Kannada is in the air
The Hindu : It’s sakkhat hot magaa. It’s delivering hit meley hit meley hit and all you need to do is keli kelisi life nimmadagisi so that you can mast majaa maadi, after you swalpa adjust maadi.
I know that doesn’t make too much sense. Isn’t grammatically right either. But you do get the point, don’t you? Welcome to the onslaught of new-age radio-driven Kannada that’s blaring out of the auto, the city taxi, the BMTC bus, and the college-goers cell phone.
With nearly 11 FM radio stations in the city, Bangalore has really heard it all — the convent-educated RJ with the Anglicised Kannada, the torrent of Kannada that one can’t fathom as Kannada at all, the generous smatterings of Kanglish added to everyday parlance, a calculatedly ‘cool’ Kannada that wasn’t around till FM radio happened. Of course many critics have slammed it, protested it, asked it to be cleaned up and purified. Blogs are brimming over with how Kannadigas would like to hear their Kannada on radio. There are others who are loving it as it is. Whatever said and done, it’s dominating Bangalore’s airwaves and ear-waves.
Noted writer and film-maker, former chairman of the Kannada Development Authority Baraguru Ramachandrappa sees this transformation in language as a routine process. “It happens when a new technology or a new generation comes in. We can make corrections, but there is no need to look at it negatively and reject it, because this is a process of growth in any language. It represents what is happening in a city-centred culture…radio stations in Bangalore are only structuring and channelising it.” He admits that radio has made the language fashionable, but stresses that fashion is a double-edged thing — it’s attractive at first but in an attempt to be too stylised, becomes artificial.
Sarala Mahesh is an ardent FM radio fan and listens to…More
