^Indopak,
What you say is true (having one language would have lot of benefits), but you have to consider the fact that at the time of independence the country was begining to take roots after centuries of subjugation. All these states were independent and every state has their unique culture dating back to centuries. Imposing hindi would have been not good for the unity of the country, because everybody was very rpoud of their language. And its funny that hindi is the youngest of all languages.
Regarding the number of languages, I think most of the states (except where hindi is the official language) students learn atleast 3 languages upto high school (English, Hindi and their state language).
I'm from Andhra and I studied English, Hindi and Telugu. In our state we can also take one more language in Intermediate(11th and 12th). And most people even though they study hindi they would find it hard to speak because of lack of exposure except for big metropolitan cities. Thats why lot people cuss about learning Hindi.
The movement to remove Hindi has taken place only in Tamil nadu state which is due to the politics that date back to pre independence.
And I think as the literacy rate increases, every body in India would be conversing in Hindi and English. And the factor contributing to this would be bollywood.
Hindi is becoming popular
-- Bollywood
-- Cable TV
-- People moving from one state to other because of jobs
-- Young generation feels it is cool to know Hindi (and this is true even outside India)
Conversational Hindi is popular. I dont think Non-Hindi speaker read Hindi literature etc.
I was born in Kuwait and completed my initial years of education in an Indian school.............I was taught English, Hindi and Arabic untill high school.......Muslim students were taught an extra Quranic subject and Hindus and Christians were taught Moral science in that same period.....Although, I was not fond of leaning multiple languages, but currently, I am at Dearborn, MI where one in two are arabs and I can easily conversate with the arab+Indian+American folks out here.
Punjabi is a slang of Urdu? What utter rubbish! Urdu is the result of an orgy, it’s just a mish mash of Khariboli, Persian, Turkish, Arabic, this and that.
Punjabi might not have always been referred to as Punjabi but it is far far more ancient than Urdu. It is not just a colloquial language, it has quite a rich literary tradition…
What Urdu script were you referring to? Punjabi has its own two scripts, the one we use is called Shahmukhi and it is related to Urdu, Arabic and Persian scripts. On the Indian side they use the Gurmukhi script which is also a Punjabi script.
I agree Persian was the official language of the Mughal state, and the Brits are responsible for the widespread of Hindi/Urdu in South-Asia.
I guess Punjabis are also to blame for their inferiority complex, they wont become more civlised by adopting Urdu, Punjabi is such a sexy language..
There is more to Punjabi than those olden days Lollywood movies.
Have you ever heard a Sikh bird speak Punjabi?
Even the European Rroma (related to Punjabis and Rajasthanis) who don’t even have their own country and are scattered allover the world are working on standardising their language, the same needs to be done with the different Punjabi dialects.
-- Bollywood
-- Cable TV
-- People moving from one state to other because of jobs
-- Young generation feels it is cool to know Hindi (and this is true even outside India)
Conversational Hindi is popular. I dont think Non-Hindi speaker read Hindi literature etc.
Bollywood is not that popular in south , its limited to only big cities, small city crowd don't watch Bollywood Crap, as far most of the films are remake of south and the same goes to Cable TV, I speak Hindi fluently and wrote exams for Hindi Pundit ( stopped in the middle due to other priorities), though i'm good in hindi but we never watch Hindi Channels, most of the time it will be Telugu Channels,
for south indians its easy to learn other south indian languages because all are some what related as they are Dravidian languages
But Hindi is Indo Aryan and it is entirely different from Dravidian languages
though most of the vocabulary in kannada and telugu are imported from Sanskrit, still it is difficult for them to learn Hindi
Its not that people have hatred aganist hindi, but its difficult for them to learn it and its not useful at all unless your main contacts are with Hindi people
I'm from AP , my 2nd lang was Hindi till 10th and 11th and 12th its Sanskrit( 90% of the students(including muslims) choose this because its a scoring subject it got 98% in this and other languages its difficult to score even 60%)
i never had telugu in my curriculum but i learnt it myself i can read and write and i can fillout very difficult crossword puzzles in telugu very easily then in hindi
being able to read and write various scripts is always a plus point. You guys are telling that kids learn regional language in state alongwith English. Mostly in the south. i.e kerela, karnatika tamil nadu etc
What is the situation in Punjab and Gujrat ? Do they teach punjabi and gujrati in those states ?
