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Languages of India

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Re: Languages of India

#111

Post by sridca »

School-Cotton wrote: post #100
sridca wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [English's] own (post-colonial) baggage What are those? It is just a language people speak.

Not sure if you are being serious, or what point you're trying to make. English is the language spoken by the people who ruled India as a colony for 200 years (the East India Company for the first hundred; the British state directly for the next).

I'm aware of that history.

The word "baggage" has negative connotations (to burdens and impediments); so my question really is by speaking English, as an Indian-born national, what burden or impediment does the speaker experience?

--

Responding inline due to lame moderation caps.

> I interpreted the OP's use of the word "baggage" not to mean a burden or impediment

But that's exactly what the word means! :-P

    bag·gage
    /ˈbaɡij/
    past experiences or long-held ideas regarded as burdens and impediments.
    "the emotional baggage I'm hauling around"
> but instead a cultural and political reason why some Indians might hesitate to consider English their national language.

And why would they hesitate if not due to feeling the burdens and impediments of their country's history?

Re: Languages of India

#112

Post by viewtransform »

iamrohitbanga wrote: post #85
rishav_sharan wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats because the Class 1 CBSE books said that Hindi is our national language, Peacock is the national bird, Tiger the national animal and Hockey the national sport. :D

That's not entirely correct. Hindi is the official language of Republic of India. That is why 14 September is celebrated as Hindi Divas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi_Divas

That is not entirely correct either. Hindi and English are official languages of the Republic of India. If you watched the swearing-in ceremony of the recent Modi government some cabinet members chose to be sworn-in in English.

Re: Languages of India

#113

Post by owaislone »

shripadk wrote: post #84
owaislone wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is so blatantly false. I am from South and a Kannadiga and I can tell you with conviction that in my lifetime I have never had anyone impose Hindi on me. May be. I only think this because I've been so this by many people from South India and I'd rather take their word over the state's. Also, even if it is just a perception, it means such things were definitely attempted by the center. Perceptions don't just fo…

> That means a tightly integrated and mostly centrally controlled state cannot function either if there are multiple religions identities present in the country which by extension means that the state of J&K has no place in present day India. It doesn't. That is the reason why you see so much bloodshed with one side trying to overpower the other. J&K is not homogenous. The Jammu part is majority Hindu and Kashmir par…

I see your opinion is that it's literally impossible for such a union to exist. Sorry for judging and writing up a comment personally targeted at you but I also sense some level of prejudice in your comments. May be (and I hope) I misjudged.

Re: Languages of India

#114

Post by School-Cotton »

quantgenius wrote: post #98
aatharuv wrote: post #14

India's definition of what is and what is not a language is highly politicized and highly idiosyncratic. Hindi and Urdu, by any reasonable linguistic definition are not separate languages. The official standards for both Hindi and Urdu, are both based on the form of the huge dialect continuum that spans North India and Pakistan, as spoken in Delhi. The only difference is that Urdu uses Persian and Arabic as inspirati…

Hindi and Urdu are similar because of how they evolved and they are essentially the vernacular of parts of Northern India and Pakistan. Other Indian languages are nowhere near as similar to each other as Hindi and Urdu are to each other. Another thing to note is that the vernacular as spoken in India on the street is often not one single language. It's often a mix and the fact that it's understandable to you so long…

> One thing Indians do subconsciously is adapt to using a mix of words and grammatical structure understandable to the group they are speaking to, for example when speaking to a well educated person who understands Hindi and English, I will frequently speak neither but rather Hinglish, mixing idioms and words from both languages in the same sentence, choosing words and idioms that most closely convey my thought. If I'm speaking to someone who also speaks Punjabi, I'll frequently throw in some Punjabi as well.

This is called "code switching", a universal human phenomenon (not just in India) which I find extremely fascinating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching

I have personally observed it happening between Spanish and English in ethnically Mexican communities in the Southwestern US, and ethnically Puerto Rican and Dominican communities in New York. Also between French and English on the streets of Montreal.

