81–90 of 129 posts
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Promoting a language because the Prime minister finds himself more proficient orator in the language? I find that hard to believe. Do you have sources on this?
Yep, I doubt that's the reason. Modi is a Hindu nationalist, and promoting preeminence of Hindi over other Indian languages has been part of that agenda for a long time.
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The promotion of Hindi as the most important language in India is not limited to this Prime Minister or administration. It has a long history, starting from Independence in 1947, when the writers of the Constitution decided that English would slowly be phased out in preference to Hindi [1]. Unsurprisingly, foisting a foreign language on native speakers of Tamil, Telugu, Bengali and other languages was met with fierce…
> rather than Arabic numerals. Just a minor correction, they are Indian numerals not Arabic.
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Just that it has almost double per capita income(PPP) when compared to India. $1576(76th) vs $7153 (122nd) respectively.
I think soneca's point was Brazil is still developing irrespective of any language barriers. So how does your statistics on PPP become an argument for that?
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I live in a city with tens of thousands of east African immigrants (mostly Somali). It's fascinating to me, to hear the difference between how the adult Somalis speak, and how their children speak. The teenagers, having grown up here, speak in perfect, accent-free English. Will their children even speak Somali at all? (As an aside, I totally love my little window into Somali teenage girl culture, just from riding the…
> perfect, accent-free English. This is a myth. You mean they speak your local accent of English. > (As an aside, I totally love my little window into Somali teenage girl culture, just from riding the train and sharing a neighborhood with them. Their fashions are incredible, and they're so energetic and happy. Somali teenage boys, on the other hand, are just as glum and faux-cool as teenage boys everywhere.) Please d…
It's the most natural way that comes to mind to say that they sound like the other local native speakers.
> Please don't be racist.
I don't see racism here. I see broad commentary about a local subculture.
A know urban legend often applied to Inuits.
> Dr Devy, an untrained linguist
But we'll still call him doctor.
I'll guess he's a doctor in English? and they are there to entertain as he's done. (Obviously doctors in English can do other important things as well)
I don't know.... the BBC when they do these stories... intelligent people know they are not true buuuut then what does one think when they report on Syria.
Are stories like these symptoms and show we also should also take stories on Syria very very carefully or are they cancerous and encourage bad reporting and bad thinking? Are stories on Syria the same, just entertainment anyway and their accuracy for the masses is on equal importance?
I guess for me a source of truth is important and I would have though many on HN would want to seek the truth, but perhaps not so much.
[edit] There is also a interesting story here, I assume it's not a lie and the doctor believes what he's doing is true.... but I can't be sure from all the other inaccuracies.... but at face value he's done something really interesting that is BBC worthy. It just needs better framing.
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> rather than Arabic numerals. Just a minor correction, they are Indian numerals not Arabic.
The whole world knows it as Arabic numerals. I am not contesting where it originated, I am just saying, that using Indian numerals confuses everyone.
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Thanks to a college professor long ago, I'm firmly convinced that technological advancement is the main reason cultures get assimilated/eradicated. Or more to the point, new cultures rise with new technologies, and wipe out the previous ones. Along the same lines as my original comment and the source of this story, one of the most educational nights of my life was a lecture by a visiting professor from India. His res…
When you say "obliterated", doesn't it really mean that people in these villages liked the music from the radio more than their local stuff? Why label people's preferences with such dramatic words?
It could also be because
(a) the low cost and availability of music on the radio (portable, on demand etc) was much higher than the availability of their native music which had to be played live by an artist.
(b) the novelty of the 'outside' music or its sophistication due to the electronic instruments used etc could have temporarily make the local people to like the outside music long enough to stop making their own.
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Yep, I doubt that's the reason. Modi is a Hindu nationalist, and promoting preeminence of Hindi over other Indian languages has been part of that agenda for a long time.
Hinduism and the Hindi language are two different things, and they are not related.
(generally there always has been a push for the Hindi language from the central government as well)
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Promoting a language because the Prime minister finds himself more proficient orator in the language? I find that hard to believe. Do you have sources on this?
It's not just that. Ever since he has got his position he is trying to promote India's ethnic values and culture and he's not saying "Bhaiyo aur beheno bas hindi bolo" ( brothers and sisters just speak hindi) and nobody is imposing the language hindi on anyone. But if you're living in a country and serving people(working in government sector) where almost majority of the people speak hindi don't you think you should…
You understand that this is not regionally uniform, yes? The 40% Hindi speakers is not "40% Hindi speakers in any given region"; it is "40% Hindi speakers overall", where most of the Hindi speakers live in the northern states and various cities.
> i have seen situations where people find it easy to grasp hindi than any other languages
Again, this is highly regionally biased.
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> rather than Arabic numerals. Just a minor correction, they are Indian numerals not Arabic.
The whole world knows it as Arabic numerals. I am not contesting where it originated, I am just saying, that using Indian numerals confuses everyone.