DURING the British Raj in the subcontinent, English began to borrow words from local languages. Most of this neologism was not approved by the conventional standards as these were local notions or expressions for which there were no cultural or linguistic equivalents in the English language and they were used out of necessity. Native speakers of English in India used many of the local words with a peculiar British pronunciation and spelt them in their own way, for example, ‘nautch’ (‘naach’ or dance), ‘sepoy’ (‘sipahi’ or soldier), dacoity (‘daketi’ or robbery), ‘copra’ (‘khopra’ or minced coconut kernel), and many more.
Ultimately, such vocabulary grew so vast that some glossaries and dictionaries of ‘Anglo-Indian’ words and expressions were compiled. Here are some notable such dictionaries:
• ‘An Anglo-Indian
Dictionary’ (1885)
Compiled by George Clifford Whitworth and first published from London in 1885, the title says that it is “A glossary of Indian terms used in English, and of such English or other non-Indian terms as have obtained special meanings in India”. While apologising for the use of the term ‘Anglo-Indian’ in his preface, Whitworth has defined it: “The term ‘Anglo-Indian’ would properly designate something which, originally Indian, has been specially modified by something English”.
The dictionary enlists words that, says Whitworth, “English people” found “necessary or convenient”. He adds that many local coinages “have different meanings in India and England”, such as “egg plant, fire-temple, prayer wheel, slave-king, sacred thread”, etc.
Whitworth avoids many terms used by Horace Hayman Wilson in his ‘A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms’ (1855), as they have proper equivalents in English. But the words he has included have peculiarly local connotations and are from Sanskrit, Hindi, Persian, Hindustani or Urdu, Arabic, Bengali, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Telugu, Sinhalese and some other languages.
An interesting entry in the dictionary is that of ‘brinjal’. The dictionary says ‘brinjal’ is “the name of a vegetable, called also the egg-plant”. But it does not give the origin or etymology of the word. According to John T. Platts, a ‘baingan’ is ‘brinjal’. A ‘brinjal’ is ‘aubergine’ in English. Oxford Dictionary says ‘brinjal’ is of Indian and/or South African origin. But this needs some correction.
‘Brinjal’ found its way into British English in India indeed, but in Arabic, an aubergine is called ‘al-baadinjaan’ and in Persian ‘baadinjaan’. It is probably the same ‘al-baadinjaan’ that became ‘aubergine’ in English. When ‘al-baadinjaan’ reached Spain along with its Arab conquerors, it was called ‘berenjena’ there. As Portuguese is closely related to Spanish, it was called ‘berinjela’ in Portuguese. We can safely assume that when the Portuguese ‘berinjela’ reached western India, as Portuguese had captured it in the early 16th century (along with now much famous Goa), ‘berinjela’ was absorbed into subcontinental vernaculars and from here was picked up as an ‘Anglo-Indian’ word as ‘brinjal’.
• Hobson-Jobson (1886)
Just a year after Whitworth’s dictionary, a much larger and research-based dictionary of Anglo-Indian words was published. Compiled by Henry Yule and Arthur Coke Burnell, it also has citations from literary works.
The title ‘Hobson-Jobson’ is derived from ‘Ya Hasan, Ya Hussain’, chanted by the mourners at Muharram congregations. The compilers believed it was a perfect title for a work intended to highlight the characteristics of a local brand of English, as it reflects the phonological change that loanwords accept when used in other languages.
One of the interesting entries in ‘Hobson-Jobson’ is that of ‘turban’, which is called ‘pagree’ in Urdu. It says about the word ‘turban’ that “some have supposed this well-known English word to be a corruption of Persian/Hindi ‘sirbund’, ‘head-wrap’...,”. The compilers say this is incorrect and the word ‘turban’ is in fact a corruption of the Turkish word ‘dulband’ and add that it as “a cloth of fine white muslin; a wrapper for the head”. But Jabir Ali Syed wrote that it is probably from Turkish ‘tarband’, as in Turkish ‘tar’ means ‘many’, and ‘band’ in Persian, meaning ‘fastened’. So it is a piece of cloth wrapped around head many times over. It may be noted that ‘turban’ has more phonetic similarity with ‘tarband’ than ‘dulband’.
