Languages of India • Hacker News Board

Re: Languages of India

#151

Post by xkgt » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 11:46 PM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #129

School-Cotton wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The first two yes, but I disagree that the last one is so much of a political wedge. The fact that English is the de-facto official language, but not actually an official language is the source of much headache. Actually designating several languages as officially supported (English for sure, probably Spanish as well. Maybe others like Mandarin & Cantonese but that would make more sense to delegate to the State level…

I am of the firm belief that it is government's job to reach out to the people it represents and not the other way around. Designating an official language or set of official languages renders a section of people as disadvantaged outcasts. It is not a crime to not know a language.

Even if we are not talking about impact to an individual from a liberal point of view, this official favoring of languages leads to extinction of smaller languages by means of them not being as useful to future generations as some other mainstream language.

Re: Languages of India

#152

Post by xkgt » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 11:52 PM UTC

staticautomatic wrote: post #59

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only Hindi and Punjabi are Aryan. English, Persian, and Portuguese are Indo-European but not Indo-Aryan.

Not Persian? I was under the impression that Hindi is Aryan as a result of the Persian invasion of the Indian subcontinent, which also resulted in the Dravidian languages being pushed south.

The commonly accepted view right now is that there was an Aryan migration and not an invasion over the Indian subcontinent. But there are politically motivated narratives abound that are pushing this theory to either extremes (Aryan immigration theory vs Aryan == Dravidian theory). Please don't trigger a flame war. It is surprising as it is that this topic hasn't triggered one yet.

Re: Languages of India

#153

Post by pvelagal » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 12:05 AM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #86

Jagat wrote: post #7

It's amazing how most Indians believe that Hindi is the national language of India, when there's no such as a national language in India. There are two official languages for union government communication - Hindi and English. I've also noticed that a lot of non Indians find it funny that most Indians here in bay area companies communicate among themselves in heavily accented English instead of The Indian language.

> It's amazing how most Indians believe that Hindi is the national language of India I am not Indian, so please correct my outsider's perspective if it is wrong, but from what I have seen, this is mainly believed by North Indians, and often deeply resented by South Indians, who are more likely to view English as a common, neutral, pan-Indian lingua franca, and Hindi as too North-centric to be appropriate for that rol…

Your perspective is correct. Hindi has been imposed only recently after Independence and there have been protests/movements pre-Independence too. For eg: None of my uncles/aunts or my grand parents generation know Hindi. I learnt it (or had to learn it) only because of school policy , not personal choice.

Re: Languages of India

#154

Post by pvelagal » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 12:07 AM UTC

shripadk wrote: post #147

viewtransform wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it was a daft draft. Nothing to worry then.

Obviously it was! Why else would it be changed to remove Hindi being compulsory and only talk about 3 language formula? The only daftness in this process was that the entire Government machinery had to be put in force just to allay the fears of one State over a committee's draft policy. If this sort of reactionary response becomes the norm, then the Central Government will just stop publishing draft policies on their…

Hindi has been imposed in South India, only recently after independence. For eg in Andhra Pradesh where i come from, my generation learnt Hindi only due to School policy, not personal choice. None of my aunts/parents generation, leave alone grand parents know Hindi.

Re: Languages of India

#155

Post by yumraj » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 12:14 AM UTC

smallnamespace wrote: post #150

yumraj wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point? I already said in a separate comment that there is colloquial Hindi, which like many other languages has words from other languages, especially from Urdu. But that does not make those words Hindi. They remain Urdu words. We similarly use several words from Latin, French and other languages in colloquial English, but from pure language standpoint I doubt that they'd be called English words. Edit: A…

Would you consider 'similar', 'several', 'language', 'colloquial', or 'doubt' to be English words? All of them are of foreign origin.

I'm not qualified to answer that.

Me personally, yes I would. A linguist, I can't say, would perhaps depend on each word and when they became part of the language.

Hindi is obviously derived from Sanskrit and other languages. However, Hindi and Urdu are quiet different. Give a word and in most cases most people will be able to tell if it's a Hindi word or an Urdu word.

