FOR the furtherance of a good understanding between the sahibs and the
Aryans who obey them and minister unto them, the Raj[91] has ordained
language examinations. This was necessary, because in war,
contract-making, or the management of accounts, neither a Ghurka nor a
Bengali will comprehend you if you simply swear at him. He must be
approached through a rudimentary medium of imperative moods and future
tenses. Therefore the institution of the Higher and the Lower Standard,
and much anguish on the part of Her Majesty’s subalterns. The Raj
attaches rather more credit to the former of these examinations, but
afterwards the difference is nominal—you forget them with equal
facility.
Footnote 91:
Government.
It might be respectively pointed out, however, that the Government of
India has done nothing in this direction to stimulate intercourse with
the native population among memsahibs. In fact the Government of India
does not recognise memsahibs in any way that is not strictly and
entirely polite. And so the memsahib “picks up” Hindustani—picks it up
in her own simple artless fashion which dispenses with all ordinary aids
to the acquirement of a foreign tongue. She gathers together her own
vocabulary, gathers it from the east and the west, and the north and the
south, from Bengal and Bombay, from Madras and the Punjab, a preposition
from Persia, a conjunction from Cashmere, a noun from the Nilgherries.
She makes her own rules, and all the natives she knows are governed by
them—nothing from a grammatical point of view could be more satisfactory
than that. Her constructions in the language are such as she pleases to
place upon it; thus it is impossible that she should make mistakes.
The memsahib’s Hindustani is nevertheless not perfectly pure, entirely
apart from questions of pronunciation, which she regulates somewhat
imperiously. This is because she prefers to improve it by the admixture
of a little English; and the effect upon the native mind is quite the
same. It really doesn’t matter whether you say, “That’s _bote atcha hai
khansamah-gee_,”[92] or “This is very _carab_,[93] you stupid
_ool-ka-beta_,”[94] or use the simple Hindustani statements to express
your feelings. The English may adorn them, but it is the Hindustani
after all that gives vitality to your remarks. “_Chokee lao_,” means
“bring a chair,” but if you put it, “bring me a _chokee lao_,” the
meaning of the command is not seriously interfered with, beside
convincing you more firmly that you have said what you wanted to say. I
suppose Mrs. Browne talked more Hindustani to Kali Bagh than to anybody
else, and one dinner’s dialogue, so to speak, might be like this:
Footnote 92:
Very good, worthy Khansamah.
Footnote 93:
Bad.
Footnote 94:
Son of an owl.
“_Kul ka_[95] mutton, how much is there, Kali Bagh?”
Footnote 95:
Of yesterday.
“_Ha, bus hai, hazur._”[96]
Footnote 96:
Yes, there is enough, your honour.
“Then you may _irony-stew do_,[97] and undercut beefsteak _muncta_,[98]
and mind you find an _atcha wallah_.[99] Onions fry _ka sat,
sumja_?”[100]
Footnote 97:
Give an Irish stew.
Footnote 98:
I want.
Footnote 99:
Good one.
Footnote 100:
Therewith, do you understand?
“_Ha, hazur! Bote atcha wallah miliga.[101] Ecpuddin kawasti?_”[102]
Footnote 101:
I will find.
Footnote 102:
And for pudding?
“Oh, you can plum-pudding, _do_—a _chota wallah_, and _cabadar bote_
plenty _kismiss_”[103]
Footnote 103:
Take care to put plenty of raisins.
“_Brunndi-sauce ka sat?_”[104]
Footnote 104:
With brandy sauce?
“_Na._ Put into whiskey-shrab. _Brunndi burra dom hai._[105] And
_dekko_, curry _hazri na muncta_, tiffin _muncta_.”
Footnote 105:
Brandy is a large price.
