Our nightly reading these days is Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet, which I first read three decades ago and have very much been wanting to revisit; at close to 2,000 pages, it should occupy our bedtimes well into next year. The first novel, The Jewel in the Crown (also the title of the superb television serial made from it), is online at archive.org for anyone who wants to sample it; I thought I’d post this passage for its linguistic interest:
The teacher at the Chillianwallah Bazaar school, whose pupils were all Indian, was a middle-aged, tall, thin, dark-skinned Madrassi Christian, Mr F. Narayan: the F for Francis, after St Francis of Assisi. In his spare time, of which he had a great deal, and to augment his income, of which he had little, Mr Narayan wrote what he called Topics for the local English language weekly newspaper, The Mayapore Gazette. In addition, his services were available as a letter-writer, and these were services used by both his Hindu and Muslim neighbours. He could converse fluendy in Urdu and Hindi and the local vernacular, and wrote an excellent Urdu and Hindi script, as well as his native Tamil and acquired Roman-English.
“Roman-English” doesn’t convey anything to me; I’m guessing it might mean English written in the Roman alphabet, but how else would it be written? All suggestions welcome.
Also, just because it was preying on me and I’m pleased to have solved the puzzle: I’m enjoying my new Blu-ray of Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó, notorious for its 439-minute running time (I’m following my brother’s advice and taking it in chunks, easy to do since it’s divided into twelve parts), and today I watched the sixth part, “A pók dolga II (Ördögcsecs, sátántangó) [The Job of the Spider II (The Devil’s Tit, Satan’s Tango)],” which takes place in a bar where everyone is getting increasingly drunk. One character, Kelemen, keeps repeating the same phrases over and over until you want to slug him, and the most frequently repeated was subtitled “I was plodding and plodding” (it’s the first thing you hear in this YouTube clip). Of course I wanted to know what the Hungarian was, and I think I’ve finally figured out it’s vágtattam (see the conjugation here), which means ‘I galloped.’ I don’t know why the translator went with “plodding,” but it seems misleading.
Update. It would appear rather to be baktattam, from baktat ‘plod, trudge, walk slowly’; see Xerîb’s comment below.
There are plenty of google hits for ‘Roman English’, often along the lines of ‘Qur’an Transliteration in Roman English Script’.
It does seem to be specifically the script rather than the language (and it looks like it’s part of a list of scripts in your quote) – I found one page which talks about ‘writing the Urdu in Roman English Script’, which just seems to mean ‘in Roman characters’.
This seems like a faint possibility, but I’ll mention that with his namesake St. Francis, it seems possible that his is a Roman (Catholic) English.
But then I know little about Indian linguistic/religious history beyond what I learned from that classic of Bollywood Realism, Amar Akbar Anthony.
(Of course, his Roman-English ability follows on his ability to write in “Urdu and Hindi script”, so a script meaning seems more likely.)
One online Indian source offering “Roman English” versions of the Quran also offers a different volume in “Roman Urdu,” which means in context Urdu typeset in roman script rather than the usual script. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Urdu, which is more focused on online use. There’s still the question of what non-Roman script Indian publishers might typeset an English text in, though … That would just make the phrase peculiar-because-redundant, though, rather than nonsensical.
László feLugossy (one of the actors) – I wonder what the story behind the surprising (non-)capitalisation is.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eAEOfqF5p78
I am believing a knowledge of Hindi is helping understand this video, but it is not necessaried!
László feLugossy (one of the actors) – I wonder what the story behind the surprising (non-)capitalisation is.
Me too, but it seems to be a quirky personal addition; apparently he was born Lugossy László.
Hmm, and there are variants: Lugossy, feLugossy, Fe Lugossy László, fe Lugossy Laca.
Oh wait, I think I’ve solved the Roman-English thing; way down in the OED Roman entry we find:
I think “Roman-English” as describing a script, in a sentence that has already referred to Hindi and Urdu script(s), is an adequate and plausible interpretation of the passage and while a character like Mr Narayan may have written in a “stately stile” I’d like to see some post-17th-century usage (the 1948 Baugh doesn’t do it*) before entertaining that less obvious-in-context interpretation.
There are enough other references out there to “Roman-English script” to convince me that it was sort of an idiom, relevant in places where the dominant local script was not Roman but the primary Roman-scripted “outsider” language was English.
And an old New York lawsuit from around 90 years ago quotes (probably irrelevantly to the exact issue at hand) the monthly-pass ticket-selling policies of the Long Island Rail Road at the time, which had instructions for what the ticket seller was to do when “a purchaser is unable to sign his or her name in Roman (English) script.” Presumably they were worried about immigrants who were not illiterate-as-such but could only sign their name in some other script that the LIRR personnel might not be able to read?
