Yesterday, I wrote the first part of this article and I found mixed reactions among the readers. I could find two readers attacking my idea with strong emotion while two others supported the basic idea although they did not support all of my points. Anyway, this idea of getting familiar with the Indian accent may seem to be shocking and stupid at this moment to many people in the west and even in India but outsourcing itself was shocking to many people just 15 years ago. Now, outsourcing is a part of every day reality in Europe and North America.
I am by no means saying that Indian workers should not try to be skilled in the British or American accents of English language. What I am saying is that the way outsourcing of works in India is growing, Indian companies will be forced to recruit more and more workers who have typical Indian accent of English language. The interaction between the western consumers, business executives and tech workers with the Indian workers is increasing every day. Therefore, whether you like it or not, want it or not, you will come into contact with more and more Indians with an Indian accent of English language.
This is already happening and I found an interview of Kevin Rollins, CEO, President, Dell in the website moneycontrol.com. I am quoting a question and answer from that interview:
"Q: A couple of years ago, you had complaints from commercial clients about call center responders in India, their accents. Is that an issue that has been resolved?
A: I don't think it's completely resolved, I think it's resolved enough. The world is becoming a global place and understanding accents and global participants is what we do as a global community. Our growth has been unabated. We continue to hire and bring more talent in India. I think most recently we've pushed towards technical development there, R&D labs as well as our own software development for running Dell. We've broadened out the need and the use for the tremendous technical ability which exists in India beyond just call centers."
I like the sentence, "The world is becoming a global place and understanding accents and global participants is what we do as a global community." I thank Mr. Kevin Rollins for saying it so beautifully what I failed to say yesterday. Yes, we really live in a globalize world and since so many jobs are outsourced to India naturally India is becoming a very important place for world economy and technology.
My 9th point has been stated very well by one commentator in the first part of this article:
"Whether they want to or not, because of the heavy exposure that most Americans/Britishers are getting to Indian accent, they would inevitably get comfortable with it.
Apparently in a few decades India is going to have more English speakers than in any other country in the world. No doubt majority of these would be speaking in Indian accent!!!!"
Yes, India is soon going to have the largest number of English speakers in the world and I cannot comprehend the problem of telling someone that you should try to get familiar with the accent of English language that is going to have largest number of speakers within a few years.
My 10th and final point is that Indian economy is growing and soon India will have the 4th and then 3rd largest economy in the world. Many western people are now getting interested to learn Chinese language so that it will help them to do business with China. India is becoming an economic power house too and the best thing with India is that English is the most dominant language in India. So, I guess that getting familiar with the Indian accent is much easier than learning Chinese.
I mainly write about South Asian Business and Indian business. While browsing internet for research, I have got a feeling now that the Indian accent is becoming a growing problem in the call center industry. Outsourcing is an irreversible thing- at least for the time being. So, Indian workers have to come forward to try to neutralize their accent while at the same time, western people should try to be more familiar with the Indian accent and should have a more tolerant and positive attitude towards the Indian accent of English language.
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Hi, I'm an Italian girl. From our point of view (ie, speakers of Romance languages such as Italian, Spanish, French) Indian pronunciation is much easier to understand than British or American! This is because our languages are syllable-timed languages, and we have a lot of difficulty to understand (and reproduce) stress-timed "correct" RP pronunciation. So Indian pronunciation is the first choice for Romance language speakers!
When I went to UK as an exchange student I had two Indian girls (flatmates) as my English tutors... I could understand them easily but it took me much more time to get acquainted to the British pronunciation.
Remember that Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world after Mandarin Chinese (as a native language)! USA and UK are not writing the rules anymore.
Hallo to India from Italy! Silvia
Posted by: Anonymous | March 22, 2007 4:55 AM | Permalink to Comment