This last statement is to the effect that curry does not want breakfast,
wants tiffin, but the heathen mind never translates the memsahib
literally. It picks the words it knows out of her discourse and links
them together upon a system of probabilities which long application and
severe experiences have made remarkably correct. Then it salaams and
acts. The usually admirable result is misleading to the memsahib, who
naturally ascribes it to the grace and force and clearness of her
directions. Whereas it is really the discernment of Kali Bagh that is to
be commended.
Considering the existence of the Higher and Lower Standard there is less
difference between the Hindustani of Anglo-Indian ladies and
Anglo-Indian gentlemen than one would expect. The sahib has several
choice epithets that do not attach themselves to the vocabulary of the
memsahib, who seldom allows her wrath to run to anything more abusive
than “Son-of-an-Owl,” or “Poor-kind-of-man,” and the voice of the sahib
is in itself a terrible thing so that all his commands are more
emphatic, more quickly to be obeyed. But he is pleased to use much the
same forms of speech as are common to the memsahib, and if he isn’t
understood he will know the reason why. The same delicate autocracy
pervades the sahib’s Hindustani as characterises most of his relations
with his Indian fellow-subjects. He has subdued their language, as it
were, to such uses as he thinks fit to put it, and if they do not choose
to acquire it in this form, so much the more inconvenient for them. He
can always get another kitmutgar. The slight incongruities of his system
do not present themselves to the sahib. He has a vague theory that one
ought not to say _tum_[106] to a Rajah, but he doesn’t want to talk to
Rajahs—he didn’t come out for _that_. So that my accuracy need not be
doubted I will quote the case of Mr. Perth Macintyre, and I am quite
sure that if Mr. Perth Macintyre were to be presented to the Nizam of
Hyderabad to-morrow—an honour he would not at all covet—he would find
nothing better to say to him in Hindustani than “_Atcha hai?_”[107]—the
formula he would use to a favourite syce.
Footnote 106:
You (familiar).
Footnote 107:
Are you well? (familiar).
Mrs. Browne had a great aptitude for languages. She had brought her
German prizes with her, and used to look at them with much satisfaction
when the problem of conquering Hindustani was new to her, and she
thought it would be a matter of some difficulty. She had ambitious ideas
at first, connected with a grammar and a dictionary, and one January
afternoon she learned a whole page of rules for the termination of the
feminine. Mrs. Macdonald found her at it, and assured her earnestly that
she was “going the wrong way about it.” “With all you have to do,”
declared Mrs. Macdonald, “you’ll never get to the end of that book, and
when you do you’ll have forgotten the beginning. Whatever is the
difference to you whether ghoree is the feminine for horse, or what the
plural is! They’re all gorahs! Now I picked up Hindustani in the
ordinary way. I listened, and whenever I didn’t know a thing I asked my
ayah what its name was—and in two months I spoke the language
_fluently_. So will you, but never with a grammar; a grammar won’t help
you to order dinner. Neither will a dictionary—you won’t find
‘hoss-nallis’ in a dictionary. That’s Hindustani for ‘horse-radish.’
It’s awfully funny, how like English the language is in some words?”
“Is it?” said Helen, “I hadn’t noticed that. It must be quite easy to
learn, then.”
“Oh, _quite_! For instance, where we say ‘stable,’ and ‘coat,’ and
‘beer,’ they say ‘ishtable,’ and ‘coatee,’ and ‘beer-shrab.’ And the
Hindustani for ‘kettle’ is ‘kettley,’ and for ‘bottle,’ ‘botle.’ Oh,
it’s not a difficult language!”
One does not cling to a manual of Hindustani in the face of the
protestations of one’s friends, and Mrs. Browne found herself induced to
abandon hers before the terminations for the feminine were quite fixed
in her mind. One might just as well acquire the language in a less
laborious way. So she paid diligent attention, for one thing, to
ordinary Anglo-Indian conversation, which is in itself a very fair
manual of Hindustani. There is hardly any slang in Anglo-India, the
tongue of the gentle Hindu supplies a substitute for that picturesque
form of expression. It permeates all classes of society, that is, both
Covenanted and Uncovenanted classes; and there are none so dignified in
speech as to eschew it. Mrs. Wodenhamer uses it, and the missionaries’
wives. It is ever on the tongue of Kitty Toote; I have no doubt it
creeps into the parlance of Her Excellency. Therefore it cannot be
vulgar. Only this morning, Mrs. Jack Lovitt in the course of ten
minutes’ conversation in my drawing-room simply scintillated with it.
