Murugan Temple, Colombo (Source: Andy Nobes)

Do you know which non-Christian religion has grown the fastest in Australia since the new millennium? You might be surprised to hear that it’s Hinduism. Hinduism has different faces in Australia but I want to show how it is helping language maintenance for one particular group of migrants.

Hinduism is not brand new to Australia. Hindus and Hinduism have existed here since the early days of colonisation and Hindu temples and centres have been around since the 1970s. The term “Hinduism” is an overarching one for a religion that is diverse in its forms. The way Hinduism is practiced can vary between regions; the various forms can focus on different deities and encompass different cultural and linguistic practices. For this reason, there are approximately 50 Hindu temples in Australia.

One reason Hinduism is growing quickly is because of the large number of Indian migrants coming to Australia. Indians form the country of birth group (for Australia’s overseas-born population) that increased the most in size between 2001 and 2011 (up by 200,000 people).

The Hindus I want to talk about are Sri Lankan Tamils. They form the fourth largest Hindu group in Australia after Indians, Fijians and Nepalese. There were about 15,000 counted in the last census and most of them are located in New South Wales and Victoria.

Previous research has found that a devout Hindu faith can assist in heritage language maintenance. This generally relies on an ideological view about the need for a particular language in order to practice one’s faith appropriately. In a diaspora context, it is important to distinguish between the language(s) seen as necessary for the performance of Hindu rituals and the language(s) seen as necessary for communication to and amongst an often more linguistically diverse group of devotees.

Lord Murugan

Most Tamil Hindus follow a branch of Hinduism known as Saivism which views Lord Shiva as the preeminent god. For Tamils, there is a particular closeness to Lord Shiva’s son known as Lord Murugan. He is seen as the Tamil god and is considered a big part of Tamil culture. Many Tamil Saivites who have migrated from Sri Lanka “believe from generation to generation that Tamil means Saivism and Saivism means Tamil” (Suseendirajah 1980, p. 345). In this sense, the Tamil (தமிழ்) language is seen as an essential part of the practice of Saivism; “how are we going to pray in English?” asked a leader of one Tamil temple in Australia.

There are seven temples dedicated to Lord Murugan by name in Australia and these have been built and consecrated by Sri Lankans in the last 20 or so years. Located in several capital cities, they are not only sites for religious worship but important for bringing Tamil migrants together. The temple spaces promote traditional music and dance, host weddings and festivals, and serve Sri Lankan food from canteens. Some temples also play a role in educating the younger (second and third) generations and providing a space for them to perform and participate in Tamil religious and cultural activities.

So how can these temple spaces help with language maintenance? The answer is not obvious when you consider that the language of formal ceremony in the temples is Sanskrit, a language known by the priests who conduct them, but, largely not understood by most devotees. Add to this the fact that the ethnic and linguistic backgrounds of devotees in these temples are becoming increasingly diverse with the growth of Hinduism. Sometimes English is the only common language amongst them.

Despite these factors, the temples are still able to maintain the use of Tamil in various ways. When I visited and spoke to temple leaders at three Murugan temples, I was given the distinct impression that I was entering predominantly Tamil spaces; most signage was in Tamil script and the majority of people around me were conversing in Tamil. If you look at the temples’ written communications such as notices, newsletters, websites or Facebook sites, there is certainly evidence of English being used, but substantial content is presented in the Tamil script.

While the formal rituals in the temple occur in Sanskrit (as they would back in Sri Lanka), there are forms of group worship in the temple spaces that occur in Tamil. Worship such as the singing of hymns (based on ancient Tamil Saiva literature) and particular devotional songs, called bhajans, occurs in Tamil. The traditional music that is performed in the temples’ cultural halls contains a lot of Tamil. Religious lectures are delivered by visiting speakers in Tamil, communication with temple volunteers working at the front counters or serving food will all occur in Tamil if you can speak it. And if priests address the crowd in the temple they will do so in Tamil.

Not all the younger Tamil generation are proficient Tamil speakers so there is the risk of losing their interest if they cannot fully participate in the above activities. But at one temple, a weekly religious school is taught in Tamil to approximately 60 students indicating that some younger devotees are proficient in the language. This is on top of a secular external Tamil language school attended by many more Tamil children on weekends in the same city.

Sydney Murugan Hindu Temple (Source: Global Hinduism)

In this way, the temple might not be able to succeed in teaching the language, but for those members of the younger generations who wish to use Tamil, there are many opportunities to do so, from one-on-one communication with other devotees to the Saiva school.

