LINGUISTIC BLING

They departed for their heavenly abode. 

       Or more simply, 'they died.'

Left to right: B L Whorf,
Worf

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is associated mostly with the writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (not to be confused with the Klingon of Star Trek fame), and his mentor Edward Sapir. It says that what we perceive is limited by the language in which we think and speak. It also says that different languages lead to different patterns of thought.

Benjamin L Whorf was a linguist and, incongruously, a fire prevention engineer while Sapir was an anthropologist and a linguist. There are two versions of their hypothesis, one less absolute than the other. The more absolute version says that all men are totally a product of the language they speak. The milder and today more acceptable version says that the words people use and the concepts behind the language they speak help shape them to some extent. It studies the ways in which language and culture influence each other, the relationship between linguistic differences, and the differing world view of people speaking different languages.

Keeping that in mind: on the news not a day goes by without someone or several people becoming ‘luqma-e-ajal’. Translated, that means that they became ‘morsels of food for death.’ This could be expressed more simply in Urdu by saying that: (woh) mar gaye (they died).

And so people become ‘athishi ka shikar’, or ‘apnay khaliq-e-haqeeqi say ja milay’, which means that they ‘became victims of fire’, or ‘joined their True Maker’, which could be more simply expressed once again in Urdu as ‘jal gaye’, or the ubiquitous ‘mar gaye.’

I realise all these are example of dying, but that tends to happen rather often here.

Piece of liver (of the  organ variety)

A wife, sister, father, or mother are not beewi, behen, baap, or maa respectively, but a shareek-e-hayaat (partner in life), a humsheera (female sibling, who has fed at the same boob), walid-e-muhtarram (respected father) or walida majda (respected mother), and let’s not forget the ‘piece of a person’s liver’ or a lakht-e-jigar… beta or beti in simple Urdu, in English ‘son’ or ‘daughter’.

What do these florid terms, in daily use even by the press, say about us as a people?

The first undoubtedly is that as a society we are inclined to be polite bordering on obsequious.

Could the second be that we are emotional, bordering on irrational?

Should the media not follow guidelines regarding the language used to deliver news? People are dying in droves all over the country, today in Karachi, tomorrow in Peshawar, the day after somewhere else, not due to old age but because they are shot at, blown to bits or drowned as a result of flooding that could have been prevented. Bringing eternity or the Maker into reporting such events on the national news suggests an element of inevitability. It transfers guilt from those who should be held responsible to an irrevocable fate, it fudges the issue at hand. A blunt ‘mar gaye’ (died) is all that is required. 'Mar gaye' calls for investigation into the matter, a search for the earthly reasons behind such temporal tragedies. The stark reality of such deaths need not be surrounded by this linguistic bling.

Emotional terminology promotes religious and political cliches. These cliches are used in harangues to sway emotions and opinions towards irrational conclusions. When those who harangue inherit roles of authority they are seldom questioned when they abuse their positions because their language implies an awful doom for the questioner.