Alright, this is cool. I was annoyed at the last Google India campaign article about how everyone was going to use voice-to-text.
The New Wave of Indian Type
51–60 of 190 posts
Re: The New Wave of Indian Type
#52> The language and script change every five hundred miles Huh, somebody is making a vast over-simplification, presumably in a well-intentioned attempt to package this in a way the Western mind can comprehend. Which frankly is futile. India is much more diverse than that. In my youth I spent some time bumming around Saurashtra, a region in Gujarat state that's about 150 miles square. Nearly 50 languages are indigenous…
Why fetishize diversity for its own sake, especially when it's a barrier to communication? I think we should all speak one language (preferably, the one we're speaking now). The information suddenly marketable to or directly consumable by anyone at any given place will significantly increase.
The moment that happens, that language would start diverging again. You have to unify culture in order to unify language, and that doesn't sound as good anymore.
Settling on a "common" or "business" language, though, is entirely possible, and has been done many times in history. No language ever encompassed the whole world, and if one language has it's English, right now. Latin, Arabic, Mandarin, French, English, Spanish... The world has seen its share of common languages used within certain spheres of influence.
Re: The New Wave of Indian Type
#53I always wondered why many non-Latin (mostly cursive) scripts have little variation across different typefaces. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough? Well, the article mentions a similar observation by a Sri Lankan typographer, so I guess I am not alone. Can someone maybe point me to other non-Latin typefaces that have "their own typographic style"? I found the Baloo samples (last one in the article) refreshing. The st…
Tamil and Devanagari scripts are close to latin? in what way? Please, can you elaborate?
Re: The New Wave of Indian Type
#54Re: The New Wave of Indian Type
#55> The language and script change every five hundred miles Huh, somebody is making a vast over-simplification, presumably in a well-intentioned attempt to package this in a way the Western mind can comprehend. Which frankly is futile. India is much more diverse than that. In my youth I spent some time bumming around Saurashtra, a region in Gujarat state that's about 150 miles square. Nearly 50 languages are indigenous…
There is an actual Hindi aphorism which is similar, basically: "the language and the water change every five miles"
Re: The New Wave of Indian Type
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously, I am trying my luck in NLP with some Indian languages like Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati and Tamil. The sheer number of dialects is driving me nuts. Even dialects have very different sounding words or pronunciations which increases the complexity exponentially. But I am trying it only with an eye on its potential. NLP will simply act as the catalyst for technology adoption in the rural and semi-rural area. I'm…
China does have very diverse dialects. But Mandarin is taught in all schools in mainland China and we treat it as standard. Also it is the unified way people from different area communicate. For younger generation this is not a problem, back in my college life where people in the same class came from different areas, from Xinjiang to Canton to the northeast corner. We have no problem understanding each other though s…
And what are called "dialects" in the Chinese context are just as much dialects as French, Italian, and Romanian are "dialects" of Romance.
Re: The New Wave of Indian Type
#57> The language and script change every five hundred miles Huh, somebody is making a vast over-simplification, presumably in a well-intentioned attempt to package this in a way the Western mind can comprehend. Which frankly is futile. India is much more diverse than that. In my youth I spent some time bumming around Saurashtra, a region in Gujarat state that's about 150 miles square. Nearly 50 languages are indigenous…
Why fetishize diversity for its own sake, especially when it's a barrier to communication? I think we should all speak one language (preferably, the one we're speaking now). The information suddenly marketable to or directly consumable by anyone at any given place will significantly increase.
Because diversity emerges, like it or not. Go back far enough and Swedish and Nepali were dialects of the same language.
Re: The New Wave of Indian Type
#58> The language and script change every five hundred miles Huh, somebody is making a vast over-simplification, presumably in a well-intentioned attempt to package this in a way the Western mind can comprehend. Which frankly is futile. India is much more diverse than that. In my youth I spent some time bumming around Saurashtra, a region in Gujarat state that's about 150 miles square. Nearly 50 languages are indigenous…
> presumably in a well-intentioned attempt to package this in a way the Western mind can comprehend
Did you intend for that to come across as condescending?
Re: The New Wave of Indian Type
#59> The language and script change every five hundred miles Huh, somebody is making a vast over-simplification, presumably in a well-intentioned attempt to package this in a way the Western mind can comprehend. Which frankly is futile. India is much more diverse than that. In my youth I spent some time bumming around Saurashtra, a region in Gujarat state that's about 150 miles square. Nearly 50 languages are indigenous…
Why fetishize diversity for its own sake, especially when it's a barrier to communication? I think we should all speak one language (preferably, the one we're speaking now). The information suddenly marketable to or directly consumable by anyone at any given place will significantly increase.
> Why fetishize diversity for its own sake, especially when it's a barrier to communication?
Ĉar diverseco estas la bazo de ĉia belo kaj ĉia kreemo. Sin diverseco, vivo estus sensignifa.
> I think we should all speak one language (preferably, the one we're speaking now).
Certe, mi konsentas -- sed nur aldone al vian unikan lokan lingvon. Kaj ne la Anglan, mi petas!
Re: The New Wave of Indian Type
#60Based on what friends from South India tell me, it looks like South India in particular is embracing English. Even poor people are sending their children to schools where they can learn English. Most of the people I know, when they text on a phone use the Latin alphabet. India has fully embraced the global system which is based on English. I would guess that within 20 years, more people will speak English on a regula…
Part of that is South India tends to be assertively anti-Hindi for various historical/cultural reasons. Given that, English is the only realistic option for communicating outside a given linguistic community.