My Grandmother took me on a journey through history enlightened me on the influence of colonialism in the local language
India is a land of different languages and cultures. Even within each state in India, local factors influence the local language. I’m from a southern state called Tamilnadu, and my mother tongue is Tamil. Though I was born in a city called Tirunelveli, I grew up in Chennai city. The same Tamil language is different between the two cities, and I found it out when I was a young boy with the help of my Grandmother. We used to call her “Achi,” which in Tirunelveli-Tamil is for Grandmother. But in Chennai, we used to call “Ayah” for Grandmother. During one of my school vacation, I was in my grandma’s home and called my Grandmother “Ayah.” She gave me a ferocious look and said, “Don’t call me Ayah,” like it was a curse word. I pondered her for a reason and found there is a history behind a simple word Ayah which had its roots dating back to colonial India.
Colonial settlements in India:
Colonization in India was kicked off by the Portuguese first. The Portuguese first settled down on the Malabar coast of modern-day Kerala. The Portuguese’s lucrative trade soon caught up with other European countries, and the Dutch and French came to India to trade. The English were the last to arrive. So when the East India Company settled in Madras, the locals cant call them white guys or “Vellakaran” as almost every other countrymen from Europe were white. The Dubash or translators asked the French guys in Pondicherry (just 150km from Madras) how do they call the new guys in town. The French guys said, “Anglais,” the Dubash converted it to Tamil and made it as “Angileyar.” East India company officials initially came as single men and made a huge fortune with their family in Britain. Leaving family in Britain was due to the long journey around the African coast, which was infected with hurricanes and pirates. Once the Suez Canal opened, the East India Company officials were able to bring in their families to India. Now they needed someone to take care of their kids as a nanny.
The Origin of Ayah:
“Ayah” is a Portuguese name for a housemaid who takes care of kids. A typical East India Company(EIC) officer’s had 2 Ayahs for each kid. One contemporary account stated that its eight times cheaper to have a maid in India compared to Britain. The EIC official’s wife had to live the victorian dream (sipping tea with a biscuit in a hot afternoon), so they needed nannies to take care of their kids. The Ayah broke the radial differences of the period and grew closer to the kids. The English kids took up local languages and local customs from the Ayahs. The Madras Ayah’s where of high demand.
The Ayah’s accompanied their British family to Britain during their vacation. Mostly they traveled back to India, but in some cases, the British family abandoned their Ayahs in Britain. The dissolute Ayah’s begged for food and shelter. The British government took matters into hands and set up a lodging facility for the Ayahs to stay and find a new job or earn enough money to go back to India. Why did the Ayah’s risk such a journey? Well, if the British family is a good one, they have an opportunity to see mighty Britain and earn handsome money as the wages are higher during the journey.
Grandmother’s reason:
Why was my Grandmother angry about the Ayah word? My Grandmother was from the British colonial period. For her, Ayah is someone who worked with the British, and she doesn’t want any association of that on her. But these Ayah’s are the ones who tied humanity over the color of skins. The British kids showed immense love towards their Ayah’s irrespective of radial difference. The word Ayah even now used in Chennai and surroundings, stresses that love can exist between people of different colors and that the colonization had crept into the local language.
interestinghistoryforall 