Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 129 posts

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#101

Post by HumanDrivenDev »

Manishearth wrote: post #91
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 sp…

"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 speakers want to send an email or text it will be done in mandarin. In the rare occasion Hokkien is written, it will be done haphazardly. Sometimes you'll choose a mandarin character that kind of means the same thing as a hokkien morpheme, and sometimes they'll choose the mandarin character that kind of sounds the same the same as a hokkien morpheme. Native speakers will be able to read this, but often struggle.

I have read that people used to be able to write Hokkien in characters, but that's lost now. I'm confidently told by native speakers today that the language has no written component (沒有文字). There's romanisation system that seems to be able to represent every sound prefectly, and more has actually been written in romanised hokkien than by any other methods, but Taiwanese people have a bit of a phobia of the latin alphabet, and no one uses it.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#102

Post by intended »

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.

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 not engage the depressing flame war that is sweeping such discussion.

It’s not logical, but most of this argument is not logical, the proof of which is too much for the margins of this comment.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#103

Post by make3 »

beat wrote: post #11

This reminded me of a video I saw once, many years ago. It was told by the last speaker of a language - from a tribe in El Salvador, iirc (Central America, for sure). Most of his tribe had been wiped out during civil war. He and his parents were the last living speakers of their language. When his parents died, he was the last. The video was a long, tearful poem, telling the story of his people and their destruction.…

how did you know what he was talking about if no one understood a word of it but him?

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#104

Post by eklavya »

Manishearth wrote: post #88
catchmrbharath wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hinduism and the Hindi language are two different things, and they are not related.

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?

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#105

Post by eklavya »

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.

Not saying you are wrong but it doesn't make sense to me. Hindi is not the native language of any of the states anywhere in India. They all have multiple native languages. The whole language issue is because of the unfortunate language politics in South India but the same flames could be fanned in any part of India believe me. For example in my state (Rajasthan) I am pretty sure there are at least 4 dialects. What's amazing is that nobody is offended if we keep using a foreign language to do all the mediation but as soon as the majority understood Indian language is mentioned everybody is up in arms. I am forgetting the name but a recently passed away Tamil celebrity had made a famous satire on this situation, where everybody must speak in Persian.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#107

Post by stevekemp »

beat wrote: post #69
boxy310 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

This is how integration works, when it does. The parents might stick to their own country-men, but over time the children will be raised in the local-schools, speak the local language, watch the local TV, etc, etc.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#108

Post by Cyph0n »

make3 wrote: post #103
beat wrote: post #11

This reminded me of a video I saw once, many years ago. It was told by the last speaker of a language - from a tribe in El Salvador, iirc (Central America, for sure). Most of his tribe had been wiped out during civil war. He and his parents were the last living speakers of their language. When his parents died, he was the last. The video was a long, tearful poem, telling the story of his people and their destruction.…

how did you know what he was talking about if no one understood a word of it but him?

Have you considered the possibility that the speaker himself provided a translation to the documenters?

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#109

Post by Cyph0n »

HumanDrivenDev wrote: post #101
Manishearth wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 sp…

"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.

Re: A man who 'discovered' 780 Indian languages

#110

Post by taherchhabra »

This is the reason I am teaching my mother tongue to my kids first, where every parents in my area wants their children to speak English first and that too in American accent. I understand that it's a global language but some cultural things are really difficult to pass on to your kids without your mother tongue
Post reply on HN