THE LINGO OF THE SILICON VALLEY

Nirav Soni
Aug 25, 2017 · 3 min read

Bangalore — the capital city of Karnataka is considered to be among the largest cities in India. Being the so called dream destination for working professionals, it is also ethnically diverse. The well known IT hub has probably more than a million IT professionals from all over the country.

Silicon Valley, IT hub, Garden city — isn’t it evident how distinct this city can be? The city is home to so many different cultures, traditions, languages and people from different states. Since Bangalore opened its doors to the job seekers it literally became the ‘Gold Rush’ city. The weather, the development, the culture as well as the quality of life has pulled in people from various parts of India. All these different people have instilled their values, food, traditions, culture and languages into the city too. Hence another name added to the long list — City of Diversity.

But whatever said and done, even a cosmopolitan outlook loses when it comes to the language. At heart, Bangalore is still very traditional and Kannada is the official language and quite widely used. However, there are other languages used too like Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Hindi and of course English. You just have to sit down in a restaurant and surely you’ll get to hear at least two different languages. Get into a BMTC bus, and the buzz of various languages continues. You might even hear a few foreign languages. Being a safe city too, you will see students, workers, officers; well just about anyone from different states.

In fact, last year’s local polls saw the release of party manifestoes in five languages namely Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and English. These political parties obviously expected that various linguistic groups might play key roles in the election process.

With so many different languages that you get to hear “neenu”, “aap”, “you”, “neenga”, “ninde”…. how do you reach out to people? Obviously Kannada being the traditional and most spoken language binds people. You can hear non-Kannadigas also managing a few words here and there. And the language left behind by the British certainly makes it easy. Hindi being the national language is also another key that helps in opening up certain locks. However, it seems that the state is trying to reduce the usage of Hindi. Recently people have seen the removal of Hindi from public boards, signage and so on. But that’s a whole different issue. Let’s not get into the politics behind it.

The way people reach out to each other is through their rich cultures and heritage. The rich Kannadiga heritage is well retained but it is only because the city embraces other languages and cultures that people are able to mingle and survive in such a city.

Festive seasons like Dussehra or Eid are enough to let you know how people get together. During Dussehra, Bengalis put up their Durga Pooja Pandals, Gujarathis dance it away with Dandia, Tamilians and Kannadigas symbolize it with Golus and Bombe Habbas.

High tech developments have also made it much easier. Language portals and various platforms reduce the gap in languages or communication and bring people closer. And after all, human nature automatically knows how to reach out. No language has even been a barrier against humanity!

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Nirav Soni

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