Devotees who cannot speak Tamil still visit the temple for worship but many are excluded from the group activities that are conducted in the Tamil language. This is a salient point given that the number of Indians attending these temples is increasing. Will the temples eventually change their language policies to accommodate non-Tamil speakers? Or will they prioritise their role in Tamil language and cultural maintenance? This may, in part, depend on how many newly arrived Tamil-speaking migrants join the temple.

The evidence given from several temple leaders and devotees I spoke to indicates that they don’t see the younger generations as being that interested in maintaining the language in general, and so, if the religion is all they can keep then maybe the language of the temple will change in the future. As one temple leader said, “the religion will live for a hundred years but the language won’t”. Perhaps, while the languages (Sanskrit and Tamil) used in the worship aspect of the religion are likely to be upheld, we may see change in the languages (that is, a shift to English) used for communicative purposes, such as for information and education, in the temples.

Incorporating more English into the temples’ language policies will accommodate both the younger generations and the non-Tamil devotees. But will the ideology that connects Tamil and Saivism be so strong for the first generation members in charge of the temples that English will continue to be used only when necessary? Questions such as this seem yet to be addressed by the temple boards and indicate that language change is likely to occur gradually, and with complexity, in these spaces.

Details about my research about language maintenance in Tamil Hindu temples in Australia is available in Perera (2016).

References

Perera, N. (2016). Tamil in the temples – Language and religious maintenance beyond the first generation Multilingua : 10.1515/multi-2015-0059

Suseendirarajah, S. 1980. Religion and language in Jaffna society. Anthropological Linguistics 22. 345–62.

Tapas bar Samsara

Strolling in Barcelona’s city center reveals an astounding variety of spoken languages: there are the languages used by the throngs of visitors coming from literally everywhere, and also the languages of the 300,000 registered foreign citizens from more than 160 nationalities. Residents of Barcelona speak “a total of 277 languages.” These languages cannot only be heard but also seen: Besides Latin script, at smaller or specialized businesses (along with Catalan, which is compulsory but not exclusive on signage in Catalonia) we find Cyrillic (Russian), Chinese, Arabic, Urdu, and … Devanāgarī, the script of Hindi, Nepalese, and of the classical language of India, Sanskrit.

Sanskrit names in Barcelona are obvious on Indian restaurants and, of course, Yoga centers; but they are not exclusive to these: we can find a tapas bar (“tapas” are tasty small local appetizers) called “Samsāra” (the cycle of reincarnation), a marriage agency with the same name, a ladies’ apparel shop called “Dharma” (the Cosmic Law), a cosmetics shop called “Ādhāra” (“support”), and many more.

Marriage agency Samsara

Why was the verb form “Bhavantu” (“may they become”) chosen for a clothing shop for babies? Its owner, Mr. Rodrigo, born in Argentina, explained: “When my wife was pregnant with our baby we used to listen to an Indian mantra: ‘sarve bhavantu śaraṇam’ (‘may all beings be protected’). We do not practice Yoga, but we liked the sound of that word.”

A “mālā” is a rosary for mantra repetition (“japa”), so the name of the ladies’ apparel shop “Japamala & friends” owned by Mr. Sandro, of German origin, was intriguing. Mr. Sandro kindly indicated to me that his former partner was of the opinion that “names with many “a” sounds are better for business than names with many “o” or “u” sounds.” Mr. Sandro added that he has kept the name because “it sounds good.”

Sweet Minu Madhu

The “sweetest” experience in my quest was with a “fake” Sanskrit word. Walking in the old town I came across “Minu & Madhu”, another ladies’ apparel shop. The shop is run by Mrs. Martine, the friendliest lady from Périgord in France you could ever meet. She welcomed my explanation of the meaning of “Madhu” as “sweet” or “honey”: “Indian ladies tell me that it is a person’s name but they were not able to tell me what it means! People ask me so often about it and now I will be finally able to explain it, “je vous aime!”

Mrs. Martine got the owner, Mrs. Laura Serrat, a Catalan of French descent, on the phone: “I am sorry if this comes to you as disappointment”, she said, “but I did not choose the name for any reason connected to India. ‘Minou’ is what we endearingly call in French kitten or children, and ‘Madhu’ is what I used to call my Grandmother.” Assuming that this was a diminutive for “Madeleine”, I asked whether it should not be spelt “M-a-d-o-u”, instead. Mrs. Serrat’s response was: “I thought that it sounded sweet this way.” Well, isn’t this exactly what “Madhu” means?

