Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Does India need its own vernacular internet?

techinasia.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 53 posts

Re: Does India need its own vernacular internet?

#11

Post by amitsy »

gnipgnip wrote: post #2

(Vernacular - "Language of the slave"). It's far more complicated that "need its own vernacular internet". The internet is an emergent thing, and what one sees are just the symptoms. This is also the reason India's literacy is so low (even compared to Africa/Middle East). If India wasn't a linguistic apartheid regime, we'd already have seen a native ecosystem which is lacking quite badly. This needs fixing at the sta…

Great points you made. Agree with the fact that Swarachakra is too crowded and huge scope of improvement there. Also agree that the root of problem lie with education and state policies. But even with the huge push that english gets in this country, the reality is more than billion people don't understand it. This might still become 500 million is a decade but still half the country is being denied of internet.

Didn't know about Sailfish. Will check it out.

Re: Does India need its own vernacular internet?

#12

Post by mido22 »

Am I the only Indian who thinks this is not such a bad thing, prefer one language to unite us all (isn't that the common base for most far-future novels?), don't care which, I can converse in three Indian languages, and know bit of french. In Sweden, all that knowledge is useless, all the main sites are in Swedish, now I am learning å,ö,ä, guess how much fun I am having?

Re: Does India need its own vernacular internet?

#13

Post by danmaz74 »

product50 wrote: post #4

I am not sure if I subscribe to the findings of this article completely. Popular English language words have made their way into almost all Indian languages. When you are accessing the internet, unless you are reading long articles or online books, all you need is passing reading ability of some English words to get through. To say that Instagram doesn't have a Hindi equivalent of "filter" is simply missing the point…

Slightly OT: isn't the "English Alphabet" actually the "Latin Alphabet"?

Re: Does India need its own vernacular internet?

#15

Post by amitsy »

asitdhal wrote: post #14

In India, the state is simply lazy. All most all English words should have an equivalent in all native languages. But, unfortunately no one forms any new words. If apps can be fully translated to the local languages, it will help everyone.

I don't think its the responsibility of the state. It is of the startups to move out of their english speaking bubble and realise the potential of non-english speaking india.

Re: Does India need its own vernacular internet?

#16

Post by andrewvijay »

mido22 wrote: post #12

Am I the only Indian who thinks this is not such a bad thing, prefer one language to unite us all (isn't that the common base for most far-future novels?), don't care which, I can converse in three Indian languages, and know bit of french. In Sweden, all that knowledge is useless, all the main sites are in Swedish, now I am learning å,ö,ä, guess how much fun I am having?

You probably are. Millions don't have the access to content because of the language barrier.

Re: Does India need its own vernacular internet?

#18

Post by geon »

amitsy wrote: post #10
geon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> majority of India can't even read or speak english, how will they type in English? They won't. They type in Hindi, using the roman alphabet. Big difference. If anything, the roman alphabet is simpler than the syllable based Devanagari. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari Apparently SMS is big in India: > SMS is hugely popular in India, where youngsters often exchange lots of text messages, and companies provid…

So, are you saying in the long run Devanagari as a script will die but Hindi as a language shall remain. Pretty interesting point. Seems like this is the direction we are going as well.

I suppose it is possible.

For that to happen, there might be a need to teach and encourage it. I don't know how nationalistic India is, and if it would be well recieved. There is apparently an ISO standard for Indic scripts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_15919

My own experience is limited to my sri lankan wife who enjoys texting with her friends. Among them, spelling is rather haphazard.

Re: Does India need its own vernacular internet?

#19

Post by gnipgnip »

witty_username wrote: post #5
gnipgnip wrote: post #2

(Vernacular - "Language of the slave"). It's far more complicated that "need its own vernacular internet". The internet is an emergent thing, and what one sees are just the symptoms. This is also the reason India's literacy is so low (even compared to Africa/Middle East). If India wasn't a linguistic apartheid regime, we'd already have seen a native ecosystem which is lacking quite badly. This needs fixing at the sta…

What do you mean by "linguistic apartheid regime"?

See,

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/11/06/the-problem-...

The "socialist" state runs a systematic unwritten discrimination regime where every thing from higher education to state services are restricted only to English speaking class; yet, it is the remainder that get the boot due to the inflationary forces of the currency. It is by every meaning of the word, an apartheid; this state mandated scheme of slavery is kept in check by various schemes of cultural propaganda and distractions by the Anglical state. Of course, without education, feudalism becomes only too normalized.

This system is widespread all over former colonies in Africa and Asia.

Re: Does India need its own vernacular internet?

#20

Post by Cephlin »

danmaz74 wrote: post #13
product50 wrote: post #4

I am not sure if I subscribe to the findings of this article completely. Popular English language words have made their way into almost all Indian languages. When you are accessing the internet, unless you are reading long articles or online books, all you need is passing reading ability of some English words to get through. To say that Instagram doesn't have a Hindi equivalent of "filter" is simply missing the point…

Slightly OT: isn't the "English Alphabet" actually the "Latin Alphabet"?

Yes it is.
Post reply on HN