> Also note that there are dialects even of Hindi. If you record Hindi spoken by someone from Bihar when speaking to someone else who also understands that dialect natively and only understands Hindi at the speed it's spoken may take someone from Punjab who also speaks Hindi some amount of focus to understand. However if you throw the person from Punjab into the mix of people speaking, the dialect and accent will adjust.

This is true even in English, which is often considered (incorrectly) "not to have any dialects".

I'm a native American English speaker, and I would have quite a bit of difficulty understanding a recording of a conversation between two people from rural Scotland or Northern England.

But me and someone from those places would be able to communicate face-to-face just fine, slowing things down a bit and avoiding slang.

Re: Languages of India

#115

Post by manfredo »

School-Cotton wrote: post #90
manfredo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concluding that English is the national language of the US is totally reasonable. Most government documents are in English. The Constitution is in English. English is the language overwhelmingly taught in schools, used in the workplace, and is the most spoken language in the country by far. Saying that English isn't the official language in the US is really just highlighting the fact that the Federal government hasn'…

English is clearly dominant, but official linguistic pluralism does exist in the US in some ways. For example: * Large parts of the US provide ballots and other voting materials in Spanish (or Vietnamese, or Chinese, or various Native American languages, ...). * Courts in the US will go to pretty extreme lengths to find interpreters for criminal defendants who can't understand English, even if their native language i…

> Large parts of the US provide ballots and other voting materials in Spanish (or Vietnamese, or Chinese, or various Native American languages, ...).

Sure, in locations where other languages have a significant presence. But these languages always exist alongside English. There are no areas that I know of that do not produce said documents in English. English is universal.

> Courts in the US will go to pretty extreme lengths to find interpreters for criminal defendants who can't understand English, even if their native language is somewhat obscure.

And what do those interpreters translate said languages into? English.

> There were public schools teaching primarily in Spanish until at least the early 2000s in Arizona; not sure if they still exist in other places. There are definitely still private schools teaching in non-English languages in some parts of the country, particularly Yiddish.

Language immersion schools exist in plenty of countries with official languages. English is not an official language in Spain, I went to an English language immersion school when I lived in Spain.

> Because it's perceived as solidly right wing, and the other side of the political spectrum will fight it tooth and nail, it's hard for me to imagine the US declaring English as a federal official language in the foreseeable future.

Not really, there are plenty of practical reasons why designating official languages would be useful. One of my friends worked in a hospital, and talked about how much of a nightmare it was to treat non-English speaking patients (or more specifically patients that didn't speak English, Spanish, Mandarin, or the couple other languages that staff members spoke). Ostensibly they're required to find interpreters for any and all languages that patients may speak. This of course is a mess. Designating certain languages as supported and not supported would be a big efficiency gain and result in better care. There are also concerns of people only producing advertisements for housing in specific languages (e.g. a Chinese landlord only producing ads in Mandarin or Cantonese), and some see it as de-facto racial discrimination in housing. What happens when a juror can't speak English? One could argue that dismissing non English-speaking jurors is a form of jury discrimination, but it'd be a bureaucratic nightmare to provide interpreters for every language a juror might speak. There are plenty of good reasons to designate English as an official language.

Regardless, whether or not English is designated an official language is pretty much moot. Over 80% of the population speaks English at home and over 90% are fluent in English. The next closest competitor is Spanish at roughly 1/6th the population. English will be the de-facto official language for the foreseeable future.

Re: Languages of India

#116

Post by User23 »

keeganjw wrote: post #105

It still boggles my mind that so many of the languages of India are related to European languages. Hindi and English share a common linguistic ancestor. Yet languages that are much physically closer together like English and Finnish or Hindi and Tamil aren't related at all.

