Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to A Language Journey, a podcast series where we explore humans, where they come from, the languages they speak, the stories that shape them, and who they are. Today we're joined by Andy Mendez from Bangladesh. Andy, can you introduce yourself a little bit? Tell us about yourself, where you're from, and the languages you speak.
Speaker: First of all, I would say that I'm really glad to be here and on for the first journey of language. Thank you. Yes, and I am from Bangladesh, originally from Taka, Bangladesh, which is a capital. What languages are spoken in your home country, home city? Bring us through your life and what languages you learned at different points.
Speaker: Well, growing up, the thing is I was... My mother tongue, as we call it, is Bengali or Bangla, to be exact.
Speaker: Okay, so fact time. Bengali or Bangla is an Indo -Aryan language primarily spoken by Bengalis. Also, there are 22 official languages in neighboring India. Of those, Bengali is the second most widely spoken, behind only Hindi, with about 260 million speakers. Bengali is the seventh most spoken language by total number of speakers in the world. When I was growing up, my family
Speaker: It has a background, like my father's side is actually Portuguese. So through that, we have our mother tongue, that's what we've got to learn. And on top of that, my home language, you could say, or whatever, the thing that I used to speak at the house is English. So that's not something usual for every other kid growing up from my country.
Speaker: And besides that, I know Hindi, which is from India, Urdu from Pakistan, and still on process of still getting the Portuguese language. So you speak Bengali, you learned Hindi along the way, and you said you learned English.
Speaker: The thing about, like, Hindi I was telling about, I actually picked up Hindi along the way, like, looking into movies or... A lot of people watch, like, you know, Indian movies and they're used to grown -ups looking at... We picked it up through that. And a lot of people can actually, like, pick it up and carry it on. And then a lot of people are just like, okay, I'm good with that. Can you say, hi, nice to meet you in those three languages? I just want to hear them.
Speaker: Sure, no problem. Hi, nice to meet you in Bengali is Kia Monacho, which is how are you. And nice to meet you is, well, let me just say it in a sense, basically. So it's a long line, but that's how it is.
Speaker: in Hindi, you could say, is ab gesat mil ke bahat a chalaga. So that's Hindi. And what was the other one you wanted? Urdu is pretty much the same as Bengali, as Indian as well, kind of like a little bit here and there. Ab gesat
Speaker: Mulakat hoke achalaga. Mulakat and milke. So, Mulakat is meat in Urdu. And milke is meat in Hindi.
Speaker: Fact time. Burdu is the national language of Pakistan and is closely related and mutually intelligible with Hindi. There are many similarities between these two languages. While they do have different written scripts, at the informal and spoken level, they are often considered a variety of the same language.
Speaker: What's your level of fluency? In each of those, basically my Bengali is spot on, I would say. Reading and writing. But here's another thing, a lot of kids these days don't know Bengali how to write them. Because it's kind of like a scripture, you could say. Interesting.
Speaker: Even if I write it down on a paper, it's a little different for that note. And Hindi, fluent, I can't write it, but I read it a little bit because there was a time I went to India for about a year to study. And yeah, I kind of picked up the, because we had to do
Speaker: Do you notice any similarities between Urdu, Bengali and Hindi that might have made it easier for you to learn a new language like that?
Speaker: I mean, yes, of course, there are similarities, you know, here and there. One thing I would say with Bengali, there isn't any similarity with Hindi or Urdu. The original Hindi, I would say, is not anywhere close to Bengali. And Bengali is a whole different as well.
Speaker: There is a little similarity between Hindi and Urdu. There are a lot of things in Bengali that you will not exactly get in Hindi or Urdu. All right, fact time. In 2015, there were about 109 million speakers of Urdu in Pakistan, 15 million of whom speak it as a native language.
Speaker: Urdu is spoken in certain states in India, also in Nepal, South Africa, Guyana, and it is spoken by about 250 ,000 people in Bangladesh. You see the, and these, these all alphabets, I, like I mean, I understand. See the Urdu, Bengali, and Hindi. The Urdu,
Speaker: Again, I'm only looking at this for the first time. The Urdu alphabet looks a lot like Arabic to me. Do you see a lot of the same letters? Do you know any Arabic?
