Lessons in Local Lingo

Me and random rickshaw driver, daily conversation:

(in Gujarati) Ah! Gujarati avre che! You know Gujarati!
(in Gujarati) Hun gujarati sicku chu. I am learning Gujarati.
(in Hindi) Aap hindi bolta hai? Do you speak Hindi?
(in Gujarati) Naye, gujarati matra. No, Gujarati only.
(in Hindi) Angrezi bolta hai? Do you speak English?
(in Gujarati) Angrezi ha, Hindi na-thi. English yes, Hindi no.
(in Gujarati) Ah, kutchi sicke cho? You are learning Kutchi?
(in Gujarati) Naye, naye, naye, kutchi na-thi! No, not Kutchi.
(in Gujarati) Kem na-thi? Why not?
(in Gujarati - but the same in Hindi) Bahut basha! Too many languages!

And so the language dance begins.

In Bhuj, a town, the vasy majority of people speak Gujarati, though can understand and usually speak Hindi as well. Go 3 kilometers outside the city and you enter the desert that is Kutch. The residents in the desert speak the local dialect, Kutchi. But, a majority also speak Gujarati, though it's typically their second language. Good luck if you can find a Hindi speaker. Go way out into the desert and you will approach a little village on the edge of the vast expanse known as the Rann of Kutch, 40km shy of Pakistan. There, all our meetings are in Kutchi only; 1 of my coworkers speaks, the other 2 maybe catch broken words here and there, and me, well, I would need 2 interpreters.

At the office in Bhuj, the "design room" staff speak English, Gujarati, and Hindi. The "admin room" staff speak Gujarati, Hindi, and Kutchi. One of my coworkers from West Bengal, speaks Hindi, Bengali, and English. I walk in, blurt out a phrase or two in Gujarati, and get a blank stare from her. Even though she works in Gujarat, she does not speak Gujarati and I must switch over to Hindi. What fun.

In Ahmedabad and Baroda, large cities in Gujarat, fellows in my program have Hindi tutors, not Gujarati. Although the cities are in Gujarat, on the street they are spoken to in Hindi. If you listen in, conversations might might be going either way, Gujarati or Hindi.

In Valsad, a small regional capital at the southern edge of Gujarat, the population speaks Gujarati and probably a little Hindi. Go 30 minutes outside to Dharampur, a town of 20,000 and you will find mostly Gujarati speakers. Another fellow in my program lives yet a few more kilometers outside Dharampur in rural Valsad province. Often she travels to small villages for community health workshops where the tribal groups attending speak only their tribal language, or possibly, Marathi, the local dialect of Maharashtra (the next state to the south). So, translation goes from tribal dialect or Marathi to Gujarati to English (occasionally).

In Bihar, the locals speak a slang of Hindi known as Bihari Hindi (whose roots are not actually in Hindi) though the official languages are Hindi and Urdu (national language of Pakistan and almost identical to spoken Hindi). My very basic Hindi should get me by. I attempt to speak the few words but inevitably Gujarati ones get thrown in the mix. They have no idea what I'm talking about. Fortunately I work with Gujaratis there and am relieved when I get an affirmative answer to my question "thame Gujarati bole cho?" (Do you speak Gujarati?). So between us, it's Gujarati (which, remember, I only understand 25-30% of still), between them and the Biharis its Hindi or Bihari Hindi then back to me in Gujarati (in the towns), and between them and the Biharis (in the villages) it's Hindi to Bihari Hindi through an interpreter, back to them in Hindi then to me in Gujarati (or if I'm lucky, English).

At a recent high-level meeting in Ahmedabad with the heads of some major NGOs in Gujarat, I expected the meeting to be all in Hindi, even though we are in Gujarat. Woe to me for having to take the minutes! But, to my surprise, the entire meeting was in English. At first I felt bad, were all 15 of them speaking English just for me? I quickly realized it wasn't so. At the highest levels of Indian society, English is the unifying language, not Hindi, not Gujarati. THey came from Delhi, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Bhuj. Half knew Gujarati, most probably knew Hindi, but all spoke English.

When I travel with my friend Gabe in Gujarat, I speak Gujarati, he speaks Hindi. People laugh, smile, are astounded by the sight of these two white people, traveling together, one speaking Gujarati, the other Hindi. And from time to time we ask each other about the other's dialect, curious foreigners we are. Outside of Gujarat, I try to get by on my limited Hindi.

(Depiction of my internal division over language. Drawn with the ever classic MS Paint.)

Back in the guesthouse in rural Bihar, I tell my coworkers "no more Gujarati! I must learn Hindi." I've decided that Hindi is more useful, being spoken by more people across India (the government of India however admits that less than 50% of Indians speak Hindi). Some of my Gujarati coworkers argued with me, saying Gujarati was only needed, while some welcomed my suggestion. Within 2 days of returning to Bhuj, however, of course I had switched my mind. Back to Gujarati, the language of the street, the one that the sabjiwallas and samosawallas shout to me, the one my coworkers converse in, the one I'm getting better at day after day, the one that hurts my head less to think about, and the one, unfortunately, only useful in Gujarat.