Editorial
This article was published in IATEFL ‘CATS’ Newsletter Spring 2010, Issue1/10.

Discovering the Norms of Ruringlish

Muhammad Iqbal, Pakistan

Muhammad Iqbal grew up in a small village of Punjab. He has been writing poetry since his school days in different languages. His children poems and songs have been published in different international teaching newsletters. He teaches English in a vocational institute working for poverty alleviation and rehabilitation of the poor in Narowal, Pakistan. He is the member of a number of national and international associations and Discussion List Moderator for Global Issues SIG, IATEFL. He is the founder of Rural English Learners and Teachers group in the Punjab, Pakistan.
E-mail: muhammadiqbal722@hotmail.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/query=relt
http://gisig.iatefl.org/pages/contact.html

Menu

Introduction
English is not ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’
Poems
Farewell to arms

Introduction

“If I exist I do move and if I move I do change or be changed that is equivalent of global harmony.” (Iqbal, HLT Mag Dec 08)

A few years ago, I took an opportunity to plump into some known and unknown participants in a training session where a vehement debate got off the ground regarding meter in English poetry. One of the colleagues said to me, “Iqbal sahib, as I write English rhymes and poems, English metre bothers me. How you make a dent in this problem while creating your poems and songs.” I returned, “I can’t speak ex cathedra but certainly I don’t go behind the native hunting. Why don’t you tend to believe that English is just like our own languages—Urdu and Punjabi? Take on the fashion of local languages when you produce something in English. See how convenient it is!” Her face flushed with new understanding.

English is not ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’

Study shows that researcher seem to be disputing the explanation that English is not merely the language of BANA countries and their populace because NNS are even greater in number. On the other hand, rural communities are reluctant to accept this critically acclaimed reality. They are on firmer ground to argue that they don’t exploit the opportunities for learning English to be an active part of ‘speedy globalized world.’ Consequently, their community-based voices are throttled and breached. Observations show that they are very enthusiastic to know how the modern word functions but English, an international language is still daunting and intimidating subject for them due to cruel nativeness.

Evidently, English desperately needs linguistic and cultural hybridity. We rural teachers are required to create the impression that English is not ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ particularly for rural poor communities need to be involved in flexible and pleasurable learning activities compatible to their own contexts.
In this regard, I would like to explore how I create indigenized poems and songs to make English language a hope and pleasure for poor communities? I share local patterns of poems and songs in English and create awareness of global harmonious values. A large body of evidence indicates that the holy marriage of L1 and L2 is a hope for rural communities. When we teachers create material following the local style and pattern, the children and teenagers grasp them faster because it brings the impression that English is their own language created by their own teachers. The cultural resistance decreases in the classroom and English is gulped and digested.

Poems

War is wrong

Ding Ding Dong (meaningless words)
I sing song
Peace is right
War is wrong

I would like to name this poem English Robai which has four lines usually telling us a truth or reality with the form as A, A, B, A or A, A, A, A in L1. The words in the first line do have some meanings in English but in this poem I have used these words without any meanings. To begin with these kind of words is a common place in children Punjabi poetry.. Also, note the use of meaningless words at the start of the poem given below.

Peace

Huble Buble Bow
I want to sow
The seed of peace
That will grow
All over the land
Earth, sea an’ sand
They‘ll sing song
War is wrong

Song ---- Land Mine

Oh, land mine
What you dine?
Souls and hearts
Limbs and parts
Mine and thine (Punjabi phrase means all and sundry)
Oh, land mine

What you dine?
Who made thee?
To kill little Lee
Left no sign
Oh, land mine
What you dine?

Under the ground
Made all bound
Limit and line
Oh, land mine
What you dine?

In thy den
Killing so men
Dog and hen
It’s not fine
Oh, land mine
What you dine?

When you blast
Kill so fast
Life with tine
Oh, land mine
What you dine?

I wrote the above song after attending a workshop at SPELT conference 2006 conducted by Kip Kates regarding the issue of land mining. I sang it in Vietnam and it was much appreciated. The song has a stanza form that is very popular in Urdu and Punjabi.

Backbiting

Wall has ear (Punjabi and English phrase)
It can hear
So my sweet
Keep talk neat
Talk should reap
Think very deep
When you speak
Be merry, meek
Don't backbite
It cause fight (no use of S)

I went to the ZOO

I went to the zoo
I saw what? Lo! (Stands for look)
I saw there bear
A child of a deer
Some naughty monkeys
Deechoon Deechoon donkeys (Punjabi words and sounds)
Some flying bats
Cats and rats
Some white parrots
Eating red carrots
I saw a snake
Blowing on a cake
Sparrow in a cage
At earliest age
Nothing was boring
A lion was roaring
Gulping its food
Crocodile nude
A camel in chain
Cackling crane
In front o’ fox
Chewing wez en ox (was an ox)
Elephant ‘id walk (did walk)
Danced peacock
Friends were seagulls
Doves and eagles
There was a dog
Playing with frog
I saw there duck
Doing Buck Buck (Punjabi Idiom. to have an idle talk)
Bat ga-ee muck
Killa giya Tuck (Punjabi mothers usually say these words at the end of stories that they share with their children at night)

Farewell to arms

My students are very pleased and they experience pleasure on learning English with these poems and songs but you might be surprised to hear how English has been their daily practice in the class. They have banished S or ES in present indefinite tense. We have bidden a farewell to these arms. Some of my students add ED with all verbs to coin 2^nd and 3^rd form of all verbs. Similarly, they make second and third degrees just with ‘more and most’ for every adjective, for instance. more big and most big, not bigger and the biggest. They use prepositions as they are in L1 for example the birds are sitting on the trees, not in the trees. As I have indicated some Punjabi idioms in my poems, they also use lot of idioms from L1 for example the building is talking to the sky means it is very tall. Sometimes they also use nouns as verbs and adverbs in place of adjectives.

One might well ask why I have been doing so. My line of argument is as World Bank has recently reported that rural communities are lagging twelve hundred times behind the urbane sophisticated communities in learning English. I feel I should know how to turn a seaming crisis into an opportunity. So my goal is to give the impression that English is not ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ for rural communities. They can learn and speak it conveniently to become an active part of the speedy globalized world.

Last but not least, I think a new kind of subject Hopolinguistics should be introduced in ELT if we are serious for proliferating English to the remote and backward vicinities.

The Literature course can be viewed here