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The New Wave of Indian Type

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Re: The New Wave of Indian Type

#71

Post by svat »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #50
nkoren wrote: post #18

> 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.

Diversity is not necessarily a barrier to communication. (In fact, the idea that diversity is a problem and a barrier to communication is itself a bigger problem IMO.) In India most people are multilingual, and there's usually a link-language. For instance, in the region mentioned in the comment you're replying to, probably a majority would speak Gujarati too as a second language, and a significant number of them Hindi, and many English as well. There's going to be a fair bit of interchange and translation going on too. (For example, even in the Anglosphere one is not completely blind to French or Italian or German language or culture, say, and is aware of at least a few of their peaks: enough to recognize they have something of value too.)

The existence of diversity is generally a sign of freedom and self-sufficiency: that the people in question were/are free to retain and develop/enrich their own culture, and yet function successfully (enough) in interaction with the broader society, without too much pressure to give up their ways. (See: “melting pot” and “salad bowl”.) Monocultures, monolingualism, monotheism, etc., do have certain advantages too of course, but I hope some can see why diversity is valuable too.

Re: The New Wave of Indian Type

#72

Post by telotortium »

This is the first time I've ever seen this construction (using "that's" instead of "whose" as a relative possessive pronoun): "...the ongoing use of English, a language that's reach and influence has grown considerably..."

Re: The New Wave of Indian Type

#73

Post by endgame »

HumanDrivenDev wrote: post #58
nkoren wrote: post #18

> 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?

I don't know if GP did, but I did not read it as such.

Re: The New Wave of Indian Type

#74

Post by paganel »

endgame wrote: post #73
HumanDrivenDev wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I don't know if GP did, but I did not read it as such.

> but I did not read it as such.

The same here (granted, I'm not a "true" Westerner, as I live in Eastern Europe, but that's also West of India). Adding to the conversation, I have the same issue of trying to comprehend the linguistic craziness that the Caucasus area represents. I mean, as a language buff I'm always amazed whenever I look at this language-map of the area (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Caucasus...) and at the language families included in there.

Re: The New Wave of Indian Type

#75

Post by jacobolus »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #56
azurezyq wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

These mostly get called “dialects” for political reasons: the Chinese government doesn’t want to acknowledge that they are separate mutually unintelligible languages. Media in Chinese languages other than Mandarin is restricted, children are forced to use Mandarin in school, all official business is done in Mandarin, etc. There is a concerted effort to make other languages economically unviable, and generally to disempower and discourage regional / minority cultures. The grandparent poster’s experience is evidence that this strategy is working out.

It is similar to the way the Chinese government assigns non-native political officials to rule each region, and severely censors any politically controversial communication/media. That is, it is yet another tool of authoritarian social control, an effort to forestall any political opposition to the central government and its unresponsive top-down decision-making process.

India does not have the same kind of authoritarian governing institutions, so similar forced homogenization would not be politically viable.

Re: The New Wave of Indian Type

#76

Post by sg0 »

I admit that despite of the ubiquity of Indian fonts these days, I still use English to write messages conveying Bengali/Hindi words, because I'm more comfortable that way. I don't remember the last time I wrote a letter in Bengali/Bangla or Hindi, and when it comes to electronic communication, it has always been English for me. So it feels strange for me to start writing in Bengali using my keypad all of a sudden.

Re: The New Wave of Indian Type

#77

Post by gumby »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #50
nkoren wrote: post #18

> 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 uniformity in the name of some absurd "efficiency"?

People are all different and why should they not choose to communicate/eat/enjoy themselves as they wish, with all the advantages and disadvantages of their choices?

(Plus in the case of languages there are things which can be said in some and really can't be said in others. My wife, child and I would typically speak multiple languages, sometimes even in the same sentence, in order to convey the nuance of what we wanted to say. Hell, even in English there are things said in discipline-specific jargons that aren't really communicable any other way).

Re: The New Wave of Indian Type

#78

Post by baobrain »

jacobolus wrote: post #75
_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what are called "dialects" in the Chinese context are just as much dialects as French, Italian, and Romanian are "dialects" of Romance.

These mostly get called “dialects” for political reasons: the Chinese government doesn’t want to acknowledge that they are separate mutually unintelligible languages. Media in Chinese languages other than Mandarin is restricted, children are forced to use Mandarin in school, all official business is done in Mandarin, etc. There is a concerted effort to make other languages economically unviable, and generally to dise…

> the Chinese government doesn’t want to acknowledge that they are separate mutually unintelligible languages.

Except they are not mutually unintelligible. Put someone from heilongjiang province in Sichuan and they will still be able to understand the language, albeit with more difficulty.

Though there are dialects that do have completely different pronunciation, they all use the same underlying script, save a select few minority languages. Mandarin Chinese is taught in school, but everyone still uses the local dialect to speak with each other.

I'm not even denying the CCP has ulterior motives in doing this, but your original claim was simply incorrect and disingenuous.

Re: The New Wave of Indian Type

#79

Post by PeterisP »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #56
azurezyq wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's how languages form. You don't get a language like French just by hoping for it to emerge or by letting dialects run their own lives and continue to diverge; you take it by taking a bunch of Romance dialects including quite separate ones (Langue d'Oc and the Langue d'Oil groups) and pushing them together through a common system of mass media (printed for the time, but still), education and cultural acceptance of a "proper dialect" at the top end of the society. That's how you get a strong language that helps you to unify a country and reduce internal barriers of communication; and that's what the Chinese are doing.

Re: The New Wave of Indian Type

#80

Post by duskwuff »

i2om3r wrote: post #49

I 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…

> Can someone maybe point me to other non-Latin typefaces that have "their own typographic style"?

CJK scripts have traditionally used Ming, Song, and Gothic (sans-serif) typefaces.

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