Another question. Which of these regional languages have their own independent script with unique alphabets ?
Do you know anywebsite(s) which teach the basics of well known indian languages ?
let’s see… hindi and marathi all use devnagri script.
southern languages all have roundish looking alphabets, they all have independent scripts but sometimes look similar to each other. for eg, kannada and telegu have a lot of similar looking alphabets but in reality are different, and the spoken languages are TOTALLY different. i know because i once tried to read a kannada newspaper and was lost until someone told me it was in telegu :mad: tamil and malayalam have similar looking scripts that look like a lot of curlicues i have learnt japanese but i wouldn’t dare try to learn either of these two lingos. gujarati, punjabi again have different scripts. i think bengali has a real pretty script, and it resembles devnagari a lil bit, i can actually make out the words sometimes. rest of the languages, i don’t know how many there are… i haven’t a clue. my grandmother actually speaks 10 languages fluently :eek:
even regional languages have so many versions of the same language… i was told that kannada has like 5 different dialects.. and they are so sufficiently different that my parents preferred to communicate with each other in hindi and english despite being from the same state!
18 scheduled languages,
114 other languages,
216 mother tongues,
96 non specified languages,
totally up to 10000 languages spoken by people.
LANGAUGES OF INDIA, 1991 CENSUS
***Scheduled Languages ***
Serial No.— Language Name —Number of Persons
Assamese 13,079,696
Bengali 69,595,738
Gujarati 40,673,814
Hindi 337,272,114
Kannada 32,753,676
Kashmiri 56,693
Konkani 1,760,607
Malayalam 30,377,176
Manipuri 1,270,216
Marathi 62,481,681
Nepali 2,076,645
Oriya 28,061,313
Punjabi 32,753,676
Sanskrit 49,736
Sindhi 2,122,848
Tamil 53,006,368
Telugu 66,017,615
Urdu 43,406,932 Non-Scheduled Languages**
Serial No. -----Language Name -----Number of Persons
Kannada and Telugu scripts are mostly same with a little difference, i can read kannada though i'm telugu guy
can u tell me exactly how many alphabets are different between kannada and telegu? i know that kannada speaking ppl cannot easily pick up telegu, but what abt the reverse? also, tulu sounds like a mixture of telegu n kannada... do u understand tulu as well?
p.s. offtopic, but are u from hyd? if so, pls would u pm me a list of the best biryani/kebab eateries in hyd? i'm planning a weekend food trip with some friends..
can u tell me exactly how many alphabets are different between kannada and telegu? i know that kannada speaking ppl cannot easily pick up telegu, but what abt the reverse? also, tulu sounds like a mixture of telegu n kannada... do u understand tulu as well?
** p.s. offtopic, but are u from hyd? if so, pls would u pm me a list of the best biryani/kebab eateries in hyd? i'm planning a weekend food trip with some friends..**
I'm not Hyderbadi but hyderabadi food would have to be some of the best ever. i can never make it the way the restaurants make it....chicken biryani :)
[QUOTE]
Bollywood is not that popular in south , its limited to only big cities, small city crowd don't watch Bollywood Crap, as far most of the films are remake of south and the same goes to Cable TV, I speak Hindi fluently and wrote exams for Hindi Pundit ( stopped in the middle due to other priorities), though i'm good in hindi but we never watch Hindi Channels, most of the time it will be Telugu Channels,
for south indians its easy to learn other south indian languages because all are some what related as they are Dravidian languages
[/QUOTE]
Lakkis,
Bollywood is indeed becoming popular in south also. As denada said people feel posh speaking English and Hindi. It used to like this only in Hyderabad, but its spreading to other cities also. Hindi movies used to run mostly in Hyd., but they are showing them even in small cities. Also, the local languages will remain strong and local movies will be patronised, only that hindi will also become popular.
p.s. offtopic, but are u from hyd? if so, pls would u pm me a list of the best biryani/kebab eateries in hyd? i'm planning a weekend food trip with some friends..
