
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It divides the people on the basis of whether they belonged to East or West Bengal and transpires to language, food and football.
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We notice some older people trying to identify with the youth by attempting to sound like them.
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On the other hand there is plenty of criticism of youth for ‘corrupting’ the language and being disrespectful to the culture instead of viewing the phenomenon as language change.
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In a setting like educational campuses, peer pressure play a significant role in the way how students learn to talk. The transition from gupp-maarna to bulla kaatna for many of us. Punjabi language is full of slangs but some one coming to IITK from a Punjab town is more likely to learn the lingo than teach the slangs used there. Rarely would someone say ‘sadde veere di treat hai ’ but ‘wingie/bro ki treat hai ’
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The same friend of ours also recalls having to unlearn calling friends here ‘aye chhori ’ and adding -di/da with nouns like: Mukesh -> Mukeshda and chappal -> chappaldi
Case Study: Preserving the Syriac ●
The youth of bengaluru recently made an effort to preserve the language Syriac that survives among a small community in Kurdistan, Iraq. ● Many belonging to Syro-Malabar church speak the East Syriac language and learn it from a well known scholar at Dharmamaran College, Bengaluru. ● Similarly another group of people, who are passionate about West Syriac learns the language from Whatsapp groups. This language is used by members of the church of Antichiochian Liturgy. This is an old language and malayalam is said to have derived many words from it eg. Amma (from east Syriac emma). It is also said that people used to use the script to write Malayalam in olden times. It is a very remarkable effort by a youth community to preserve a dying language.
Case Study: Language as the Foundation of Identity Among Sherpa Youth in Nepal ●
The Sherpas are a Nepali ethnic group that are said to have migrated from Tibet 450-600 years ago
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Since they are surrounded by Indian, Chinese, Tibetan and Nepali cultures, languages, and religions, Sherpas struggle to assert their individuality.
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Considering that the home and the village are the two places where the Sherpa language – not to mention Sherpa culture in general – is learned, Sherpas who leave home potentially sacrifice natural enculturation and instead learn Nepali and English, as well as the urban, Nepali way of life.
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The Sherpa youth recreate what it means to be Sherpa by speaking the language and educating others about their culture and traditions through self-expression of their cultural individuality and linguistic difference via their radio Khumbu FM.
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The goal of Khumbu FM, according to their website, is to broadcast information regarding “spiritual, cultural, and traditional values of the community” of Sherpas.
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Young Sherpas want to (re)assert their identity in the context of a globalizing, potentially homogenizing, world by analyzing the way they use their language in social settings and at a radio station.
Adaptation of English by South Asian Youth: ●
Sometimes, rural Telugu youth ask you what your ‘negative village’ is instead of your ‘native village’
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‘Good name’ is a direct translation of ‘shubh naam’ Use of phrases like ‘mother promise’ ‘Pass out of college’ to mean graduate ‘Like that only’ to mean ‘aise hi’
Code switching used in a different scenario Sadhu Bhasha and Chalti bhasa scenario ●
Used till the 1900s by a considerable section of Indian authors in their literature.
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Currently people do not usually write or speak in it. However, it is used by youth (especially educated youth in Kolkata) to speak with a sarcastic touch.
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Example: ejey kiha koritechen apni? (Hey, what are you doing ?). It usually would indicate that you have been caught doing something wrong.
Example: Influence of Rap Music Music goes hand in hand with language and culture, and one such example is the relationship of Rap Music and language in the south Asian context. With the popularisation of Audio-Visual media, Rap from the western countries found a fan-base in India and also initiated the development of the Desi Hip Hop culture. New words and phrases are introduced to the lexicon, where the literal meanings of the phrases is far different from the intended meaning. The phrases are adopted by youngsters to feel part of a unique subculture with an inherent coolness quotient.
Phrases like : peace-out, bling bling, homie, wazzup dog?, walkin, dancing found their way into the vocabulary of urban youth. Phrases like YOLO and swag have even penetrated to the rural youth lexicon after being adopted by the Desi Hip Hop genre. A major portion of the Rap vocabulary involves phrases with negative connotations and hence is only used by youngsters when interacting with their friends. Parents might not be amused to hear their children asking them “Ya talkin to me bitch?”
Messaging or Texting languages ●
Started by the intense need to write short messages to incur lower cost as well as chat faster, a new language called the texting language has developed.
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This includes longer groups of characters with ones that sounds almost the same but are shorter. ○ ○ ○
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‘Is’ => z ‘message’ => ‘msg’
Complete disregard for capitalisation and punctuation. Taken to the extreme form, we also use number to indicate repetition. ○
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‘th’ => ‘d’ eg. this => dis, then => den etc
Bak2 => bakbak (Not very common usually but in some groups, very much.)
Another factor is the 9-key keyboards of old phones which made ‘dis’ easier to type than ‘this
References: ● ● ●
Languages of South Asia by Kachru, Kachru and Sridhar Syriac example: http://www.aina.org/ata/20160509010716.htm Sherpas of nepal: http://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1391&context=student _scholarship
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Influence of Rap music: http://www.ipedr.com/vol68/006-ICLLL2013-A00018.pdf
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Popular Culture and English Language Learning(thesis): http://ethesis.nitrkl.ac.in/6726/1/S_Acharya_PhD_Thesis_%2C2015.pdf