She wanted to know if it was pucca that we were going home for good next
hot weather, and remarked that it was a pity we had the house on a long
bundabust,[108] it was always such a dick and worry to get rid of a
lease. One of her kitmutgars had been giving her trouble—she was afraid
he was a bad jat of man—he was turning out a regular budmash.[109] He
attended to his hookums[110] very well, but he was always getting into
golmals[111] with the other servants. Had I heard the gup about Walter
Toote’s being in trouble with his Department? Awful row on, Mrs. Lovitt
believed. And had I been at Government House the night before? It was
getting altogether too gurrum[112] for nautches now. As for her, she had
been up every blessed night for a week with Mrs. Gammidge’s
butcha[113]—awfully bad with dysentery, poor little wretch—and was too
done to go. It was quite time the season was over, and yet they had
three burra-khanas[114] on for next week.
Footnote 108:
Agreement.
Footnote 109:
Blackguard.
Footnote 110:
Orders.
Footnote 111:
Rows.
Footnote 112:
Hot.
Footnote 113:
Offspring.
Footnote 114:
Big dinners.
It will be evident that a very limited amount of intercourse of this
sort will assist tremendously toward a self-satisfying acquaintance with
Hindustani. There is a distinct flavour of the language about it. But
this lingers only in India. We leave it when we sail away from the
Apollo Bunder,[115] where it attaches itself to the first new-comers. It
belongs to the land of the kitmutgar; it forsakes us utterly in
Kensington.
Footnote 115:
The Bombay jetty.
Mrs. Browne found it very facilitating, and if she did not finally learn
to speak like a native she speedily learned to speak like a memsahib,
which was more desirable. In the course of time young Browne forgave her
the agonies her initiation cost him. They began early in the morning
when Helen remarked that it was a very “atcha” day, they continued at
breakfast when she asked him if he would have an “unda”[116] or some
“muchli”[117] or some “tunda beef,”[118] and it went on at intervals
from five o’clock till bed-time. It was her impression, poor dear thing,
that she was humorous in this—it was not for six whole months that she
learned how Anglo-India sanctions Hindustani for grim convenience only,
declining to be amused by it in any way whatever, and has placed its own
stamp upon such time-established expressions as are admissible. More
than these are recognised to come of vanity and the desire of display,
and Anglo-India will have none of them. In the meantime Mrs. Browne
trespassed daily, smiling and unaware. At first her George received
these pleasantries with a pained smile. Then he looked solemn, then
severe. When Mrs. Browne’s lapses had been particularly flagrant a chill
fell upon their intercourse which she was puzzled to understand.
Whereupon she tried to dissipate it by the jocular use of more
Hindustani, which made young Browne wriggle in his chair. They arrived
at a point where it was obviously impossible to go on. It did not occur
to young Browne to propose a separation, though he had shocking liver
that day, but he arose suddenly and said he’d be hanged if he’d stand
being talked Hindustani to any longer. Thereat Mrs. Browne, being a
person of tender feelings, wept. Whereat Mr. Browne, being a man of
sentiment in spite of liver complications, was instantly reduced to
nothingness and suppliance, when explanations of course ensued, and
Helen was made acquainted with most of the information in this chapter.
In the upshot, whether Mrs. Browne never spoke a word of Hindustani
again, as she proposed, or spoke it all day long for a year and nothing
could be sweeter, as he proposed, I have never been made aware.
Footnote 116:
Egg.
Footnote 117:
Fish.
Footnote 118:
Cold beef.
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