• Sahibs, Nabobs and
Boxwallahs (1991)
Subtitled ‘A Dictionary of the Words of Anglo-India’ (Oxford, 1991), the book provides the readers with Anglo-Indian word origins and usages as well as meanings and their sources. It is a well-researched work by Ivor Lewis and takes into account all previous similar works. With a detailed preface and a long list of works cited, it is truly a scholarly work.
• Hanklyn-Janklyn (1992)
To pay tribute to ‘Hobson-Jobson’, author Nigel Hankin named his work ‘Hanklyn-Janklyn’, a guide to what the author calls “words, customs and quiddities Indian and Indo-British”.
Only 37 states require certified interpreters be provided to litigants who don't speak English, and just 28 ban courts from making litigants pay for interpreters, according to the National Center for Access to Justice. (AP Photo/Sudhin Thanawala)
A defendant who a prosecutor insists has shown no remorse for a shooting apologizes to the victim in Spanish in a Richmond, Virginia, court, but his interpreter mistakenly tells the judge he wants an apology from the victim.
An Amharic-speaking woman describes the domestic violence she faced in a New York court, but her interpreter alters her testimony, possibly because he is uncomfortable with its graphic nature.
A suspect in Norfolk, Virginia, faces 15 charges including attempted murder of a police officer, but is informed in Spanish only that he is accused of "hurting" a cop.
Those who don't speak English face misunderstandings like these in courtrooms "more than people assume," according to Patricia Michelsen-King, a Virginia court interpreter who witnessed or was involved in some of these incidents. "So many times these things happen without people realizing because the only person who speaks two languages is the interpreter."
Many courts, especially at the federal level, have improved language access for these non-English-speaking litigants, defendants and witnesses in recent years, Michelsen-King and other advocates say.
But a shortage of interpreters, uneven training and credentialing, and a lack of information and funding still hamper language access in even the most proactive state courts, according to experts. As a result, that access is inconsistent from state to state, with some courts leading the way and others failing to keep up.
"And there are some states that are so far behind, they're in the dark ages," Michelsen-King said.
A Tale of Two States
In 1970, the Second Circuit ruled it unconstitutional to try an immigrant who spoke no English for murder without giving him an interpreter.
Since then, the need for greater language access in the courts has only increased. Over 65 million Americans, or 21.6% of the population, speak a language other than English at home, according to 2019 data from the U.S. Census Bureau. That number has nearly tripled since 1980, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
But while the federal courts have largely done a good job of improving access for those with limited English proficiency, or LEP litigants, the availability and quality of that access still varies wildly at the state court level, experts say.
"A few states are doing relatively well, but generally speaking no one's doing great and some people are doing positively awful," according to James Gamble, director of the Justice Index Project at the National Center for Access to Justice.
"Even within states, you couldn't generalize in one court versus another," Gamble said. "What happens in the courts in Brooklyn versus what happens in the courts in Lake Placid is not going to be the same."
An interactive, multilingual avatar nicknamed "Clara" appears on kiosks in New Mexico courthouses to offer court users help in languages besides English.
New Mexico is one of the places that's doing better than most, according to NCAJ.
In its latest Justice Index, NCAJ ranked New Mexico's court system as the best in the nation for providing access to LEP litigants, in part because the state requires interpreters to be certified and prohibits charging litigants for interpreting services.
New Mexico courts have also trained over 100 language access specialists to provide language help outside the courtroom, according to Paula Couselo-Findikoglu, deputy director of the state's Court Services Division. These specialists can offer help with forms, answer questions about court cases, and provide information about community and legal aid organizations that may be available.
Courts in the state also offer document translation and allow self-represented litigants to file pleadings in their own language, Couselo-Findikoglu said. An interactive, multilingual avatar appears on courthouse kiosks to answer questions, give directions and provide case information in languages other than English.
New Mexico is "a pace-setter" when it comes to language access in the courts, according to NCAJ Executive Director David Udell.
"People don't tend to come to our courts just because they have free time. They're typically stressed out, they're typically undergoing very dire circumstances," Couselo-Findikoglu said. "And so to be able to remove that language barrier is fundamental. It has to do with fundamental access to justice."
