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 visa dreams. You didn't just learn English; you aspired to it. And like anything placed on a pedestal, English grew heavier in our mouths, burdened by expectation and watched by the gaze of others. Speaking it in public becomes a performance where the fear of getting it wrong is louder than the words themselves.

To lower one’s voice while speaking English is, in many cases, an instinctive act of shielding—protecting oneself from mockery, from correction, from the gaze that says, “Ah, you’re trying.” Trying not to sound too proud, not to be seen as showing off. Because in Nepali society, fluency in English walks a fine line between admired and ridiculed. One can be accused of being over—over-smart, over-confident, over-westernized. And so, we speak English with the volume dialed down, hoping to go unnoticed while still being understood.

There is also something deeply Nepali about this discomfort with public display. We prefer modesty in all things—our clothes, our joys, our griefs. We are suspicious of anything too loud, too bold. We are taught not to raise our voice, not to draw attention to ourselves. And English, a language that doesn’t quite sit inside our bodies the way Nepali does, becomes an awkward costume we’re never quite sure we’re wearing right. Better to whisper than to misstep.

But there’s also irony in this hush. English, in many ways, has become a language of mobility in Nepal. It’s the language of opportunity and future. It opens doors. Yet we carry it with embarrassment, like a gift we’re not sure we deserve. We lower our voice in deference to its perceived power. We shrink, even as we try to grow.

Still, something is changing. Younger generations are starting to carry English differently—less like a secret, more like a tool. In classrooms, offices, TikTok videos, and memes, English is being worn more casually, blended with Nepali like a seamless bilingual melody. Yet even among the confident, there’s often that small pause, that subtle drop in tone, when a sentence switches languages in a public space.

And maybe that drop in voice says more than the words themselves. Maybe it speaks of our long, complicated relationship with English—of aspiration, anxiety, and adaptation. Maybe it's not just about language, but about who we think we are when we speak, and who we fear others see.

In a country where voices are still finding their full range—across caste, class, gender, and language—perhaps we are still learning how to speak with our whole selves, unafraid. Maybe one day, we will say our English out loud—not to impress, not to hide, but simply to be heard.