Baseball and language

Baseball is a unique sport. It is the favourite pastime of the "Red Sox Nation". And its popularity has attracted professionals from far (Japan) and near (Latin America). As with other American sports, there is a high level of specialization in baseball too. You have a pitching coach, batting coach, a first base coach and of course the overall team coach. Likewise, there is an umpire at the home plate and the other bases. Any Major League Baseball (MLB) aspirant has to start young, working his way from junior leagues to university teams, to minor league to the MLB.

You may be thinking why I am ranting about baseball, but this is the background to the main theme of this post.

Sometime back, during a Little League game at Methuen, a town northeast of Lowell, my temporary home base, the first base umpire's "English only on the diamond" order roused a big controversy. The batter and his coach, emigrants from Dominican Republic spoke only Spanish and no English. Later it was found that no baseball rule mandated "English only communication" and the Little League umpire was promptly suspended.

This brought up the question in the media: Is it ok to be in the US and not know English? Is Spanish only sufficient? These questions are still open and obviously, as in any such matter, there are people on both sides of the debate. The primary argument though is, Hispanics are the fastest growing minority in the US and this is the "Land of the Free" and so, people should be free to decide their language of communication.

Before proceeding, I'd like to put few things on record:
- I am not a fanatic
- The intention is not to impose my thoughts on others
- This is my point of view, and as always, others are entitled to their's

One of Bangalore's claims to fame is that its a truly "cosmopolitan" city. The exponential growth of the city's importance in the world stage is thanks largely to the world class companies IT and other fields, that have made it their base. Of course, the demand for "thought" workers meant that bright folks from all over the country flocked to this "Garden City". With the diverse set of people came diverse cultural practices, liftstyles, and, languages.

I am extremely happy to note, despite its infrastructure hiccups, Bangalore is well on its way to being one of the most important R&D centers in the world. Five years ago, when I visited the US for the first time, people mistook me to be from anywhere from Bangladesh, to the hypothetical Banglacor... not any more. The name Bangalore now stikes most people here involved in software, though not always in a favourable way (if you understand what I mean :-)

However, I am extremely sad on another, more subtle front - the ignorance of some (read 'most') "emigrants to Bangalore" towards the local culture and more importantly the local language. The common refrain I hear is: "Why should I learn Kannada?" "Kannada is of no _use_ to me, so why learn it" "Bangalore? You can live there for decades without speaking a word in Kannada, no worries".

It is not so much learning the language to be proficient in it, but atleast making an attempt. It saddens me no end that very few people even think of making an attempt. I sometimes tend to think that the friendly and accomodative nature of the "locals" is working against the language and culture to some extent.

My sincere appeal to such people: Please atleast make an attempt to learn the language and understand the local culture. It may not be "necessary", but it will definitely go a long way in being a true Bangalorean.