Re: Are languages more important than human lives?
What made you take such an extreme view?
Of course there is something called genuine appreciate and love for language, most normal human beings with decent intellectual capacity have that. It's only when that love is infused with lust for power, rebellion and ambition, that you get all kinds of problems.
the problem arises when racist leaders disseminate language pride and arrogance among natives.
Re: Are languages more important than human lives?
the problem arises when racist leaders disseminate language pride and arrogance among natives.
Showing pride for language is not always bad until someone crosses lines and do that at the expense of other languages.
We all know how much proud Arabs were / are for their language. They were arrogant enough to call non-Arabs 'Ajam' which literally means 'mute'.
Re: Are languages more important than human lives?
When someone uses language to raise a conflict and forget importance of the same language after achieving political mileage (as we saw in case of Bangali in Bangla-Desh), then such inferences seems right. No?
Bengali still has same love in BanglaDesh, they still love bangla and every other thing in Bangladesh is named in Bengali, it is the language with the richest literature but off late, English has overtaken every language in India.
Re: Are languages more important than human lives?
Bengali still has same love in BanglaDesh, they still love bangla and every other thing in Bangladesh is named in Bengali, it is the language with the richest literature but off late, English has overtaken every language in India.
Irony is we can bear foreign languages like English against our regional languages, but not Urdu or Hindi. I don't think there would have been riots when Persian was given status of official / court language in India.
Re: Are languages more important than human lives?
Irony is we can bear foreign languages like English against our regional languages, but not Urdu or Hindi. I don't think there would have been riots when Persian was given status of official / court language in India.
That India was autocratic mughal India, where Shahjahan used of million of rupees to build TajMahal, it is also said that he transferred food to laborers which was supposed to be reserved for drought affected region. when our political bosses are like this now, interpolate this and Imagine what kind of ruler they might have been at that time :D
This India and pakistan are democratic (if at it can be called democracy), people can raise their voice now, the political awakening that resulted in regional awakening is extension of freedom struggle :)
Re: Are languages more important than human lives?
That India was autocratic mughal India, where Shahjahan used of million of rupees to build TajMahal, it is also said that he transferred food to laborers which was supposed to be reserved for drought affected region. when our political bosses are like this now, interpolate this and Imagine what kind of ruler they might have been at that time :D
This India and pakistan are democratic (if at it can be called democracy), people can raise their voice now, the political awakening that resulted in regional awakening is extension of freedom struggle :)
But there used to be rebels on petty issues and people would have loved their languages in those times as well. Again I didn't come up with a single account of linguistic riots in any part of India in pre-British period. Atmosphere was quite friendly for an new language (Urdu) to evolve. Now, the region is unable to produce a new language, though all the languages of the region have gone through major changes since then.
Re: Are languages more important than human lives?
Showing pride for language is not always bad until someone crosses lines and do that at the expense of other languages.
We all know how much proud Arabs were / are for their language. They were arrogant enough to call non-Arabs 'Ajam' which literally means 'mute'.
this pride actully leads toward arrogance and then violence.
its plain wrong to teach people things like this irrespective of who does it.
actually, there is no sane reason to be proud of your native language becuase there is nothing like you achieved it through extra efforts. you learn it as any human being will learn it as part of social growth.
I can understand that love for language is kind of natural but taking it as pride is wrong IMHO.