Hi Namkeen,
Paradise in Secunderabad and Bawarchi in RTC 'X' roads are famous for Biryani.
Its not like the Soth Indians hate Hindi,its more like they dislike hindi speaking ppl,beacuse they tend to force Hindi upon everyone.They never try to learn a local language or culture.
as its Ramjan season, you can get good Irani Haleem at Paradise or in old city
i hope you know about Irani chai, its again Paradise chai is the best
its almost 4yrs now i'm away from hyderabad, heard it got lot of malls and multiplex's and Traffic turned like a hell now, my friend told it took 3 hrs to reach home after the cricket match
gandhi's big mistake was giving so much importance to hindi. it is the language of the most backwardly part of the whole subcontinent, and now thanks to importance given to language, this exact area is what sends maximum politicians to the parliament and drags the rest of the country down.
i learnt english, malayalam, and hindi in high school. i do okay with all three, but in retrospect, i'd rather have learnt just malayalam in more depth, and less of hindi. malayalam literature is something that has to be experienced by anyone who calls themselves an educated malayali. it is a shame when you are malayali and can quote munshi premchand and harivansh rai bachan, but don't know any basheer or ONV; know all about the gupta dynasty but don't know who the zamorin is. say no to cow-beltization of indian sub-cultures.
queer, how come you know Hindi so well and even more stranger how come u speak punjabi so well with moin ul atiq?
I hope south Indian languages are given just as much importance.
Maybe they should teach the malayalam language and history just as extensively as Hindi and the general Indian History in Kerala but if only malayalam language and history are taught than i guess all the other states would follow in the same way and there will be small countries within India with no connection to each other. They might as well separate into small independent countries of their own…i’m sure there are other countries in this world that would love to see this happen to India. So, I think a country needs a common language and history to keep the country together and see each other as Indians more and not just as Gujaratis, punjabis, Biharis, etc. We can always teach stuff the schools don’t teach about our respective subcultures to our children at home on our own.
But it’s pretty cool that Indians that grew up in India know so many languages. in the future I hope to teach my kids both Hindi(while I learn it myself) and our native language…let’s hope they retain both of them :Dinstead of just English like most Indian Americans(except me of course:halo:).
couple of things - if a country needs to artificially uniformize linguistically and culturally to stay as one, it isn't really one country; it an oppressive imperialistic structure.
secondly, it is not just south indian languages which are ignored vis-a-vis hindi - it its every other language spoken in india. other north-indians(punjabis, marathis, gujaratis, etc) don't notice because their native tongues are similar to hindi. but the north-east and south have distinct lingustics and cultures, and the degradation in language capabilities/quality and culture from cow-belt influence is very visible with the passage of time.
as for kids in the west, its highly unlikely that desi kids growing up in the US are going to learn a language they don't use on a daily basis to any decent level of competency.
I am from North. My father is big Urdu freak so he made me go to Urdu medium school. I was allowed to take Urdu and Farsi as 2 subjects untill my 10th standard. I also had to study English and Hindi apart from usualy Science, Math and sociology etc. Infect during my 10th I wrote all my papers in Urdu. :D
I studied Arabic and Quran by taking tution after school. Finished Quran at the age of 7 and then my Arabic education stopped there.
During my 12th, my medium of study changed to English although I had Urdu, Hindi and English as 3 different subjects apart from Math, Physics and Chemistry.
