On not being able to read or speak Malayalam

Language and region in Kerala

Bibliographic Data

ID12672105
AuthorsFernando Esteban de la Rosa (0000-0002-2647-9086, Schlumberger (Ireland), corresponding author), Fernando Rosa
Year2014
Volume15
Issue2
Pages214-234
Publication date2014-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInter-Asia Cultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9373 • E-ISSN: 1469-8447
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649373.2014.911434
OpenAlexW2028497801
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited39

This paper attempts to read aspects of language, history, and literariness historically from the perspective of both Brazil and Kerala. It is also an attempt to compare two very distinct places from within a framework centred on the South. Initially, region and nation are discussed, as well as modernity and development, and the issue of thinking South–South connections from an anthropological perspective. Next, the matter of the complex connected histories of Kerala within the Indian Ocean is mentioned, including Portuguese colonial history. The image and influence of Latin America in Kerala is briefly brought up, especially in what concerns literary influence. There follows an extended discussion of issues of literacy and the rise of the novel in Kerala as well as the historical intricacies of the construction of Malayalam as a modern medium. A contrast with the literary construction of modernity in Brazil is made, and the importance of English in Kerala is accordingly highlighted as well as the issue of the coloniality of the Portuguese within Brazil's complex creolized history. An analysis of the pioneering novel of Chandumenon is offered, and a comparison with a novel in Brazil is subsequently sketched. The different historical contexts of nineteenth century Brazil and Kerala are stressed. The close interrelatedness between issues of language, nation, and region is emphasised as well as the internal complexities of modernity in both regions.Keywords: BrazilKeralaIndian OceanMalayalamPortugueseEnglishSyriacnovelnation-statemodernity AcknowledgementMany people have helped me during my stay Kerala in 2009. I cannot mention them all here. I owe thanks to Professor Rajeevan, Savithri Rajeevan and in particular to their son Yadu, besides our friend Bibi; Gopinath Arunima (with JNU in Delhi); Udaya Kumar (with the University of Delhi); J Devika (with CDS in Trivandrum); Pulapre Balakrishnan in Calicut (now also at CDS), and Nandakumar Divakarannair (Trivandrum and Vancouver), among many other people. In Bangalore, I am grateful to Rochelle Pinto.Notes1. We could think of the “Modern West” as a prestigious metropolitan location, whereas the “modern west” is seen (from the perspective of the “Modern West”) as marginal and subaltern. Nonetheless, there is a fundamental identity between both, usually not acknowledged by the West.2. The issue of modernity is of course a complex one. I cannot go into detail here. Nonetheless, it is important to state that modernity is not an import from the Modern West as much as a process that arises more or less concomitantly in different locales, in a complex dialogic relationship including—but not necessarily centred on—the Modern West. Gilroy for instance mentions the early enmeshment of blacks with modernity throughout the Black Atlantic (Gilroy Citation1993). For the complexities of invoking modernity, see for instance Chakrabarty (Citation2002).3. See the various papers in the special issue on Bandung, in particular the editorial introduction by Hee-Yeon Cho and Kuan-Hsing Chen, in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Vol. 6, no. 4, 2005. The issue of the nation-state is of course a very intricate one. See for instance the essays in Chatterjee (Citation1993).4. The Kerala Council for Historical Research in Trivandrum has a Muziris Heritage Project: http://www.keralahistory.ac.in/muzirisbrochure_2008.pdf (accessed on August 10, 2011). It was still running in 2009.5. The first decade of Portuguese power in Asia was entirely spent in Kerala before the Portuguese set out to conquer other places in the Indian Ocean (Goa only fell to the Portuguese in 1510 and Malacca in 1511).6. On the death of the last speaker of Indo-Portuguese Creole in Cochin in 2010, see http://www.hindu.com/mp/2010/09/27/stories/2010092750370100.htm (accessed on June 26, 2011). It is now a practically extinct language that was also previously spoken in Kannur, Tellicherry, Kollam, Kozhikode (Calicut), etc. It was therefore widespread and well rooted throughout the coast of Kerala (Cardoso Citation2006).7. J. Devika in