That language barrier is still firmly in place in other states, including South Dakota, which NCAJ ranked last in its report.
Minnehaha County, the state's largest population center and home to Sioux Falls, stopped providing interpreters in civil court several years ago after a dispute over who should pay for them — the county or the court system, according to Brent R. Thompson, executive director of East River Legal Services.
That's despite the fact that Sioux Falls is growing quickly, with a diverse population that includes Hispanics, East Africans, Ukrainians and Pacific Islanders, Thompson points out.
Without interpreters, many of his clients have found it "just impossible" to handle divorces, evictions and other disputes in courtrooms where they don't speak the language, he says, and his organization has stepped up to provide its own interpreters, creating a "huge burden on our office."
"It just was a complete mess," he said.
South Dakota's courts also don't require language access training for employees, nor do they translate all necessary court documents or provide courtrooms with remote interpreting technology, according to NCAJ's report.
But the state's court system has started working to improve language access, Court Administrator Greg Sattizahn insists.
South Dakota lawmakers took a significant step when they changed the law in March to clarify that interpreting services in civil actions are funded by the state court system rather than the county, Sattizahn said. The change came only after years of lobbying by advocates, according to Thompson, including his own organization.
That means interpreters should soon be available in civil cases, though Thompson says he hasn't seen any mechanism put in place yet for providing those interpreters.
And counties still have to foot the bill for interpreters in criminal cases, according to Sattizahn.
The state court system is also currently adopting a language access plan that will be completed in the fall, Sattizahn added. So far, 29 states have already implemented language access plans that, among other things, outline courts' commitment to monitor and evaluate their language services, train judges and staff in language access, provide interpreter services, and translate documents and signage, according to the NCAJ report.
"It's a unique challenge, and I don't take that away from anybody. It is hard," Thompson said. "But frankly, just the attention to these types of issues, it's just not a priority within our legal leadership in the state."
"There's a reason we're last," he added.
Steps to Increase Language Access
Improving the number and quality of court interpreters and making sure litigants know they're available are the biggest steps South Dakota and other states can take to ensure language access in the courts, according to advocates.
A shortage of interpreters means LEP litigants often come to court only to have their hearings rescheduled because of a lack of available interpretation services, according to Veronica J. Cook, director of litigation at Queens Legal Services in New York City and a member of the state court's Advisory Committee on Language Access.
Click to view interactive version
Cases can be continued multiple times as a result, leading to extensive delays that require litigants to return to court over and over. "It's another day that you're losing work," Cook says. That shortage is especially severe for rarer languages, like Urdu, Bengali and Arabic, according to experts.
"When we think about equal access, one of the key things is trying to make sure that LEP litigants have access in a similar timeframe to English-proficient litigants," Cook said.
New Mexico courts use remote interpreting technology to handle rarer languages, like Navajo. The technology allows interpreters from other locations who may speak a less-common language to step in when needed, according to Couselo-Findikoglu.
One positive to come out of the coronavirus pandemic is the increased use of that kind of technology, she says, though she and Cook admit they prefer in-person interpretation if it's available.
Requiring training and credentialing for interpreters is another "very easy solution" that could improve language access, according to Michelsen-King, who also coordinates the Spanish-English Translation Interpretation Certificate program at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Only 37 states require courtroom interpreters to be certified, according to data from NCAJ. Just 14 evaluate the effectiveness of individual interpreters.
"While many states administer NCSC exams as part of their credentialing requirements, each state is responsible for its own certification and testing program," Konstantina Vagenas, director and chief counsel of the National Center for State Courts' Access to Justice Initiatives, said in a statement.
South Dakota, for instance, doesn't require interpreters to be certified, according to Sattizahn, who says that gives judges the flexibility to use interpreters from other states or who do not traditionally interpret in the court system.
But using interpreters who aren't trained in the legal system is a problem, according to Michelsen-King, who points out that an interpreter needs to know how the courts work to be able to translate what's happening in them.
"You can't interpret what you don't understand," she said.
Even in states where interpreters are certified, applicants only have to score 80% to pass the federal exam and just 70% to pass some less-rigorous state exams, according to Michelsen-King.
By contrast, California's Court Reporters Board and the New York State Court Reporters Association require court reporter applicants to achieve 97.5% and 96% accuracy, respectively, according to their websites.
