Where art thou, O columnist!
 Of
semi-literate nannies, Sri Lankan English and other things :
An elderly critic asked me to read one particular column. This
appeared on Sunday before last.
“He has called Vijitha Fernando a semi-literate nanny.” He sounded
shocked. So was I, just to hear that remark.
It intrigued me to browse the newspapers for that column right away.
I could locate it within a few minutes. The columnist used to be a good
friend of mine, but I do not normally read his column because it’s too
‘intellectual’ and I cannot digest that language. Even so I got into
that hard job, because I wanted to locate that semi-literate nanny talk.
I would not give out columnist’s name for obvious reasons, but I would
extract the particular wording for your interest.
 “For
instance, an infamous Nanny who recently won an award or robbed an award
thanks to her daughter who was one of the judges in the panel, had come
out to defend a ‘Meditating Author’ who won an award for her unreadable
text.
The Nanny’s outburst was resultant in her tribal affiliations with
the ‘Meditating Author’ and few others who had robbed awards. This semi-civilised
tribe is marked for its capacity of the cranium which is different to
other tribes.”
Cards on table I share his view; we have a problem in Sinhala works
translated into English. There are both capable and incapable
translators in our region. Having a good command of English doesn’t mean
you can translate a Sinhala work into English. We suffer no such
predicament in English works translated into Sinhala. Most of our
scholars are conversant in both languages, especially in Sinhala so they
know where to use the right idiom. Problem is not just that.
How can the columnist call Vijitha Fernando a semi-literate Nanny
(his caps) and that she had robbed the award. Well anyone can criticize
Vijitha Fernando, but ethically can you be this harsh? I do personally
call this mud slinging, which is now quite noticeable in the political
scene. I recall what the elderly critic said. “He thinks he is a veteran
critic just because he writes in a bombarded language. But he has to
know journalistic ethics first of all.”
To criticize someone harshly, you should have some authority. When it
comes to creative writing, I think a critic should be a creative writer
too (a creative writer rarely likes to criticize another work, that’s
another story). As one of my friends said once only a creative writer
knows the pain of the job. Critic knows only to criticize and he is
alien to that pain. A creative writer builds his own castle with lots of
efforts and a critic can demolish it by a single stroke of pen.
There can be misgivings in judgment, and the fact that some throw
grand parties to be award holders is no secret. But just because he
doesn’t like Vijitha Fernando, I wonder how he can call it ‘robbing
awards’.
Vijitha’s translations may have loopholes. But no one can call her a
semi-literate nanny. Translation is a hard job, harder than creative
writing at times because you cannot go off the original frame. Our
columnist is also engaged in something like that, but he merely edits
what another translates. His column lays down some rules that should be
followed in translation, and he violates his own rules in the ‘editing’
– it baffles mere mortals like us. Our hopes of good translations end
here.
To search a little deeper into the soul of our columnist friend, I
read between some of his lines. Then I came across another gaffe. He has
called Sri Lankan English a substandard version. Good for someone who is
at home with Queen’s English. I wonder what he has got to say about
American English, Canadian English and other varieties. He doesn’t seem
to know Sri Lankan English is studied as a separate subject with its own
elements of phonology, morphology and so on. Everyone cannot speak or
write Queen’s English. They must not, in fact.
Our columnist doesn’t write in Queen’s English either. That I know
for sure. He likes to make his language very high-flown; he may think it
is Queen’s English. He thinks he is a lord of wits, but will he ever
realize he is just a wit among lords? I once again look at those words
of his column. They drift back and forth.
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