Dr.Sashi Tharoor - a famed Indian Congressman's grandiloquence in both English and French and a surprising tryst shared by his high English with French

    Dr.Sashi Tharoor is a world-level statesman hailing from Trivandrum, Kerala who was born in London to Indian parents and had excellent education in catholic schools and colleges that are top-class in India in places like Bombay (now Mumbai) and Calcutta (now Kolkata). This rich background, exposure and familial encouragement to instill in him a deep-seated propensity to read since he was very young is what has earned him honour and respect not just among fellow statesmen in India who are his peers but also on the world stage by people in the United Nations. His use of vocabulary seldom used in everyday conversations, is quite a learning experience for any commoner as they would find themselves scrambling for dictionaries or online lexica as they get verbally bombarded with rare treasures hardly found in any thesaurus (thesaurus incidentally is a Latin word meaning treasure), since his eclectic choice of words go beyond anything that we can find in everyday paperback dictionaries. I, for one, am a huge fan of his linguistic prowess that eclipses that of his peers as the latter is not just a testament to his endless thirst for knowledge but also anyone listening to his speeches cannot come away without learning a word or two which they have not encountered before.

 


     In fact, I feel that it is a shame that there is no MLA from our neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu (either in Congress or in other parties) who can match or even come close to Dr.Tharoor's linguistic skills in both English and French, French being an added skill, I even doubt that many politicians from Tamil Nadu are even capable of expressing themselves flawlessly even in basic English without a strong Tamil accent in the parliament, as most prefer to speak in Tamil there because of their proud Tamil linguistic identity which they would naturally wish to flaunt in resistance to several ignorant Northern statesmen who parade their Hindi instead of sticking to English so that all can understand their speech easily - a practice that is deeply rooted in the North-South language politics for which the Central Government of India is largely responsible. Then again, fewer Indians may be even aware that Dr. Sashi Tharoor is skilled in his use of the French language. This is something that many from various regions in India have merely coming to learn about Dr. Tharoor fairly recently because of some Youtube videos from Dr.Tharoor's time in the UN as well as in a recent meeting with a Russian diplomat who knew only French and not English, necessitating Dr. Tharoor to switch to French.
     
       Being a Tamilian who is a polyglot by God's grace, I have no trouble understanding Dr.Tharoor's French, a language which I too speak fluently as it is my first love among European languages. The first UN video of Dr. Tharoor's was enough for me to understand his excellent skills in French and in his more recent video of a meeting that Dr. Tharoor participated in, during which he spoke to a Russian diplomat in French, I knew that Dr. Tharoor's French surpassed that of his counterpart in many respects varying from his familiarity with the syntactical structure of French to his extensive use of vocabulary pertaining to various subjects that highlighted that he reads texts in French alongside his mastery of French phonetics and fluency in the language, when it was all said and done, his counterpart thumped the table after hearing his speech and took off in a hurry, something that was similar to Magnus Carlsen thumping the chess table after losing a chess match with Gukkesh Dommaraju. In fact, while most Indians have had their fill with Dr.Tharoor's English, I would consider myself as just one of many fortunate connoisseurs of his French of Indian origin, among many others numbering several thousands or more who can speak French well in India and have learned to appreciate his French both at home and abroad, alongside the Indian francophone diaspora living in France and in francophone countries. Moreover, fewer Indians may know about Dr. Tharoor's contribution to the growth of the relationship between India and France and the Francophony (French-speaking world) and for me personally as a francophile, it is heartening to know Dr.Tharoor's role in promoting the learning of the French language in India by coordinating with the government to make it possible for everyone in India to get a glimpse of the Francophony through his promotion of channels like France 23 or TV5monde.

     In the light of the above facts about Dr. Tharoor, I would like to ask the readers of this article whether they are aware of a certain aspect that ties up Dr.Tharoor's high English vocabulary with the French language too which he is quite adept at using - a feat that few in India's long political history have successfully pulled off like Mrs. Indira Gandhi whose French video I had the honour of watching on Youtube as well. The aspect that I am alluding to is the fact that the vast majority of words used by Dr. Tharoor that have earned him the respect of his peers in politics as well as many a commoner in India and abroad are French in origin, although they are used in English. You heard that right!, English as a language is a poor one to say the least from a lexical standpoint, were it not for the countless words that flowed into it from the French language after William the Conqueror's conquest of England in AD 1099 in the Battle of Hastings after which French was spoken in England for over a millennium when French was the language of the English nobility and English took a subservient role till eventually English took over from French in England and even at this juncture many French words flowed in and it was always "posh" and "chic" for Englishmen and Englishwomen throughout the centuries to use French words and expressions that eventually found their place in English from obvious ones like "Sang-froid" or "Femme fatale" to the not so obvious ones like "jury" or "advocate", "governor" or "parliament" - all words of French origin. In fact, the very reason why someone with 0 knowledge of French who looks at a French text can understand many words without having learnt French is because those words found their way into English from French and not the other way around and it does not end here.

       Even to make one's English sound thoroughly refined and opulent in vocabulary like Dr. Tharoor does it, one cannot do without having to use many French words here and there as one would have fewer words of other linguistic origins in English compared to the larger percentage of French vocabulary in English as well as plain Latin vocabulary both of which account for a combined 60% of the English vocabulary (of which French vocabulary's percentage in English is 40%). Surely, I am in no way undermining Dr.Tharoor's proficiency in English or his extensive vocabulary in the language which he acquired through extensive reading of English books and his education in prolific institutions but I am just pointing out the coincidence that even to speak English the way Dr.Tharoor does, we as English speakers, cannot avoid using words of French origin in English, especially since English as a language is poor in vocabulary at the level of its core Germanic vocabulary used in everyday language whence the need to use lesser used words of greater panache which are coincidentally of French origin in English. Hence, as much as someone like president Trump in the US would harp on about the importance of both foreigners and natives using only English in the US - something that is a prerequisite for foreigners stepping into the US as well as speakers of Spanish, German or French in the US - an arrogant attitude which is displayed by English-speakers against speakers of other languages in their countries because most English speakers in the world are not polyglots like Dr. Tharoor, let alone like the average European or Asian. However, this arrogance of English speakers is found to be baseless and ludicrous, especially considering that the vast majority of English words come from other languages - whether Latin, French, Greek or languages of colonised groups of people in Asia and Africa. If we take away these words having origins in other languages, English vocabulary would be reduced to vagrancy and English would in fact appear to be the poorest language used by mankind for communication - so much for self-conceited anglophone monolinguals who would vaunt that multilingualism is an exercise in futility considering how many people speak English in the world!. Finally, coming back to our image of Dr. Sashi Tharoor in this picture having a speech bubble - the French within it reads "Long live India and France, long live the francophony (people and places that speak French in the world)" - something that would bode well with both Dr. Sashi Tharoor and I, as we are both francophiles who love the French language to bits, although I have never met him in persona but have oodles of respect for his linguistic skills in both French and English.