"I have seen where cases were lost by the defense or by the prosecutor because they didn't have a competent interpreter," Michelsen-King said.
Finally, making sure LEP litigants and court staff know that interpretation services are available and how to schedule them is crucial, experts say.
Many of those litigants aren't aware they may be entitled to interpretation services, according to Cook, and court staff and judges often fail to offer those services.
"Just telling people that they're entitled to have an interpreter is big," NCAJ's Udell said.
Courts should improve multilingual signage and include notices with every summons or court document letting people know interpreting is available, according to Cook.
Systems for scheduling interpreters in advance also need to be simplified and explained to litigants, something that could reduce delays, she adds. The way it's handled now, scheduling an interpreter is nearly impossible, especially for self-represented litigants.
Interventions like these are a challenge for states like South Dakota with limited funding, Thompson acknowledges.
"These are resource-heavy things to create and to create effectively," he said.
But most advocates say it's far better to spend that money upfront to ensure people aren't evicted or lose custody of their children simply because they don't speak English rather than having to spend it down the road.
"Are you going to have the resources to try the case again because it's been appealed?" Michelsen-King asks. "If these cases come back, then you're still spending the money, and [it's] better to get it right the first time."
--Editing by Marygrace Murphy.
Have a story idea for Access to Justice? Reach us at accesstojustice@law360.com.
Malabar Rebellion leaders Variamkunnath Kunhamed Haji, Ali Musaliar and 387 other “Moplah martyrs” will be removed from the Dictionary of Martyrs of India’s Freedom Struggle.
A three-member panel, which reviewed the entries in the fifth volume of the dictionary, brought out by the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR), is understood to have recommended the deletion as it felt that the 1921 rebellion was never part of the independence struggle but a fundamentalist movement focused on religious conversion. None of the slogans raised by the rioters were in favour of nationalism and anti-British in content, it noted.
Incidentally, RSS leader Ram Madhav, at a meeting to commemorate the victims of the rebellion, had stated that the movement was one of the first manifestations of the Taliban mindset in India. However, Speaker M.B. Rajesh described Haji as a warrior who refused to tender an apology to the British and chose martyrdom over deportation to Mecca.
A film announced with actor Prithviraj donning the role of Haji last year had created an uproar with Sangh Parivar outfits coming out against it. They had termed it as an attempt to whitewash a rioter.
The panel is understood to have noted that the rebellion was an attempt to establish a Caliphate. Had it succeeded, a Caliphate would have been established in the region too and India would have ended up losing that part from its territory, sources indicated.
It concluded that Haji was a rioter who had established a Sharia court and beheaded a large number of Hindus. The rioters did not even spare the secular Muslims. Those who died at the hands of the rioters were non-believers. A large number of “Moplah martyrs,” who were under-trial prisoners, died due to diseases such as cholera and natural causes hence cannot be treated as martyrs. Only a handful of them were executed by the government after court trial, it noted.
Om Jee Upadhyay, Director (Research and Administration), ICHR, said the list of freedom fighters would be modified as recommended by the panel and the dictionary would be out by October end.
You may find yourself wondering or trying to remember if you have ever had to explain an oddly specific thing to someone not from here only to say "it's a Michigan thing."
That's what we're here for...giving you a guide on some uniquely Michigan words and phrases so you can keep them in your back pocket.
The Michigan Accent
We've talked before about what it means to have a Michigan accent and have even compiled a guide for you before on just how to identify if you actually have one or not (CLICK HERE).
More often than not, the "Michigan accent" is described as being "nasally" while also speaking so quickly our words tend to get smooshed together and almost become new words in themselves (my favorite example of that to come later).
We also are known for replacing words with "t" sounds with the letter "d" and so on...
Michigan Words
However, there are definitely some words, phrases, etc. here in Michigan that we often have to explain to others.
For example, I have family in Texas who were horribly confused when we took them to my favorite local party store when they were visiting earlier this summer.
Here are just some of the most "Pure Michigan" things we should really just add to the dictionary so everyone gets familiar:
Michigan Words/Phrases to Add to the Dictionary
While some of these words may already be in the dictionary, context is everything and here in Michigan, they take on completely different meanings!
