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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

#111

Post by mayankkaizen »

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…

Earlier governments, in general, weren't so vehement about language forcing. But this government is going too far with not only language forcing but also with cow worshipping, minorities hounding, history distortions, jingoism, suppression of freedom of speech.

In any case, pls don't make HN a political forum.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#114

Post by HumanDrivenDev »

Cyph0n wrote: post #109
HumanDrivenDev wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"chinese" isn't one language. It's a set of many languages which share some grammar and a common logographic script I don't think that's true for any chinese languages other than mandarin and cantonese. I've been in Taiwan for the past few weeks and dipped my toes into Hokkien/Taiwanese/Souther Min, and the situation there is fascinating. In every day normal situations it's never written, if two native hokkien speake…

So it's similar to the regional forms of Arabic in the Middle East. People will speak with each other using a dialect, but all official and educational writing is in standard Arabic. When people chat informally (e.g. on WhatsApp), they would typically use Arabic characters to build words that can usually only be understood by speakers familiar with the dialect in question.

The different chinese languages don't seem to be dialects in any objective sense. I have no idea how it started being called that in english (bad translation of 語/話 maybe?), but Hokkien and Mandarin seem about as different from each other as English and French, maybe more. No mutual intelligibility. What's the case with Arabic dialects? I am completely ignorant there.

And that's the thing, they use characters when they have to write it, but even then native speakers struggle to read it because there's no commonly used standard way to do it. In practice, they just write in mandarin.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#115

Post by chappar »

intended wrote: post #102
nonamechicken wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I speak Hindi, and I have studied in the south. I think the best argument to lance this boil is this “Let’s speak Tamil or kannad. These states are doing supremely better than all of the Hindi speaking states. Obviously language has something to do with our success, and it would be wrong of us to keep it to ourselves when it should be used to help the nation.” This short circuits enough wires, and is polite enough to…

A correction, it is kannada not kannad :-)

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#116

Post by srean »

tmpnam wrote: post #112
desi_ninja wrote: post #106

The article doesn't mention colonization as one of thr factors of dying languages because BBC.

The article touches on it, but it's a former threat. Hindu nationalism, on the other hand, is a current threat, desi_ninja.

> Hindu nationalism, on the other hand, is a current threat, desi_ninja.

Wholly agreed, I would add a nuance that Hindu nationalism as pushed by the current govt is. Their view is that the only Hindu religious way to be a practicing Hindu is the way it is practiced in a particular region in India, even the most devout practicing Hindu from the east (from a generation and further ago) wouldn't have heard/practiced about dandia, dhanteras, karva-chauth. There are regions where devout Hindus would have beef and not feel that they are flouting norms of Hinduism. The only right way to speak/write is in a specific regional language of India. A lot of governmental machinery -- executive and legal -- is being expended to achieve this monoculture.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#117

Post by justbaker »

jlg23 wrote: post #49
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…

Given that English is already fragmenting (just read a newspaper from Guyana) and with the example of the Arab language (watch an Egyptian try talking with a Moroccan - bring popcorn): I am not sure your advice is a good one. English, like every other language, limits what you can say to what can be expressed in it. From personal experience, I'd rather recommend to dabble in as many languages as possible: Each new la…

I like French too, but the number of French-speaking individuals worldwide is rather limited.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#118

Post by Manishearth »

Cyph0n wrote: post #109
HumanDrivenDev wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"chinese" isn't one language. It's a set of many languages which share some grammar and a common logographic script I don't think that's true for any chinese languages other than mandarin and cantonese. I've been in Taiwan for the past few weeks and dipped my toes into Hokkien/Taiwanese/Souther Min, and the situation there is fascinating. In every day normal situations it's never written, if two native hokkien speake…

So it's similar to the regional forms of Arabic in the Middle East. People will speak with each other using a dialect, but all official and educational writing is in standard Arabic. When people chat informally (e.g. on WhatsApp), they would typically use Arabic characters to build words that can usually only be understood by speakers familiar with the dialect in question.

The different Chinese languages are not dialects.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#119

Post by Manishearth »

eklavya wrote: post #104
Manishearth wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hindu nationalism has historically been quite related to pushing of the Hindi language, however. (generally there always has been a push for the Hindi language from the central government as well)

Wasn't sure where to comment. So I will comment here. Which north Indian state do you think Hindi is the native language of?

That's a non sequitur. It doesn't have to be a native language for folks to push it; it can be close.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#120

Post by Cyph0n »

HumanDrivenDev wrote: post #114
Cyph0n wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's similar to the regional forms of Arabic in the Middle East. People will speak with each other using a dialect, but all official and educational writing is in standard Arabic. When people chat informally (e.g. on WhatsApp), they would typically use Arabic characters to build words that can usually only be understood by speakers familiar with the dialect in question.

The different chinese languages don't seem to be dialects in any objective sense. I have no idea how it started being called that in english (bad translation of 語/話 maybe?), but Hokkien and Mandarin seem about as different from each other as English and French, maybe more. No mutual intelligibility. What's the case with Arabic dialects? I am completely ignorant there. And that's the thing, they use characters when th…

> What's the case with Arabic dialects? I am completely ignorant there.

I call them dialects for lack of a better word. For example, an Algerian Arabic speaker would not be understood by an Egyptian, and a Kuwaiti Arabic speaker would not be understood by a Syrian, etc. Regional dialects may have an accent, but more importantly use different words and may even have different, informal grammatical rules.

When it comes to writing, everyone uses Arabic letters, but each region may write different words depending on the regional dialect.

The entry on Tunisian Arabic[1], which is my native dialect, may provide an idea on how it differs from other dialects.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisian_Arabic

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