Trivandrum (Centre for Development Studies) has identified the 1980s as the time when she and others in Kerala started reading Latin American literature—Brazilian included (email communication, August 8, 2011). Clarice Lispector is a Brazilian author she has read in English.8. Therefore, it is a reading that is directly connected to local experiences and visions of modernity.9. For the “model,” see Parayil (Citation2000); for a critique, see Devika and Thampi (Citation2011); for a comparison with Cuba see Tharamangalam (Citation2010).10. About 91% of the population is literate, compared with 60% for the rest of India. The literacy rate in Brazil is similar—around 90%—although there are regional disparities just as in India (for a historical appraisal, see Mathew Citation1999). Interestingly enough, however, Kerala feels more literate than even São Paulo: in my dealings with people in shops, stalls, etc, I had the distinct feeling that many of them were generally better acquainted with writing and numeracy than in many parts of Brazil.11. There is a complex link here between modernity and development, with many attendant pitfalls as well. For a discussion see Chakrabarty (Citation2002), especially his essays on Ashis Nandy's work.12. The fate of Portuguese in Goa is interestingly not altogether different: namely, it was colonial and became to a small degree also indigenized (Pinto Citation2007).13. A note of caution should be sounded here. As Ahmad (Citation1992) indicates, the issues of language, nation and literary canons in India are enormously intricate in comparison with Europe. Namely, the comparatively clear-cut, well-researched and well-inventoried, mutually conversant, literary histories of European languages and nations are still at best tentative in India. What is more important, Ahmad warns that Indians are often ignorant of the literary canons and happenings even of other languages spoken in their midst (though of course not necessarily of their own languages).14. Disraeli's Henrietta Temple.15. Interestingly, these only seem to have impacted on Kerala's literary life during the 1920s and 1930s if we are to believe Zimmerman (Citation2002). Here is perhaps the place to note the difference in prestigious metropolitan models: in Brazil it was France rather than England as in Kerala. However, in Kerala and India, French (and Russian) literary influence also became important, although via English translation (Mukherjee Citation2000).16. It is intriguing to think that both Aluísio and Menon in fact wrote in societies where slavery had been widespread even during their lifetime. Rio de Janeiro in fact once had the largest slave population of any port city in the Americas. Slavery was only abolished in Brazil in 1888; in India, the British outlawed the selling of people in 1862, although elsewhere in their colonial empire slavery was abolished in 1834 (Chatterjee and Maxwell Citation2006, 231, note 75). In the Kingdom of Travancore, which covered a good deal of the territory of today's Kerala, abolition happened in 1855 (Baak Citation1999, 129). This did not necessarily end slave labour in Kerala as Baak (Citation1999) indicates. For a famous study, see Saradamoni (Citation1980).17. Other castes also come up in the novel but only in the form of various unnamed servants. It is also almost certain that the main characters' families had slaves working in their properties, although these are not mentioned.18. There are nonetheless several references to servants coming and going through the novel. Considering the time and context, it is very likely such servants were not from the very lowest castes (in which case they could not be house servants), but all the same they must have been quite low in the caste hierarchy. It is also possible that the kind of estates mentioned in the novel had at the time people whose status was not much above that of slaves.19. The greatest literary figure in Brazil in Chandu Menon's time—and indeed of all time—remains Machado de Assis. Had it not been for his untimely death, Chandu Menon might have turned into a similar figure in Malayalam letters. Machado's work has been extensively translated into English, and although I could not locate it, I have been told in Trivandrum that excerpts from his work—possibly a short story—have been translated into Malayalam, almost certainly from an English translation. They have probably been published in a local literary journal.20. For the intricacies of creolisation in a slave and immigrant society, see Vergès (Citation1999).21. Some might object that comparing Brazil and Kerala is inadequate as one is a nation-state and the other a mere