Speaker: Me personally, I don't know Arabic, but there definitely are similarities to Arabic with Urdu. And that's one of the reasons I would say Bengali is one of... We had a war between Pakistan and Bangladesh, and that was for the language itself.
Speaker: Like we, Bangladesh, you know, dash is a country and Bangladesh is our language. So that's the, like our flag is green and red. You know, the red circle in between is the blood shed for the green of the rest of the flag.
Speaker: During the conflict between East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh, and West Pakistan, now currently Pakistan, it is estimated that between 300 ,000 and 3 million Bengali people were killed by the Pakistani military and other supporting militias. Many modern scholars refer to the events of this conflict as an example of genocide. The result of the war was the liberation and establishment of the sovereignty of Bangladesh.
Speaker: I mean, you say the war was kind of over the culture, the language. Yes. Well, after the war, what happened with that? Well, basically, that's how we formed. Basically, the thing is we were East Pakistan.
Speaker: demanded that, OK, we want our own language. We have it. We can speak it. And the people, the government from Pakistan, a lot of officials, everybody, they didn't want us to speak our own language, Bengali. You want to speak your mother tongue or a language you can connect to your own people.
Speaker: that's so what happened after it we became independent man we became Bangladesh so that's thing like 1971 it was one of if you look up on on the internet too it was one of the
Speaker: worse wars in history because there was famine eventually. A lot of people had to migrate move from here to there. A lot of people were killed. Kids coming back from school were asked questions like, okay, can you speak in Urdu? It's a bad scene, but they were shot dead because they couldn't speak in Urdu.
Speaker: And they're just, you know, they're just kind of coming back from home. Like, that's how we came to be. Like, that's how language is so important to us, to an extent. And that was only, you said that was in the 70s, early 70s? 1971, yeah. So since then, the two countries have obviously split. It was Bangladesh and there's Pakistan. Do you recognize when you're looking at
Speaker: The languages in Pakistan. Do you recognize? The similarities there because if they came from didn't you're saying they came from the same language basically No, yeah. No. No, there's a thing like Bengali is it like it's totally separate than Urdu so the thing is I like when I have a lot of Pakistani friends, but when they speak in in Urdu I understand them and
Speaker: But when I speak in Bengali with my people or, you know, my dad calls up and I just right away switch into Bengali. And then they're like, dude, what are you speaking? I'm like, dude, that's what we fought for, man. Where where is Urdu spoken? Where is it spoken? Pakistan. Only only. No, I mean, there are other parts. It's basically like you could say the mother tongue of Pakistan. OK.
Speaker: Urdu is the national language of Pakistan and is closely related to and mutually intelligible with Hindi. There are many similarities between these two close languages. While they do have different written scripts, at the informal and spoken level, they are often considered a variety of the same language.
Speaker: So you're growing up in Bangladesh, you learned Bengali as a kid, and growing up, what was it like learning Urdu? Were there any tensions? Was it something that was still an expectation? Describe your childhood with those two languages.
Speaker: The thing is, that is actually a good question in a way because the thing is, it kind of differentiates our own country people and how they perceive that notion of things. The thing is, like for me in a sense, for my dad or my family, even my family was a part of the war.
Speaker: It was kind of tough. At the same time, it wasn't, I would say, because all the time you're going to school, you have Bengali classes. They'll teach you the letters and everything ever since you were a kid, ever since you're in a kindergarten and stuff. And Urdu, you won't really find movies from Pakistan in our country, a lot of it.
Speaker: You have to actually go to the internet and look up a Pakistani movie and listen to Urdu or kind of like that.
Speaker: but I kind of picked up Urdu actually after I would say after I finished like yeah kind of like after I finished grade eight something like that so it was true a little later throughout my life span that I kind of like caught up to Urdu. What were the reasons that you went down that path around eighth grade to learn Urdu?
Speaker: Honestly, the thing is, I was... I do music, so it's a very natural instinct for an artist to actually... Or I just had artist instincts, you know, kind of in a sense that I wanted to learn more. And around the age of grade eight, you know, or when you're in grade seven,
Speaker: and you're just like 12 years old. So you are kind of growing, you know, you're evolving as a person. So for me, it was kind of like a thing that I want to know, okay, I know about the war, but
Speaker: what is it about the Urdu that they didn't want to leave it like Pakistan didn't want to leave that and we didn't want to receive it or want to you know take it on so of course I love you know I love my language and there's no complaints on that but it's like what was the reason exactly like go deeper to that
Speaker: So it was I guess it was my instinct or like or I don't know it was something something that actually and and also Speaking coming from a family who's which has a Portuguese background You know, we have the like the Portuguese stuff at the same time as well
Speaker: So it was always kind of like an interesting thing to know a language. And what I've kind of felt is once you come across or meet people or you want to know another language, you know that nation. You get to know more about the people from there. So in 2015, there were about 109 million speakers of Urdu in Pakistan, 15 million of whom speak it as a native language.
