I heard hoots and hisses squealed into a cell-phone. It was only my Mongolian cab driver discussing the early-morning weather with his friend a few Chicago suburbs away. I’m so used to thinking in English or Tamil that any other tongue seems somewhat jarring. However, the wave of globalisation is moving swiftly, leaving the world much flatter and detractors with their singularly bigoted ideas stranded in its wake.

There was a time when I was ridiculed for my Tamil laced with a Palghat accent or my Hindi pickled with Tamilian undertones. However, as time moved on, I realized that speaking Thai like the Thais do is a lot more challenging than adopting a Gorakhpuri twang. Oriental languages are intricately tonal. “Krai kai kai kai?” my Thai colleagues would often trick me into a wordy duel — “Who sells chicken eggs?”. I would be too scared to respond, since the wrong intonation could paint an inexplicably inappropriate picture!

It was in distant Israel where I learnt that a hesitating tongue powered by the throat that rolls before it hits the roof of the palate or the back of the front teeth produces a strong “hhh” sound that transforms a “ch” into a “hh”. I would be unnerved by the prospect of this shibboleth test lest I looked like a typical tourist. As in spicy Yiddish, harshness in accent here is a hallmark of linguistic suaveness.

Over the years I have learnt to tell Lao apart from Thai and have mastered the art of distinguishing a Canadian accent from an American one. Of course the cab drivers of Toronto offered me a bonus course in categorising Punjabi dialects by sub-sects.

... contd.