state within a nation-state. It does pose a conundrum to which there is however no adequate solution. India is perhaps far too large (in terms of population) and far too varied (for instance, many languages) to be compared with Brazil (for the interpretive conundrums that India's enormous language and regional diversity poses, see Ahmad Citation1992). In addition, it is common to compare, for instance, Argentina and Brazil. The former's population is not much larger than Kerala's (about 40 million as opposed to about 33 million in the case of Kerala). Madhava Prasad (Citation2011) discusses sub-nationalities and their languages in India: Kerala (and Malayalam) are arguably a case in point. Namely, India is so large and varied that tackling sub-nationalities on a comparative basis is warranted. Another issue is of course language: India is one of the world's most multilingual countries. Comparing Brazil to Kerala allows for a comparison between two postcolonial language domains that, although not homogeneous in the least, are circumscribed enough, although of course Portuguese remains a much less geographically restricted language than Malayalam. Nonetheless even this asymmetry is not complete as there is historically a substantial Malayalee diaspora in both the Gulf and Southeast Asia; and the vast majority of people who speak Portuguese in the world today are actually Brazilian, and therefore the language is actually more geographically circumscribed than it seems at first sight.22. There were, however, proposals to turn an indigenous language—for instance Tupi—into the national language. This was related to the notion that a Brazilian identity could not be based on a European medium if it were to be authentically national. This polemic alone shows that Portuguese in Brazil could never be the same as Portuguese in Portugal.23. Both Arunima (Citation2006) and Nair (Citation1967, 111–117) indicate that many people were involved in the construction of Malayalam in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One of the major figures back then mentioned by both writers is A.R. Rajaraja Varma, grammarian and educationalist (for a biography and critical study see George Citation1978).24. Besides Guimarães and Machado, a third Brazilian writer brought up in conversations in Kerala was Clarice Lispector. Apparently there are translations of her work in Malayalam, which again I have unfortunately not been able to trace. The best-known Brazilian writer in Kerala nowadays however is of course Paulo Coelho, whose work has been widely translated locally (invariably from English translations).25. There are also Sanskrit–Malayalam dictionaries in this script, which was originally used to write Sanskrit in South India.26. The history of Sanskrit in Kerala is complex and intimately related to Malayalam: there is a Sanskrit theatre, for instance, that also employs Malayalam in performances (Unni Citation1977).27. The intricate historical relationship between Nairs and Namboothiris cannot be detailed here. See for instance the detailed introductory chapter in Arunima (Citation2003).28. Even though Sanskrit is an Indo-European language, whereas Malayalam is Dravidian in terms of linguistic relationships enshrined in the past 200 years. See for instance Trautmann (Citation2002).29. The relationship between Namboothiris and Nairs was a complex one. I cannot go into detail here. See the introductory chapter in Arunima (Citation2003). Nairs were formally subordinate to Namboothiris in terms of the local caste system. Traditionally Nair women would establish an official liaison with a Namboothiri man who would not inherit property. Although Sanskrit was the preserve of the Brahmins, Namboothiris included, Nairs obviously had more than a modicum of access to knowledge of Sanskrit.30. Gopinath Arunima, personal communication, Kerala, June 2009.31. Freeman (Citation2003) shows that the relationship between Malayalam and Sanskrit was historically at variance in comparison to the relation between Sanskrit and other Indian languages. This is because Sanskrit's impact on Malayalam came historically much later than in the case of other Indian languages. The classic language in Kerala was Old Tamil, not Sanskrit.32. Freeman (Citation2003) however, ventures that by the eighteenth century a common recognisable standard was emerging all over Kerala. We can therefore assume, perhaps, that the nineteenth century saw a consolidation of this process.33. Kalaripayattu is a local “martial art,” see Zarilli (Citation2000).34. This story of course leaves out the fact that Kerala's unification, which was achieved in 1956, also implied excisions: