WHY WE LOWER OUR VOICE WHEN SPEAKING ENGLISH IN PUBLIC
There’s a strange phenomenon that plays out on the streets of Kathmandu, in cafés tucked between alleys, on microbuses groaning up hills: a Nepali confidently chatting away in their mother tongue—sharp, clear, audible—suddenly softens their voice when switching to English. The decibel drops. The pace slows. The throat tightens. As if English were not just a second language, but a fragile thing, too delicate for public air. We don't do this with Hindi, or even with the Nepali-inflected versions of Newar, Maithili, or Bhojpuri. But with English, our voice often betrays a kind of self-consciousness that we rarely acknowledge. It’s not always about fluency. Sometimes the speaker is well-versed, articulate, even eloquent. And yet, the voice lowers—as if the words are guilty of something. Perhaps it’s the history. English was never just a language in Nepal—it was a marker. Of access. Of education. Of class. It was the language of report cards, job interviews, embassy doors, and vi...