The Departed / Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan
John Smith / Kaushik Teja Kanneganti
Americans like it simple, short and clear. No dramatization. No verbosity. Even the pigeons sit equidistantly on the Sbisa dining hall’s roof. Lock up Jayanth Muthukrishnan, Dhananjoy Solanki and Manjunath Hegde with Thomas Pool, Clint Holland and Jonathan Gresham.
And you got Jay, Dan and Hedge with Tom, Clint and John.
Perhaps out of embarrassment.
Some, for not being able to pronounce a name as long as the Mays Business School’s hallway. For others, for not being able to make them pronounce the way they want it. It happens everywhere. On career fairs. With Professors. In the socials.
It may be acceptable to mispronounce international nomenclatures twice for sake of Aggie brotherhood; it sure is disgruntling the third time. Would you go out with somebody who can’t say your name? Well.
It’s impeding cross cultural dating as we speak. Inevitably, international students are faking themselves as Joe, Kim, Dan and Ron in the similar measure as my American friend Sam fakes himself as a Canadian on his French vacation.
It’s a vicious mess. It’s eroding the social fabric on the campus.
We need to get this sorted.
Let’s examine why Americans always ask your name twice. Say that again...what’s that ..??
There are etymological explanatory theories floating around the campus about how trisyllablic names are the breaking point for most Americans to how 20 something characters serpentine names intimidate them and to how temperature controls how much you inhale oxygen which determines your speech gamut.
Statistically speaking, answer lies somewhere within its box plot.
Every language has its protocols: English has 5 vowels and 21 consonants, India’s mother tongue Hindi has 15 and 29. That’s 18 more sounds than English. 18. That’s 69% of entire English alphabets. 69%. And it’s one of the 216 languages spoken in India. 216.
People have names of villages and grandfathers as their last name. It’s a pride to suffix them to his name. ‘Saravanalanganingham’ is actually a short Sri Lankan last name, says a discussion board on google.
And you have Chinese, Spanish, German, French, Vietnamese, Korean, Arabic, Turkish, and Japanese syllables and alphabets floating in A&M’s atmosphere.
Twirl your tongue, nasalize vowels, stress the thyroid, exercise the tonsil, brush the palate, stick the upper lip, gargle the uvula?
Americans like it simple, short and clear.
Let’s examine the way out. Dr. Suzanne Droleskey, Executive Director of International Programs for Students says ‘the reason is because of the American education which is more auditory than visual’. Americans need to write and then say it. Sandeep Kamani, PHD student in Chemical Engg., a victim of the NameGate himself, suggests ‘we ought to write our name down on paper chits and fragment them into syllables’.
Sandeep Kamani = Sun + Deep Come + Any
Seshu = Say + Shoe
Kaushik Teja Kanneganti = Cow + Shek TayJa Can+ I +Gant + E
Well, this works. Most of the times. This method is something Dr. Droleskey saw in live action last year during a workshop bridging intercultural traditions and languages which attracted 2000 Aggies. The key she says is ‘patience’ and ‘willingness’ from both to get it right. It may take 5 minutes, 3 paper chits, ounces of embarrassment and some tongue twirling.
But it’s worth it.
Let Jayanth Muthukrishnan be Jayanth Muthukrishnan.
OPINION ARTICLE FOR ‘THE BATTALION’: PUBLISHED ON 03 APRIL 2007
http://media.www.thebatt.com/media/storage/paper657/news/2007/04/03
/Opinion/Knotted.Names-2819569.shtml
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