Amitav Ghosh's SEA OF POPPIES: Speaking Weird English

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeKeywords: Asian American historical novelAsian American literary aestheticsAsian American literatureAmitav GhoshWeird English Notes Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting (2008) by Vijay Prashad describes a polycultural society as one that offers the flexibility of a shifting and evolving self that adapts and incorporates a wide variety of cultural influences within any singular idea of ethnicity or background. Lascars are Indian Ocean sailors who may or may not claim Portuguese, Indian, Chinese, African, European, and North American ancestry. We could argue that Ghosh attributes to Weird English the supposed intentions of the Esperanto language. Nabob: Westerner who went to India and made great wealth there through trade. Mohurs: Gold coins, historically about fifteen silver rupees. Larkin: Hindi for “girl” is larki. Bundo: In Hindi bandho means “tie it up,” but grammatically here the indicative “to tie up.” Very commonly the English used Hindi imperatives as indicatives or nouns. Paltan: An indigenous corruption of the English word platoon. Mems: Plural of memsahib, once exclusively used in connection with European women. Annas: Sixteen annas made a rupee before decimalization caught up with subcontinental currencies. Jooties: Hindi for shoes would be juti. Definitions of mohurs, mems, and annas from Words in Indian English (1991) by S. Muthiah, a companion to the Hobson-Jobson Dictionary; other definitions supplied by James Lambert. Literally “a bolt of lightning” but used to mean “love at first sight.” This was an expression that became popular toward the end of the eighteenth century and has an oblique reference to Zeus (hence lightning) but was popularized by Stendhal in the nineteenth century.