Bhavantu baby store

Does Sanskrit then have a euphonic quality to itself? I asked Doctor Maria Elena Sierra, teacher of Sanskrit at the University of Barcelona. Dr. Sierra explained that interest in Sanskrit has grown in the past ten years, and so have the course offering of this language at the University. She told me that half of her students are foreigners who have gone as far as extending their stay in Barcelona in order to be able to complete their studies. They come from Belgium, the UK, Italy, Latin America and elsewhere; even including Indians and Nepalese residing now in Catalonia.

Dr Sierra teaching Sanskrit at the University of Barcelona

As to why Sanskrit “sounds good”, Dr. Sierra explained that the culture of ancient India was very concerned about the vibrations of spoken language. So, does Sanskrit have any special system to deal with the quality of sound? Dr. Sierra pointed to “Sandhi”, a rule of phonetic alteration, which she explained as “aimed at avoiding cacophony.” Besides, “Sanskrit shows a consonantism of a much older stage common to all Indo-European languages, which we recognize when we hear it.”

It is not only Sanskrit words in the Latin script that can be found in Barcelona, but imitations of Devanāgarī script are common too, as shown on the board of an attraction called “Shambhala” at the theme park of Port Aventura in the coastal area of Salou-Vilaseca.

Indexing “the exotic Orient”: fake devanāgarī on amusement park ride

The aesthetics of signs such as these is still tied to the Western idea of the “mysterious East”, crafted by colonial travelers and unmasked in Edward Saïd’s Orientalism (1978).

In other examples, as in the Nepalese restaurant “Himāli”, the signs are in both “Indianized” Latin script and in the actual Devanāgarī script. Diversity appears as important as communication here, and signage evidences that “we live in a new paradigm where homogeneity is no longer sustainable and cannot be simulated and where identities must be projected in global settings”, as Pujolar et al. (2011, p. 81) argue.

Surya Restaurant

Devanāgarī script may even appear without translation or transliteration, as on the sign of restaurant “Sūrya”. The sign displays the name of the Sun-God above a subtitle that reads: भोजनालय “bhojanalāya” (“dining hall” or “restaurant”).

The subtitle “Indian Street Food & Drinks” provides an explanation. The sign appeals to an experience of “authenticity”: only those who have travelled to India (or Sanskrit students) will be able to fully savor the term भोजनालय … and the delicacies of Indian street cuisine. At the same time, the sign exhibits a “de-territorialisation effect on cultural practices” (Pujolar et al., 2011, p.80; drawing on Appadurai).

Global culture is made of mobile individuals who link distant cultural spaces, as proven by the presence of the classical language of India in Barcelona. And since Sanskrit does indeed sound very good, let me end by saying: ॐ सर्वे   भवन्तु   सुखिनः (“Om sarve bhavantu sukhinah”), “Om, may all beings be happy!”

Reference:

Pujolar, Joan; Fernàndez, Josep-Anton; Subirana, Jaume. Language, Culture and Identity in the Global Age. Digithum, May 2011. ISSN 1575-2275. Available at: <http://journals.uoc.edu/index.php/digithum/article/view/n13-identicat>. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.7238/d.v0i13.1186.

Carnatic singer Prema Anandakrishnan and her accompanists performing for the monthly Sydney Music Circle concert

An important element of language relates to its aesthetic use, in other words, how we make our lives beautiful and present ourselves to the world beautifully through language. Anthropologists and linguists have been interested in this dimension throughout the 20^th century in their study of ritual and folklore and the ways that language is used in them through song, chant, oratory and other kinds of interactional discourse. Bauman’s (1975) Verbal Art as Performance crystalised many of these ideas to place an emphasis on performance when looking at such aesthetic modes of communication and to establish performance as an important area of study within Sociolinguistics and Anthropological Linguistics. Singing is an important cultural activity in which language as performance intertwines with music. As with many other forms of performance, singing often takes place within the context of a range of other embodied cultural practices.

In my Linguistics PhD thesis supervised by Dr. Verna Rieschild at Macquarie University, I looked at two singing traditions – Irish traditional singing and South Indian Carnatic singing – as practiced in diasporic communities in Australia focusing on performance, language choice and language ideologies and musicolinguistic artistry. My thesis research provided a fascinating opportunity to apply the ideas from the study of language as performance to forms of singing I loved, and explore dimensions of multilingualism, globalisation and migration within them.

