From the Tapi to the Thames

The English have enjoyed a long historical association with Gujaratis, beginning in the early 17th century when the first East India Company ship to dock in an Indian port dropped anchor at the estuary of the River Tapi in Gujarat. Now in contemporary Britain, the British Gujarati population numbers half a million. Ironically, the quantity and quality of Victorian English- Gujarati grammars was, until relatively recently, higher than their modern successors. The only available decent text has been H. M. Lambert's Gujarati Language Course. First published in 1971, Lambert's book predated the arrival of the East African Asian refugees, the bedrock of the British Gujarati communities, and now seems rather stolid and outdated. There has been a pressing need for an up-to-date and reliable text covering spoken and written Gujarati: Rachel Dwyer's new course meets this need admirably.

The course comprises a substantial 15-chapter book and an accompanying cassette. It is intended for absolute beginners and for those wishing to brush up rusty skills. It is divided into two parts, the first sufficient for those wishing to speak at a simple level, the second for those wishing to deal with most everyday encounters and to begin reading Gujarati newspapers and literature.

Each chapter, called a unit, contains dialogues, exercises, grammar and comprehension with notes on cultural aspects of the material. Transliteration of the Gujarati script into English is provided until unit eight, the dividing line between the two halves of the course. There is a Gujarati-English vocabulary at the end of the book.

There is much to commend in this friendly and approachable course. The cultural notes and a bibliography of useful sources at the start of the book are particularly welcome and reflect Dwyer's thorough knowledge of the community and of academic studies.

Throughout the units there are many useful tips on the idiosyncratic use of phrases, on matters such as politeness and custom and on the different forms of speech used by Hindus, Muslims and other Gujarati religious groups. The dialogues are well thought-out, as are the exercises and comprehension sections. The Gujarati typeface is clear, as is the modern transliteration of the script into English, though the symbol used in the transliteration of the Gujarati nasalisation may prove confusing at first.

The quality of the tape is high and generally well paced. Dialogues are set in England and India. A Gujarati-English-Gujarati dictionary, to supplement the vocabulary included in the book, should be bought by those intending to study the second half of the course.

From the first unit, the student is introduced to Gujarati grammar. No previous knowledge is presumed and the meanings of grammatical terms are explained as they occur. Although these points are explained clearly, with illustrative examples, readers untrained in formal grammar will find these sections require careful and slow study in order to learn the fiendish intricacies of Gujarati grammar, which is not for the faint-hearted.

The book is well presented and contains some photographs, copies of Gujarati advertisements, wedding invitations and the like. The layout is nicely done but one annoying fault with the book is the number of typographical errors: a book of this quality deserves proper proofreading and the publishers would do well to attend to this omission in any further editions.

John Mattausch is lecturer in sociology, Royal Holloway, University of London.