Sorry, re the Baugh quote, it’s perfectly clear I think to a reader of modern English what a “noble Roman style” means in the context of someone writing English prose. But that’s no evidence of continuing use of “Roman English” to mean English-written-in-that-style. Or “stile,” if you like.
There was a Roman man
Who walked a Roman mile.
He found a Roman solidus,
Engraved in Roman stile.
…
Láci is the established nickname for László, FWIW.
I second Jen above. Mentions of both the “Roman English script” and “Roman English alphabet” don’t seem uncommon. I cannot get search engines to differentiate “Roman English” (which seems rarest) from “Roman-English”, “Roman/English”, or “Roman (English).” It works also with “Latin” instead of “Roman.”
My unsupported guess is that it’s merely a shortcut that our host would have opposed as an editor.
I don’t think it can be emended to: “He … wrote an excellent Urdu and Hindi script, as well as his native Tamil and acquired English.” I infer the wrong meaning of having a good command of written English, rather than good penmanship.
It also cannot be emended to: “He … wrote an excellent Urdu and Hindi script, as well as his native Tamil and acquired Roman.” Roman what? And “Latin” would be worse, suggesting he occasionally wrote in the classical language.
“He … wrote an excellent Urdu and Hindi script, as well as his native Tamil and acquired Roman scripts” is clear to me: he had excellent penmanship in the four different scripts of the four languages he was fluent in. However, this emendation clashes with an Italian obsession not to repeat the word script (or any other) so quickly.
More important, maybe for every native English speaker who’s stopped and puzzled by “Roman-English” there are two who’re stopped and puzzled by “Roman script” and need a double take to interpret it as the script used to write English?
Not sure if “English script” would work for native speakers, but it wouldn’t for me. I’d read it as an opaque allusion to some antiquated calligraphy, most likely related to copperplate script.
Consider the entry for te on p. 563 of this 1893 dictionary, which I think would be called a ‘Roman English’ dictionary of Hindustani:
And then there is this amusing example from the Census of India (1911), vol. 15 (Agra and Oudh), p. 262, which gives one an idea of the status of the collocation somewhat before the period in which The Raj Quartet is set.
For a straightforward example of present-day use of Roman English, scroll down to the blue box ‘Ayatul Kursi in Roman English Transliteration’ on this page, out of Hyderabad. (The language in Roman English script is Arabic.)
He could converse fluendy in Urdu and Hindi and the local vernacular,
The local vernacular of Mayapur is Bengali, a language spoken by over 240 million people with a rich literacy tradition. It seems odd to call it a “local vernacular.” Is that Scott being condescending or is the condescension part of the narrator’s character? (Or am I wrong in thinking the school is in Mayapur?)
The action is, to cut and paste from wikipedia, “in Mayapore, a fictional city in an unnamed province of British India. The province, which is located in northern India, shares characteristics with Punjab and the United Provinces. The names of places and people suggest a connection to Bengal, for example Mayapore is similar to Mayapur in West Bengal; however, the physical characteristics place the setting in north-central India, rather than in northeast India.” Presumably somewhere where the “local vernacular” is some Hindi “dialect” that may deviate substantially from the confected literary standard. A long ways from Madras, though.
I think it is Baktattam és baktattam és baktattam, from baktat ‘plod, trudge’.
(Some scenes of that…)
In Roman English ﻁ ﺖ of Urdu and त of Hindi are expressed by (t).
Ah, that’s thoroughly convincing, and I am convinced.
The action is, to cut and paste from wikipedia, “in Mayapore, a fictional city in an unnamed province of British India. The province, which is located in northern India, shares characteristics with Punjab and the United Provinces. The names of places and people suggest a connection to Bengal
So far it sounds rather as if it were in northwest India, but I’ll keep my eyes open for clues. I think the Mayapore/Mayapur connection is irrelevant.
I think it is Baktattam és baktattam és baktattam, from baktat ‘plod, trudge, walk slowly’.
That makes sense, and I thank you for the correction!
When Hari moves back to Mayapore and lives with his aunt, he starts taking Hindi lessons from Pandit Baba, not Bengali.
It is hard not to think that Scott chose Mayapore as a speaking name: माया māyā ‘illusion, deception, delusion, fraud’ + पुर ‘fortress; town’.
Xerib, you’ve won the thread three times over.
I think the Mayapore/Mayapur connection is irrelevant.
Apparently. Thanks to you and the others for the context.