the Tamil-speaking areas of the realm of Travancore, for instance, were thrown out of the emerging state, and now belong to Tamil Nadu. This highlights the recent and historically constructed character of Kerala, and also the importance of language in such a construction: usually only the overwhelmingly Malayalam-speaking districts were included in the new state.35. For most of the past 2000 years, most or all of today's Kerala was not linked to any political entity centred in the north or even the south of today's India. For the complexities of medieval Kerala history, see Veluthat (Citation2009).36. I am grateful to Gopinath Arunima for this information (Trivandrum, June 2009).37. Of course, the issue of its place in Syriac literature written in Kerala is also relevant. See Perczel (Citation2009). There is also writing in Malayalam in garshuni or Syriac script (for a photograph of a garshuni Malayalam manuscript, see Figure 7 in Briquel-Chatonnet, Alain, and Jacob Citation1996, 930). The relationship between these different layers of literariness, namely Syrian Christian writing in Malayalam, local Syriac writing, and writing in Syriac-Malayalam has not to my knowledge been investigated. I am grateful to Gopinath Arunima for having introduced me to István Perczel in Trivandrum in June 2009.38. See Menon (Citation1940) for a fairly comprehensible, if somewhat outdated, appraisal of Ezhuttacchan's work and its historical context.39. See Devika (Citation2012). She also discusses Tommakattanar in the context of Kerala's history of cosmopolitanism.40. Tommakattanar's work for instance is only available to modern readers in a modern Malayalam version, which only came up in the twentieth century. Hardly any readers today would be able to read in pre-1800 scripts used in the region, such as vattezhuttu or kolezhuttu, namely two older scripts that are no longer in use, and besides are not necessarily known even among scholars today.41. The statistics here are truly astonishing: Qatar for instance has just over one and a half million inhabitants, but it counts over 100,000 Malayalee residents. The United Arab Emirates has over 800,000 Malayalees.42. It was however hardly disconnected from the different modernities coming up in the rest of colonial India. For a case that is comparable to that of much of colonial Kerala, located in a neighbouring region, see Nair (Citation2011).43. Interestingly, the golden age of Malayalam cinema is thought to be in the 1960s and 1970s, exactly as in the case of the golden years of Brazilian cinema.44. In this kind of cinema there is also a greater level of exchange with the literary canon: perhaps the most famous movie ever made in Kerala, Chenmeen (), 1966, directed by Ramu Kariat, is based on the equally famous novel of the same name by Takazhi (translated into more than 30 languages, including Indian ones). The songs from the soundtrack are also famous to this day. A recent movie by Adoor Gopalakrishnan is equally based on a short story by Takazhi, namely “Naale Pennegal” () or “Four Girls” (Takazhi Citation1999; Ganguly Citation2008).45. Hollywood blockbusters often win the day at the box office in Brazil, whereas in Kerala they hardly stand a chance against local and other Indian movies.46. This mediation between Malayalam and Portuguese is quite old: the Portuguese at first used Arabic in their dealings with the inhabitants of the Malabar Coast. See an Arabic source from Kerala mostly concerned with the (evil) doings of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century (Lopes Citation1898).Additional informationAuthor's biographyFernando Rosa is an anthropologist and historian. He is currently a Research Fellow at the English Department, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. His main interest is in Indian Ocean cultural studies, and he has accordingly carried out research in several Indian Ocean locations, in particular Cape Town, Kerala, Macau, and Melaka as well as in Brazil and the Caribbean. He works on languages and processes of creolisation. He has published in journals in both Portuguese and English as well as in various edited collections in English, most recently in African Cultural Studies, Social Dynamics, and Cultural Dynamics. He is currently completing a book manuscript on “The Portuguese in the Creole Indian Ocean.”

Art · Colonialism · Linguistics · Literariness · Literature · Malayalam · Modernity · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Portuguese · Sociology · Visual arts · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Social and Economic Development in India

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