This is because both Europe and India where both conquered by the Yamnaya people about 4 millennia ago[1]. Europeans and Indians are (distant) cousins. Take a look at most Bollywood stars for example and the resemblance is clear.

[1] https://www.livescience.com/59703-north-india-populated-by-c...

Re: Languages of India

#118

Post by shripadk »

viewtransform wrote: post #103
shripadk wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is because several fellow south Indians gave up their lives to ensure that north Indian language bigots would not have their way. I know everything about these agitations. There is a huge difference between what happened in 1940s and what is happening today. You are just extrapolating your fears needlessly. When I talk about "my lifetime" I talk about 30 years of my life. I was not born in the 1940s so there i…

The right solution is to leave it to parents and students to decide what languages they want to study in and what languages they choose to learn. Hindi is gradually becoming universally understood all over the country precisely because it was not imposed on linguistic minorities. When people don't feel that their culture is threatened they are open to learning Hindi. Bollywood and television has done more to promote…

I am sorry but I have to disagree with you here. What you are saying isn't happening universally and I am a witness to it myself. I am from Karnataka (Kannadiga) and I can travel around Karnataka and speak in Hindi or English and I am not discriminated against. Heck people here speak Tamil as well to those Tamilians who do not know Kannada.

However, I travelled to Trichy, Kumbakonam and Chennai and the atmosphere is sadly totally opposite to what you claim. Unless you know Tamil no one is going to respond positively. My driver (who doesn't speak Tamil) had trouble asking for directions as the locals knew that he was not a Tamilian and guided him incorrectly. Only after I involved was I able to get the correct directions.

I noticed the same issue in Kerala when I visited Palakkad and Guruvayur (Thrissur). Unless you know Malayalam it is really hard to find your way around. You speak Hindi and you get a stare down so English is the only way to converse. And let me tell you, these are people who know Hindi and other languages. They just don't want to speak it.

These are anecdotes and may not be reflective of the entire state but nevertheless left a really bad taste in my mouth. I never experienced this sort of discrimination anywhere else in the Country (and I have travelled a lot). And that says a lot coming from a South Indian!

Re: Languages of India

#119

Post by School-Cotton »

manfredo wrote: post #115
School-Cotton wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is clearly dominant, but official linguistic pluralism does exist in the US in some ways. For example: * Large parts of the US provide ballots and other voting materials in Spanish (or Vietnamese, or Chinese, or various Native American languages, ...). * Courts in the US will go to pretty extreme lengths to find interpreters for criminal defendants who can't understand English, even if their native language i…

> Large parts of the US provide ballots and other voting materials in Spanish (or Vietnamese, or Chinese, or various Native American languages, ...). Sure, in locations where other languages have a significant presence. But these languages always exist alongside English. There are no areas that I know of that do not produce said documents in English. English is universal. > Courts in the US will go to pretty extreme…

If I interpret you correctly, I think we mostly agree, on (at least) the following points:

* English is clearly dominant in the US and enjoys a special status both in law and in practice.

* However, linguistic pluralism is accommodated to a significant degree in the US, to a greater extent than it is in some other countries.

* Whether to designate an official language is more of a cultural/political wedge issue than something that would have a meaningful practical effect on life in the US.

Re: Languages of India

#120

Post by School-Cotton »

sridca wrote: post #111
School-Cotton wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you are being serious, or what point you're trying to make. English is the language spoken by the people who ruled India as a colony for 200 years (the East India Company for the first hundred; the British state directly for the next).

I'm aware of that history. The word "baggage" has negative connotations (to burdens and impediments); so my question really is by speaking English, as an Indian-born national, what burden or impediment does the speaker experience? -- Responding inline due to lame moderation caps. > I interpreted the OP's use of the word "baggage" not to mean a burden or impediment But that's exactly what the word means! :-P bag·gage…

I interpreted the OP's use of the word "baggage" not to mean a burden or impediment for individual speakers, but instead a cultural and political reason why some Indians might hesitate to consider English their national language.
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