Speaking of the Dictionary
Back in 2014, MLive reported that "Yooper" actually was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary after a man in the U.P. tried for 12 years to get it there.
Now, it's been about seven years since then and I think it is time we get some more of these words added so Michigan, with our trolls, our pasties, and our Euchre expertise can take over!
Which Michigan words or phrases would you most like to see added to the dictionary for all to see?
40 Michigan Towns With Names Even Life-Long Michiganders Can't Pronounce
As Filipino culture becomes more popular overseas, young Filipinos are at the forefront, er, back office of this push, making sure our voice is heard or—better yet—understood
HOW DO YOU SAY P*NYETA? This scene from the film Heneral Luna is a perfect example of English reading clunkier than a smoother Tagalog dialogue
When we hear the word ambassador, we may think of gilded posts in prestigious or exotic locations around the world, raising your family in multicultural settings, all while hobnobbing with the most influential people in order to forward national interests.
Or maybe we envision glamorous people from matinee idols to former Miss Universe queens being paid a year’s salary for a single Instagram post endorsing a can of tuna or a bottle of sunblock. In the case of South Korea, we might even consider K-Pop idols as ambassadors. The South Korean government does.
But how about writers? Artists? Film crews? How about the legions of translators helping translate our komiks, books, movies, and teleserye?
Tangible and intangible exports
With the rapid export in recent years of Filipino films and series through direct screenings abroad, international cable TV, or distribution in streaming platforms with worldwide reach coupled with foreign productions mainly featuring the Philippines, like that Disney UK Christmas ad, or the latest Gundam movie, it’s safe to assume that the world is taking more interest in—not just awareness of—Philippine culture.
This is anecdotal, but it was nice to hear from an African exchange student over Ilocos empanada that his mates from back home were hoping he’d get them autographs from the likes of John Lloyd Cruz and Bea Alonzo.
This global awareness of our culture and cultural products parallels the rise of Filipino and Filipino-inspired restaurants (and Jollibee branches) in places like Tokyo, the UK, and the US as sinigang ranks high in polls on world soups, sisig evolves into a popular taco and wrap meat, and ube becomes a darling in the international dessert scene.
Filipino creative culture has long been mediated by translation. Fr. Roque Ferriols translated Greek and German philosophy into Filipino, Rio Alma into Filipino translated numerous pieces of world literature, from poetry to fiction, and even the nation’s foremost literary work, Rizal’s Noli, had to be translated from Spanish into Filipino for it to be more accessible.
This wasn’t always a one-way street, however, as many times in the past century, during the golden age of Philippine cinema, many of our movies were translated into foreign languages, especially as Oscar bets. The current ascendance of video-on-demand and streaming platforms, coupled with the rise of indie productions, has made this exportation all the more relevant today.
In 2016, Rio Alma said that “the need to share knowledge and experience alongside the endless creation of new technologies reinforces the importance of translation as a medium between world cultures.” And yes, I translated this from Filipino.This importance applies to sharing the Filipino experience to a world audience through the form of pop culture, and Filipino youth are at the forefront of this endeavor.
The year before, the teleserye Forevermore was purchased by African countries as well as by Kazakhstan and Vietnam. Around this time, Africa emerged as a market for Filipino serye and sine while in 2020, seeing shows like Ang Probinsyano take the new title of Brothers highlighted growing markets in Latin America and Southeast Asia.
MGA TAGAPAGSALIN Respondents Achim Mendoza and Kim Nunez
Doing God’s work
Paulo Coelho once wrote that translators are doing an unglamorous but essential if not life-saving task. In the world, where ignorance and xenophobia have always hounded humanity, the moments of peace and accord can be attributed to translators throughout history.Achim Mendoza, a University of Southern California film production student who worked with Big Dipper, ABS-CBN’s in-house translation arm, reveals what goes on in translating the network’s serye for a global audience.
“[Although there’s a] notion that translation work is simply translating Filipino dialogue to English, we’re essentially rewriting a piece of work in a different language, making sure that even the most “Pinoy” concepts can be appreciated and understood by anyone,” he says.
