Globalisation and the resultant surge in technology have surely improved the living condition all around the world. The impact of globalisation on languages is something that has been seriously underestimated. English has been a language that has gained tremendously from Globalisation. It is estimated that one – third of the humanity has basic proficiency in the English language. One of the reasons for this is the ability of the language to adapt itself and incorporate changes so that communication becomes easy.
The essay tries to comment on the evolution of the word, Bangalored, in the English language as a result of changes in the global socio – economic climate and also the Americanisation of the English language as the result of the emergence of the Microsoft Empire.
Bangalored
Wikipedia comes out with the following reference to Bangalored:
Bangalored is a neologism and used as a verb. Bangalored is used to indicate a layoff, often systemic, and usually due to corporate outsourcing of the business function to lower wage economies. The word is derived from Bangalore, India, which houses outsourcing centers for Western economies.
It refers to people who have been laid off from a multinational company because their job has been moved to India (outsourced — a business practice designed to save money that is arousing passions in some countries, especially Britain and the United States). Bangalore is cited in particular because of its reputation in the USA as a high-tech city, and widely regarded as the Silicon Valley of India that has benefited significantly from such outsourcing.
There is a big possibility that in a decade, Bangalore need not be the hub of outsourcing as it is now. But the word Bangalored will not die. The day is not far away when an American loses his job to a trained labourer in an emerging market other than India, the American will feel Bangalored.
The Rise of the Microsoft Empire
The popularity gained by the introduction of the Microsoft Office Programme has not only revolutionised the way business has been conducted, but also the way English has been written and spoken all around the world. The MS – OFFICE software has been programmed in American English. As a result, most of the words typed in the Queen’s English get automatically corrected to the American English as a result of the auto – correct option programmed in the software. For Example, type the world ‘stabilise’ and the auto-correct option of MS-OFFICE automatically corrects it to ‘stabilize’. The same applies to words like globalisation, westernisation etc.
Supposing that the auto-correct option doesn’t work, the word will be shown as incorrect and the option of spell check will direct the user to the American word. Spellings of words like programme, colour etc will soon get changed to program, color because of the tremendous influence of the software.
In this age of competition, effective communication is the key to success. Language will continue to evolve in order to suit the modern business techniques. This Americanisation of the language is not due to any American propaganda, but due to the simple fact that business in the modern world is done through Internet and the US is the world leader in Technology. Therefore the programmes developed by the Americans will be coded in their language, the American English.
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