Speaker: Urdu is spoken in certain states in India, Nepal, South Africa, Mauritius, and Guyana, and is spoken by about 250 ,000 people in Bangladesh. How long did the process take for you to become fluent in Urdu? How old are you, 11 at this point, you said? About 11 or 12, maybe?
Speaker: About, yeah, about 11, 12, something like that. Yeah, how long did that take you? One thing about the thing, like just to make it more distinct that I'm not fluent, fluent at Urdu. I can pick it up along the way. And fluent in a sense, you could say that I can have a good conversation with one of my friends from Pakistan. If I speak to them in Bengali,
Speaker: they will not be able to have a conversation back to me. So that's a funny notion when we have a conversation and it's like, you don't know Bengali man, but I can pick up your Urdu, you know. So I get a sense that maybe, correct me if I'm wrong, do a lot of Bengali people speak Urdu, does it necessarily go the other way that a lot of Pakistani people also speak Bengali? Tell me about that.
Speaker: and here's where that like that interesting thing comes in is basically a lot 98 % of people who are from Pakistan don't know Bengali at all and so yeah about 98 % it's about 98 % of the people from Pakistan which is funny that they don't understand Bengali at all they don't know the sound of it you know how
Speaker: Sometimes you can understand or pick up something, but they can. But from our side, it's not because of...
Speaker: how we are, but I don't know a lot of people from Bangladesh can do actually understand Urdu at the same time. But as I said, Bengali on that sense is like a whole lot different than Urdu. I guess it's ranked the fourth toughest language in the world right now at the moment. We'll have to look it up. Bengali.
Speaker: So tell me, I'm going to back up a little bit. You're generally from, you know, we in the United States, we call it K to 12 education, but like,
Speaker: From your childhood all the way to when you graduated high school before college, what's it like? How common is it to study English, study, or do in your schools, to have that concurrent with Bengali? One thing about the schools in Bangladesh, they will not teach you Urdu at all, and not at all.
Speaker: just because people and Urdu is similar to Arabic, which is like, which is actually very true. Like you picked it up, you know, when you, as you said earlier, that it has similar, like similarities. If you look at it, it has similarities with Arabic. So a lot of like, like people who are Muslim, they know how to read the Quran, you know, so they pick up that Arabic
Speaker: so they are kind of generally understand the Urdu which comes out so it has there's many similar words of Urdu which is which is also Arabic at the same time so and you there's no other
Speaker: like similarities with Bengali with any others you know like you can't it's not similar to to Arabic at all so you can't pick it up I'm going to deviate a little bit Andy you're an artist I know that you have been involved with music with bands photography can you tell me where do these languages intersect with your you being an artist do you utilize all of them in your art
Speaker: That is, like, I like that question on that note. Because the thing is, as an artist, you know, you want to connect with people. As an artist, bottom line, is you want to connect with people, more people. And that actually helped me quite a lot to move on or get past a wall that I faced or encountered. That's the thing about languages,
Speaker: You make the other person feel at home. Which languages have you explored artistically? I used it. I used my language and English. I incorporated it and like kind of like fusioned the whole process and then put it on a song. There are times that I actually incorporate Bengali and Hindi.
Speaker: incorporate those two languages, not English at all, no Urdu, but straight up Hindi and Bengali in the same song.
Speaker: And also Urdu, not as much actually, but I do practice like there are notes as me as a vocalist, there are notes that you want to hit or I personally want to hit, you know, I want to reach a certain note. So I kind of like because how it's how the note for Hindi changes in their language, you know,
Speaker: the note for Urdu changes in their language so so your vocal kind of like you know shifts through because the thing is we're so used to that the Bengali the tone the note of it you know but Hindi note is different you know Hindi classical music is different Bengali classical music is
Speaker: different than Hindi. Same with Urdu music is different. So I kind of explored that more and picked like I feel like the music actually helped me pick up more of that language because I kind of like wanted to listen to it and practiced those notes at the same time. So it kind of like helped me get through.
