Madras Bashai

Madras Bashai (Tamil: மெட்ராஸ் பாஷ, translit. Meṭrās pāṣa, lit. 'Madras slang') is a pidgin language or a dialect of Tamil language heavily influenced by Indian English, Telugu, Kannada, Urdu and Hindi language spoken in the city of Chennai (previously known as Madras) in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu; it is not mutually intelligible with any of those except for Tamil, to a certain extent. The word bashai derives from the Sanskrit word bhasha, meaning "language", which means Mozhi (மொழி) in Tamil.

Madras Bashai evolved largely during the past three centuries. It grew in parallel with the growth of cosmopolitan Madras. After Madras Bashai became somewhat common in Madras, it became a source of satire for early Tamil films from the 1950s, in the form of puns and double entendres. Subsequent generations in Chennai identified with it and absorbed English constructs into the dialect, making it what it is today.

Evolution

Madras Bashai evolved largely during the past three centuries. Contrary to popular belief, Madras was not founded in 1640 by the British East India Company, but by the Medeiros family of San Thome, the wealthiest merchants of the Portuguese settlement and who were locally known as the Madra family.It was that family who lent their name to the new town of Madraspatnam, founded near two fishing kuppams on a stretch of coast along which all fishing villages paid to the church and a return to the Madeiros family on the financial backing it provided them. With its emergence as an important city in the British Empire when they recovered it from the French and as the capital of Madras Presidency, the contact with western world increased and a number of English words crept into the vocabulary. Many of these words were introduced by educated, middle-class Tamil migrants to the city who borrowed freely from English for their daily usage.^[1] Due to the presence of a considerable population of [[Telugu, Hindi and many oher language-speakers, especially, the Gujaratis, Marwaris and some Muslim communities, some Hindi words, too, became a part of Madras Bashai. At the turn of the 20th century, Though preferences have since shifted in favor of the Central and Madurai Tamil dialects, the English words introduced during the early 20th century have been retained.^[1]

Madras Bashai is generally considered a dialect of the working class like the Cockney dialect of English. Lyrics of gaana songs make heavy use of Madras Bashai.

Vocabulary

A few words unique to Madras Bashai are given below; an Internet project, urban Tamil, has set out to collect urban Tamil vocabulary.^[2]

Words borrowed from other languages

In film

Madras Bashai is used in many Tamil movies after the 1950s. Actors such, Manorama, J. P. Chandrababu, Loose Mohan, Thengai Srinivasan, Janagaraj, Cho Ramaswamy, Kamal Haasan, Vijay Sethupathi, Dhanush, Attakathi Dinesh, Joseph Vijay, are known for using it. Representative films are Maharasan, Michael Madana Kama Rajan, Thirumalai, Vasool Raja MBBS, Pammal K. Sambandam, Chennai 600028, Attakathi, Idharkuthane Aasaipattai Balakumara, Ai, Madras, Kasethan Kadavulada, Anegan, Vedalam, Maari, Sketch(film)^[7]

See also

• Madrassi
• Tanglish

Notes