In response to my comment: "The BPO and call centre companies that have sprung up in the last > decade will ensure that far more people are capable of emitting the sort of > sounds that B. M. Kaul (I think) is generating.........."
Gabe Menezes's response was: They call me every second day - even though I am subscribed to a service that prohibits them calling me! They call themselves Ash, Peter, John and so forth and so on. Unfortunately all of them have a quasi American twang! And Gabriel de Figueiredo commented: "Ha ha!, yes, when the local car insurance company out-sourced their call-centre, I knew I was talking to an Indian with a bad American accent, and I did mention the fact to him, who denied it. Anyhow,the cat was out of the bag when he used rather Indian terminology and went on to mentioning costs (which Aussie call-center never did in the past) rather than asking if everything was OK..." I find these sorts of responses rather patronising and inane to say the least, coming from people who I doubt can communicate in any other language except their own rather stilted forms of phoren English! Do these pompous worthies realise that the call centre workers they seek to patronise, who no doubt have an American or whatever twang in their accents are able to communicate very well and can deliver the services that they are paid to do? Remember, for most of them English is not their first language, but their mother tongues like Kannada, or Telegu or Marathi or Bengali. In addition to this all of them know Hindi as well. And they probably know at least one other language which is the third language that they learn at school, if not more. In Goa it is not uncommon for people to speak not just Konkani and Hindi, but also have a good understanding of Marathi and also sometimes have a passing acquaintance with French and Portuguese. Compared to such people can these Gabs unlike what their names suggest, forget any other language, can they even speak a sentence or two of their own mother's tongue - Konkani? Asa re capazdade? Zata zalear matshe ulouvn dakhoiyat. Na zalear sonn bond korun ogi bosat! Vhodle Englishmen bolsan shenn - tumi te vhodle sukhe bopke amkam dakhoit naka re! Keep the patronising for the whites who call you wogs and coons and Pakis. Ani zabab diunk zai zalear matxem chintun zab di; anink goo ani merde mhaka aikunk naka. Cheers Augusto -- Augusto Pinto 40, Novo Portugal Moira, Bardez Goa, India E [email protected] P 0832-2470336 M 9881126350