In singing, highly marked language choices can be made such as using a language you don’t know or normally speak, or using a non-dominant language in a dominant setting. The transformative nature of the performance enables a transformation of settings and communicative practices. Hence, Irish traditional singers in Australia who speak Irish let their use of Irish in songs spill over into the informal speech or banter between the songs. Tamil-speaking Carnatic singers choose a song in Tamil (from the multilingual song repertoire) to elaborate with extended musicolinguistic improvisation.

Language ideologies, equally prevalent in singing as they are in speech, are particularly strong and transformative due to the expressive and heightened nature of performance. In Carnatic singing, an ideology of devotion to the Tamil language has competed with ideologies about music as a “universal language”- in other words, beyond any particular spoken language- throughout the 20^th century (Ramaswamy 1997; Weidman 2005). Hence, the multilingual repertoire and centrality of songs in Telugu and Sanskrit has remained along with recognition of Tamil and singers consciously or unconsciously vary (typically in small degrees) as to how they weight each language in terms of the number of songs in each language and how this correlates with the types of songs chosen (some Carnatic songs are considered to be more musically “heavy” and consequently more at the core of the repertoire). Meanwhile, Irish traditional singing is connected with ideologies relating to Irish language use which have arisen in the course of its revival and resistance to the hegemonic influence of English.

Perhaps the most “moving” aspect of singing, however, is the way that music and language artfully intersect in performance, which I call musicolinguistic artistry. In the final part of my thesis, I analysed the musicolinguistic artistry of both singing traditions. In Irish traditional singing, one aspect of musicolinguistic artistry is the ways that singers perform different versions of the same song with slight differences in melody, rhythm, text or performance practice. Singers typically maintain aspects of the particular version they acquired but usually put their own individual stamp on it through acceptable variations in the song text (O Laoire 2004), innovative performance practices such as harmony or framing the song in a particular way through banter.

In South Indian Carnatic singing, musicolinguistic artistry is at its zenith in the improvisatory format known as niraval (literally “filling up”) in which a line from a song is repeated in various melodic and rhythmic combinations over the continuing steady beat cycle of the song. In niraval, the singer first uses the musical elements to emphasise particularly meaningful phrases in the song text and then gradually develops the melody and rhythm to increasing virtuosity to the extent that the line of text becomes more of a vehicle for the music (Radhakrishnan 2012).

The diasporic context adds the further dimension of migration and transnational movement. In the Australia-based communities of practice engaged in Irish traditional singing and South Indian Carnatic music, the singing traditions are transplanted from their territorial origins, evoking a strong sense of connection to those cultural homelands and triggering or providing a space for other embodied cultural and linguistic practices which accompany the singing traditions (cf. Ram 2000; Dutkova-Cope 2000). Performance events of these singing traditions hence create micro-level ecologies in which practices of cultural continuity and language maintenance and revitalisation can unfold in ways that are meaningful and beautiful. Practices of transmission of these traditions and transnationalism (e.g. singers or other community members traveling “back” to Ireland or South India for learning, performing or attending performances) add another layer which further strengthens continuity.

Looking at these two singing traditions in my thesis, I have realised that performance animates and “moves” language in a number of ways, particularly when what is being performed is language itself. Hence singing and other forms of performed discourse could be seen as another kind of “language on the move”, encompassing the range of communicative functions and social practices reflected in everyday speech but also transcending them into an aesthetic experience. When the language being moved through performance moves globally through migration and transnational practice, the shifts created are strong and encouraging for linguistic diversity in a multicultural world.

References

Bauman, R. (1975). Verbal art as performance. American Anthropologist, 77(2), 290-311.

Dutkova-Cope, L. (2000). Texas Czech folk music and ethnic identity. Pragmatics, 10(1), 7-37.

O Laoire, L. (2004). The right words: Conflict and resolution in an oral Gaelic song text. Oral Tradition, 19(2), 187-213.

Ram, K. (2000). Dancing the past into life: The rasa, nrtta and raga of immigrant existence. Australian Journal of Anthropology, 11(3), 261-273.

Ramaswamy, S. (1997). Passions of the tongue : language devotion in Tamil India, 1891-1970. Berkeley. University of California Press. 

Radhakrishnan, M. (2012) ‘Musicolinguistic artistry of niraval in Carnatic vocal music’ in Ponsonnet M L Dao & M Bowler (eds) The 42nd Australian Linguistic Society Conference Proceedings – 2011 (Canberra, 1-4 Dec 2011) Canberra: ANU Research Repository

Weidman, A. (2005). Can the subaltern sing? Music, language, and the politics of voice in early twentieth-century south India Indian Economic & Social History Review, 42 (4), 485-511 DOI: 10.1177/001946460504200404