Kim Nunez, who worked for Viva Communications under Viva Films, translating restored Filipino films from the 20th century, asks: “Is there an English counterpart for the word, concept, and experience of kilig?”Mendoza adds that translation is a balancing act in different directions: between the original audience and a new audience, a question between fidelity to the original text without alienating a foreign audience, all this while considering that film and TV, being largely visual mediums, may suffer from walls of text.
This balancing act has a time element as well, as attested to by Nunez. She shares that initially, a lot of old terms, slang, and expressions were “a culture shock” for her.
In translating, a lot of thinking goes into what is disregarded and what is kept. “One of my pet-peeves,” Mendoza confesses, “is seeing translations that are so literally translated to English from Filipino that they sound stilted and unnatural.” Nunez confirms the source of this sentiment as her orders were to stick to simple, conversational English, despite wanting to take into account the nuances of Filipino vocabulary.
This challenge is compounded by the translators in non-English speaking areas where the serye is shown, where they have to translate into local languages based on Big Dipper’s Filipino-to-English. While English is a second language in the Philippines, this isn’t so in other countries that do have English education, where “English is part of their curriculum, but it doesn’t revolve around English [unlike in the Philippines],” according to Nunez.
‘If western audiences can appreciate and use foreign words such as sushi, bushido, je ne sais quoi, I feel like there’s space for us to leave Filipino words untranslated, like adobo and sinigang.’
Nunez continues this train, challenging the supposed universality of English, as nuances, emotions, and jokes are always at the risk of loss in translating for a non-English speaking global audience, while in translating from Filipino for an English-speaking Filipino audience, the risk lies in the loss of original impact. Which hurts more? P.I. or S.O.B?Another barrier, Nunez reveals, is taboos. Libre, for example, is something light and easy among Filipinos, especially as people become more familiar with each other. This “pa-burger ka naman!” attitude, however, is considered highly offensive in other cultures.
The best of both worlds
Despite the challenges, there’s a growing global demand for Filipino cultural content. With hope, it assures translators like Mendoza and Nunez that the struggles of their work are contributing to an emerging big picture, one that is full of promise.
Nunez and Mendoza agree on the main consideration in translating, and the latter puts it this way: translating “in such a way that even if it doesn’t correspond one-to-one with the original text, the emotional beats, the humor, or the nuances remain and are appreciated by a foreign non-Filipino-speaking audience.”
Mendoza thus had to find workarounds, such as retaining some Filipino words.“If western audiences can appreciate and use foreign words such as sushi, bushido, je ne sais quoi, I feel like there’s space for us to leave Filipino words untranslated, like honorifics, and dish names like adobo and sinigang,” he says.
Just as French phrases and Japanese expressions have become English expressions, why can’t we go beyond the boondocks and into the keeleeg?
You may find yourself wondering or trying to remember if you have ever had to explain an oddly specific thing to someone not from here only to say "it's a Michigan thing."
That's what we're here for...giving you a guide on some uniquely Michigan words and phrases so you can keep them in your back pocket.
The Michigan Accent
We've talked before about what it means to have a Michigan accent and have even compiled a guide for you before on just how to identify if you actually have one or not (CLICK HERE).
More often than not, the "Michigan accent" is described as being "nasally" while also speaking so quickly our words tend to get smooshed together and almost become new words in themselves (my favorite example of that to come later).
We also are known for replacing words with "t" sounds with the letter "d" and so on...
Michigan Words
However, there are definitely some words, phrases, etc. here in Michigan that we often have to explain to others.
For example, I have family in Texas who were horribly confused when we took them to my favorite local party store when they were visiting earlier this summer.
Here are just some of the most "Pure Michigan" things we should really just add to the dictionary so everyone gets familiar:
Michigan Words/Phrases to Add to the Dictionary
While some of these words may already be in the dictionary, context is everything and here in Michigan, they take on completely different meanings!
Speaking of the Dictionary
Back in 2014, MLive reported that "Yooper" actually was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary after a man in the U.P. tried for 12 years to get it there.
Now, it's been about seven years since then and I think it is time we get some more of these words added so Michigan, with our trolls, our pasties, and our Euchre expertise can take over!
Which Michigan words or phrases would you most like to see added to the dictionary for all to see?
40 Michigan Towns With Names Even Life-Long Michiganders Can't Pronounce