Speaker: Is it pretty natural to, like you kind of spoke about the tones, is it really natural to go in between those? Do you find it harder to mix English with others? You know, if you're going to commit to singing in English, is that just kind of like an isolated thing with the languages that you know?
Speaker: Honestly, it was very natural for me to actually pick it up or incorporate those languages. But because, as you said, that was it tough for me to put in English and, you know, it wasn't actually. And when I was kind of like playing that song in a guitar, I kind of feel like this thing kind of like sounds similar to Bengali. Since I sing Bengali, so I know the notes of it,
Speaker: So I recognize that you are fluent in numerous languages, but we are confined to talk in English. I don't know the languages you do. So we're kind of kind of trapped in English here. Can you tell me a little bit about your journey to learn English? I mean, you're fluent and you live here in the United States. Tell us a little bit about that journey. It's funny you ask that question is because what's funny is my dad. So we have
Speaker: We have two kinds of schools, or two mediums as we call it, English medium and Bengali medium. So the medium provides you with that, okay, so you will learn everything in Bengali. So there are kids who actually know math, like mathematics in Bengali. There's kids back in the country who know science in Bengali.
Speaker: So that also interests me at the same time too, because I grew up learning science in English, geography in English, and history in English about Bangladesh.
Speaker: The thing is, when I was growing up, this ice was studying in the English medium school, but I was studying in one of those kind of like, our principals were women who were sisters, you know. So we always like, hello sister. They were the church -going people.
Speaker: So, we always used to speak in English back in school, but when I used to come home, I used to speak Bengali, you know, certainly. Take the freedom of the country, you know, kind of like that. When I was speaking in Bengali at the house, there were times that my dad used to be like, you know, that's English, speak in English. And I used to get pissed off. I was like, why? You know, I'm at the house. I'm at the comfort of my home. You know, so he's like, no, because
Speaker: Trust me, you'll need it later. You'll understand why I'm telling you that. He used to say that it's kind of like the first language of the world, or not first language of the world, but it's kind of like an international language.
Speaker: It'll help you get through places sometimes. You mentioned a little while ago that learning English isn't very common. So when you're describing your parents making you speak English at home, is that common in Bangladesh?
Speaker: that's uh and that isn't actually a common thing in Bangladesh because uh you see when sometimes even uh it's it's not i wouldn't say it's something that i'm proud about or it's there is nothing like that but i do have a lot of friends who tell me that amen
Speaker: you are actually very fluent, like you don't have an accent from where you are, you know. So the thing is, and that's why I guess it's my dad's, you know, scolding or something like that, which he, like, you know, he wanted me to learn that because kids from like even my friends from the country and when we speak in
Speaker: in English, they'll actually give out an accent of Bengali. Or you can certainly like kind of pick it up like, okay, after a full conversation for two minutes, you'll understand like, okay, this guy may be from from from a country like Southeast Asia or, you know, or he has a little bit of an accent. At what point in your life do you think that you attained full fluency of English? Was it before you came moved to the United States? Was it
Speaker: After, was it well after? It was actually, the other way around, it was well before. I would say I was super fluent fluent when I was grade two, three, because that's how we studied in the school. So that's how we spoke to our teachers in school, in English. We never spoke, except for the Bengali teacher. We always spoke with them in Bangalore.
Speaker: But except for that, even our principal, always English. Any teacher in school, always English. Even our sports teacher. So even PA guy, even the PA teacher.
Speaker: What do you remember as the most difficult part of learning English? Was it like the pronunciation? Was it spelling? Was it the word order? When you're trying to craft a sentence in English, what part of that was difficult? What part of that maybe was easy for you?
Speaker: Thinking back right now, right now, actually you did take me back because I was thinking about how did I pick up English, you know? So it was tough for us to actually write in Bengali more than actually writing in English. Why do you think that is? I don't know because I feel like right after I was born, you know, we were always speaking in English at the house or even having names
Speaker: like what I have and even having names at the house. My brother's name is Alex. It's not really a common name back in the country.
