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A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

bbc.com

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Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#91

Post by Manishearth »

ravirajx7 wrote: post #20

One of the main reason behind the 'developing' state of India even after 70 years of independence is its differences which Indians still have in their mind. The language barrier is the only barrier which is proving to be resistance let alone culture prevention and all that. Languages are just a form of communication between people and people should accept it. People should learn languages like English(Which have vast…

> China is one more country which is preserving its culture by speaking chinese

"chinese" isn't one language. It's a set of many languages which share some grammar and a common logographic script (though the script isn't used in exactly the same way for each, e.g. Beijing will write/say 哪儿 instead of 哪里 for "where?" -- there are many other differences but I don't know enough to give a clear idea of its scale).

The spoken languages are quite different otherwise, at least as different as European romance languages. There is a "Standard Mandarin (普通话)" however; which the government has pushed and is spoken by most residents of Mainland China.

I'm skeptical that this is a good way preserving the culture. If language does have an effect of preserving the culture; this move would also have effect of killing subcultures from regions (which may indeed have happened in China; though I don't know). China and India are both pretty diverse culturally.

You're making the argument that the popularity of English is detrimental to the preservation of Indian Culture and in the same breath suggesting forcing Hindi on everyone as a solution, as if it wouldn't have exactly the same effect on a culturally diverse country.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#92

Post by wizardofmysore »

afghanPower wrote: post #57
axiom92 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On a slightly related topic, India has a vast and rich set of languages and millions of people that speak/read/write these languages. My landlady needs to know this. She still thinks we all speak "Indian".

Correct me if I'm wrong, but most Indians do understand "urdu", no?

No. People in the northern region would since it is similar to Hindi. Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have their own language respectively which is different from Hindi and they wouldn't.

I am not certain about entire Andra and Telengana. People in Hyderabad speak Urdu.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#93

Post by wizardofmysore »

sumedh wrote: post #78
afghanPower wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but most Indians do understand "urdu", no?

Yes because most Indians can speak Hindi(Urdu is similar to Hindi). Hindi is the second or third language for many non native Hindi speakers.

Around 100+ million of 1.2 billion don't speak Hindi.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#94

Post by ucntseeme »

wizardofmysore wrote: post #93
sumedh wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes because most Indians can speak Hindi(Urdu is similar to Hindi). Hindi is the second or third language for many non native Hindi speakers.

Around 100+ million of 1.2 billion don't speak Hindi.

That's still very less than the majority.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#95

Post by ucntseeme »

nonamechicken wrote: post #18
1024core wrote: post #3

The BBC has to get an anti-Modi (Prime Minister of India) jab in: "He worries about the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP's efforts to impose Hindi all over India, which he calls a "direct attack on our linguistic plurality". " Various governments in Delhi, throughout history, have toyed with the idea of making Hindi the national language. It hasn't happened yet, and won't happen. But, of course, the BBC would like you to…

I am from Kerala (South India). Hindi imposition never bothered me until the last 2 years. I don't know if it's media's effect, but it is a really valid concern for me. Considering that Kerala exists more or less thanks to money from Gulf countries and little help from the center, I won't mind a separation either.

Ohh really !! You should probably leave India then. BTW why bother speaking English ? Why not speak Malayalam everywhere ?

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#96

Post by HumanDrivenDev »

boxy310 wrote: post #61
cortesoft wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, languages have been dying out for a lot longer than those technologies have been around. Languages die when the cultures who speak them either get assimilated or eradicated; I am not sure what technology has to do with that?

Before the printing press, there was dramatic variation in regional dialects of European nations. After the printing press, standardization and state centralization have been grinding these regional dialects into the ground. Even traditional regional languages like Irish or Scots Gaelic are going extinct.

It seems more likely to me that compulsory education conducted entirely in a "national language" is the culprit here. How many of these stories involve "we were beaten for talking in $LANGUAGE at school"?

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#97

Post by intended »

golergka wrote: post #79
beat wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Obliterated is appropriate.

Even in India - the few members of animist religions in the nort east often feel poorly when having to deal with the more advanced religions like Christianity/Hinduism/Islam - there’s a level of outreach, funding, polish, prep, conversion techniques and arguments - essentially human pleasing sophistication, that other religions just have not had the time or resources to develop.

You see similar things happen with food and fruits.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#98

Post by ucntseeme »

nonamechicken wrote: post #63
deanstag wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But If there is a better utility for a language like English, why not push for English + Regional Language?

As a South Indian, there is no utility for Hindi other than to interact with North Indians (which is more or less non existent) or to watch Bollywood movies. English got me a job, everything I learn is because of English.

Hindi is taught is schools...its you who dint gave it importance its not about what benefits you get from speaking Hindi..its more about what most states prefer to interact in.

Out of 39 states 20 prefer interacting in Hindi..even when they all have different mother tongue. Its just the minority south states prefer speaking in there languages which doesn't matter to other as no migrates there( non existent)

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#99

Post by ucntseeme »

nonamechicken wrote: post #58
ravirajx7 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's perfectly fine to choose Hindi over English in Hindi speaking states (North India). But why some North Indians demand that South Indians speak in Hindi because it's our "national language"? That's where this Hindi imposition becomes a problem. South has it's own languages, cultures, food. I get the feeling that BJP wants whole of India to follow North Indian version of Hinduism.

Hindi is taught is schools...its you who dint gave it importance its not about what benefits you get from speaking Hindi..its more about what most states prefer to interact in.

Out of 39 states 20 prefer interacting in Hindi..even when they all have different mother tongue. Its just the minority south states prefer speaking in there languages which doesn't matter to other as no migrates there( non existent)

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#100

Post by ucntseeme »

nonamechicken wrote: post #60
_jgdh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Another story I heard from a colleague. Army came for NCC training to a school in South India. They asked the boys who don't speak Hindi to come forward. Then they made them do 100 frog jumps as punishment.

Did you notice no one cares about your comment ?...its makes no sense without any references
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