Re: Languages of India

#156

Post by iamshs » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 12:20 AM UTC

ignoramous wrote: post #50

Not just Hindi but Gujarati has a dialect that is heavily influenced by Perso-Arabic vocabulary called Lisan ud-Da'wat [0] As a native speaker of the later, I can fully attest to the fact that the language isn't mutually intelligible with Gujarati as spoken in India. It is even more true for the written form of these languages. There's a day and night difference with Perso-Arabic influence simply overwhelming its Guj…

I can easily understand 80% Siraiki. It is some words that I cannot understand due to peculiar ‘tongue bent’; but my friends from Malwa region of Punjab can understand it fully. Punjabi differs from rest of the languages due to being a strong tonal language, which are not present in any other Indian language. Some researchers have said it is due to specialized alphabets denoted to tones, and also due to loss of aspiration. Punjabi borrows very generously from Farsi.

Re: Languages of India

#157

Post by staticautomatic » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 12:21 AM UTC

xkgt wrote: post #152

staticautomatic wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not Persian? I was under the impression that Hindi is Aryan as a result of the Persian invasion of the Indian subcontinent, which also resulted in the Dravidian languages being pushed south.

The commonly accepted view right now is that there was an Aryan migration and not an invasion over the Indian subcontinent. But there are politically motivated narratives abound that are pushing this theory to either extremes (Aryan immigration theory vs Aryan == Dravidian theory). Please don't trigger a flame war. It is surprising as it is that this topic hasn't triggered one yet.

Whether one calls it an invasion or a migration (I take no side), the Dravidians headed south around that time, no?

Re: Languages of India

#158

Post by random314 » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 12:21 AM UTC

yumraj wrote: post #149

random314 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have replied elsewhere, but you are wrong.

I have replied to your elsewhere comment too. Let's just agree to disagree and move on.

No need to be rude because you are wrong. I agree that you lost the argument.

Re: Languages of India

#159

Post by skissane » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 12:24 AM UTC

karthikvellanki wrote: post #131

_iyig wrote: post #128

A co-worker of mine once said then he heard a greater variety of spoken Indian languages in the Bay Area than he’d ever heard back in India, where he was born and educated. Never thought of a polite way to ask, but I’ve always been curious as to how many Indian co-workers of mine share a language other than English - seems like the number could be lower than expected, given the sheer amount of different languages.

Your co-worker's observation is actually more obvious than we think it is. Since states in India are essentially divided based on linguistic grounds, he would have been exposed to two Indian languages at best - the regional language in his town and Hindi (if the dominant language in the town is not Hindi already). In the Bay Area you'll find people from various states of India.

> In the Bay Area you'll find people from various states of India.

Doesn't the same thing happen within India itself, due to internal interstate migration? Not everyone who works in (for example) Bangalore's IT industry grew up there.

Re: Languages of India

#160

Post by shripadk » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 12:27 AM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #145

shripadk wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that have to do with the topic at hand? I am talking about irrational hatred for a language. Not about how a language can be misused. The misuse of language is secondary. What is the point of knowing about slang and cant if you aren't even going to learn the language in the first place?

> Not about how a language can be misused. The misuse of language is secondary. Again, use of language as a way to signal group identity and block out others is not "misuse" of a language. It is an inherent part of the human language faculty, it is normal usage. I know that in a venue like this who many participants are developers or sympathetic to the software community, there is a tendency to think of human languag…

> It is an inherent part of the human language faculty, it is normal usage

If it is normal usage then there is nothing to fear right? This logic makes no sense because I don't see this happening with other regional languages vis-a-vis Hindi.

> a danger illustrated by numerous case studies all over the world

Are you telling me that Hindi speaking people are deliberately targeting Tamil and Malayalam while giving a free pass to other linguistic communities? Why don't I see Assamese or Odia people having similar issues with Hindi? Surely they should also feel threatened by Hindi right? But they don't! They are thriving and they continue to speak their own language, maintain their own culture and traditions and also know to speak and write Hindi!

India has a 5000 year recorded history. Never has any language in these 5000 years been deliberately destroyed. I am a Kannadiga. I speak Kannada at home and yet have studied Hindi as my 3rd language and am fluent in it. It hasn't destroyed my culture, tradition or language. I don't see Hindi as a danger. If at all it has enriched my life, my thinking and given me a greater perspective.

But I am open minded enough to know other perspectives. Even if I disagree 100%. Can you share links to some of those studies? I find it hard to believe that any study can come to a conclusion on one Indian language being a danger to another language.