Speaker: And there were times we we even like I even spoke to We had conversations, you know in in English with our uncles and aunts Even when I was a kid, but it was actually tough to pick up Bengali and write, you know and learn that and I was actually I would say it's the other way around because I
Speaker: was fluent in Bengali in writing. Speaking, yes, you know, you pick it up along the way. But in writing, so I was like super fluent when I was in grade four, I think, in Bengali. But in English, it just came to be, happened to be. Same question with Hindi and Urdu. What did you, going from Bengali or English to those languages, what was really difficult or what was easy for you?
Speaker: moving from Bengali and English to Hindi because I did that one year in school in India. So I did have to kind of learn it, learn it in a way. Since I kind of knew how to speak it a little bit, it was nice to go through the books. What are your future language goals? What do you want to learn? What do you want to improve on? Where do you see yourself going from here?
Speaker: Honestly speaking, I want to get on with Portuguese, get closer to my roots of the family than the country, I feel, because the country's roots, I have reached it from personal experiences, I think.
Speaker: But the goals, I would say, get more fluent in Portuguese. Maybe kind of like, because Portuguese, the letters are English letters, you know, so you can, if you can pick it up, you can write it. That's not a big thing, but at the same time, like, I want to pick up more of the Portuguese and you connect with people through language, you know, so I love to travel.
Speaker: first of all another thing that I like we all do but there are people who are like you know there are people like me I would say or I am one of them in another way would say that I like to go to a place and and kind of like get to know about their language and and you know get closer to the people because
Speaker: As I mentioned earlier throughout the conversation that even when I was speaking to my friends in Hindi, it felt like I was close to them. So pretty much that's another thing that I want to travel and kind of
Speaker: Even if I can pick up like a small little conversation throughout, not Portuguese, Portuguese, yes, I would want to get to know it full, but get to know more languages along the process.
Speaker: little bit here and there, you know, people have different ways of saying hellos, they have different ways of saying goodbyes or, you know, a lot of things. So, because language is culture at the end of the day and why not get to know a new culture, you know, dip into it. And it also helps with my art, my craft.
Speaker: So do you think that being an artist has helped make it easier to explore new languages, you know, in the past and in the future? I would say definitely being an artist, you know, helped me big time tapping into different languages and it helped me, it actually helped me grow in my own craft.
Speaker: And that's one of the reasons me as a vocal, I see it, you know, or I can feel it, okay, that when I practice something in Urdu, you know, it kind of helped me with my heart. So definitely being an artist, I'm lucky to be an artist who wants to know, or I'm lucky to be an artist who wants to know actually about other languages, pick it up along the way. Is there a Portuguese song in your future?
Speaker: That's funny, man. I think so. I think so. I'm like, I hope so. That'd be nice. That would mean that, okay, I actually got through the phase of learning Portuguese because that's kind of like where you have a certificate of being fluent because you can sing in that language. And basically, if you're a singer -songwriter, that means you went through the process of writing a little poetry, things like that. Do you call yourself a songwriter?
Speaker: little bit, little bit. It helps me incorporate the feelings that I have in my mind or something that I have in my head and write it down. And that's another thing about like poetry. People, and it's good that you picked up that poetry thing because poetry is in so many different languages, you know. Poetry is something that describes a lot of things in a very small, in four lines it describes a lot of things about a country or a culture.
Speaker: So Andy Mendez, I want to thank you for joining me on this first podcast I've ever recorded. Especially this one about languages is something that I think we can all appreciate. We all go through a language journey of our own. Thank you, Andy, for sharing yours with us. Do you have any?
Speaker: closing thoughts about language, culture, life? Absolutely. I would say, man, thanks a lot for having me at the same time. It was certainly definitely a good conversation, a good time, you know, talking about your own language. You don't get to do that often with people. It definitely gets me a little emotional at the certain bit about that, you know.
Speaker: I would say I would ask people to not just like learn it right away, you don't have to learn a language but it's always nice to accept something and get to know it better. That's something that I would say like you don't have to as a bottom line don't you don't have to exactly learn a language but be open to it you know it gets you closer to that culture and people.
Speaker: Thank you for listening to A Language Journey. My name is Ken Walker. I'd like to thank my guest, Andy Mendez, for bringing me through his life and his languages. There are over 7 ,000 languages spoken all over the world. I hope you enjoyed this conversation about just a few of them. That's it for me. Be well.
