Will English kill off India's languages?

[illusion8]

That's good news!

You really have to ditch English as your official language. That is a shame!

That is a national shame!

Because India is not N. America, not Australia. You have your own stuff.

English is not our official language, Every state in India has its own official language, The national language happens to be hindi, India has got a wide diaspora of languages and dialects, makes it all the more interesting. You are limited in that respect cos either its mandarin or cantonese.

 

[illusion8]

Wrong!

lanuguage is much much more than just a tool, especially for an official language of a nation.

Lanuguage is a part of your culture, your tradition, how you are influenced and how your believe you are or belong to.

Wrong!! english is just a tool for us. Our national languages are our treasures.

 

[harpoon]

English is not our official language, Every state in India has its own official language, The national language happens to be hindi, India has got a wide diaspora of languages and dialects, makes it all the more interesting. You are limited in that respect cos either its mandarin or cantonese.

As far as I know India does not have a national language..there are only official languages which includes Hindi,English and 15 other regional languages.

 

[illusion8]

As far as I know India does not have a national language..there are only official languages which includes Hindi,English and 15 other regional languages.

Every state has its official language, Hindi is the national language like vande materam is the national anthem, Lotus is the national flower, Mango is the national fruit..catch my drift. English is the official language for a state in the NE if i am not wrong.

 

[JanjaWeed]

Oh well.. India has more than one thousand six hundred languages.. even if you take avg 50yrs to kill off one language.. let you guys calculate yourself the total time required to kill off all the languages..
on serious note... If anyone other than an Indian thinks that he is qualified to analyse the language culture in India, is living in fools paradise. For outsiders it's a very complex culture.. but for an Indian, it's a part of his upbringing. I come from a place where when i walk out of my house I encounter five different languages & none of them are English. & i can converse in all those languages! but for one who is not conversant with other's language, English is the way to go. That doesn't mean that he is killing his own language.. It's as simple as that.

 

[Manas]

Lets not fool anyone , English is hurting our mother tongues be it Hindi or any other regional languages.
Its growing at the cost of native languages.

Though We are getting bilingual or Trilingual , at the same time language skill of most indian are becoming pathetic as they are inadequate in both English and native languages. you know being jack of all trades master of none.

Poor Vocabulary and being forced to communicate different language on different occasions , English in Office then mother tongue at home giving rise to in bastardized versions of Hindi and English called Hinglish or it generics when other local lang combines English Which leads lack of sophistry of communication and poor expression .

Our Mother tongue should be promoted fervently among the speakers that lang .
I don't understand why two people who speak same in local language talks in English or sentences lashed with English .
Speaker A : Kahan ho ??
Speaker B : I'm in the office ,yaar
This happens so routinely ,we take it as norm actually and never bother .

Well we have many other bigger problems in our country language pride take back sit to be occasionally used for political purposes.Though situation isn't alarming and number of English speakers is minuscule to overall population ,respect for native language s is going down as more people are forced to learn English as necessity for better employment opportunities which isn't a good omen for the survival of local langs.

PS :It doesn't take much time for a language to disappear .Persian or Farsi was the official language for many centuries throughout the moghul rule of india , now its an alien language.

 

[harpoon]

Every state has its official language, Hindi is the national language like vande materam is the national anthem, Lotus is the national flower, Mango is the national fruit..catch my drift. English is the official language for a state in the NE if i am not wrong.

From Wikipedia:

Neither the Constitution of India nor Indian law specifies a National language. India specifies Hindi and English as official languages of the India de jure. Article 343 of the constitution specifies that the official language of the India is Hindi in Devanagari script. Article 354 states that a state of India may officially adopt one or more languages in use in the state or Hindi/English as the language or languages to be used for all or any of the official purposes of that state.[7] Section 8 of The Official Languages Act of 1963 (as amended in 1967) empowers the Union Government to make rules regarding the languages which may be used for the Official purposes of the Union, for transaction of business in Parliament, and for communication between the Union Government and the states.[8] Section 3 of G.S.R. 1053, titled "Rules, 1976 (As Amended, 1987)" specifies that communications from a Central (Union) Government office to a State or a Union Territory in shall, save in exceptional cases (Region "A") or shall ordinarily (Region "B"), be in Hindi, and if any communication is issued to any of them in English it shall be accompanied by a Hindi translation thereof.[9] Section 3 of G.S.R. 1053, titled "Rules, 1976 states Communications from a Central Government office to State or Union Territory in Region "C" or to any office (not being a Central Government office) or person in such State shall be in English. Region C (South India) covers Tamil Nadu, Kerala , Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh [10]

National language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[illusion8]

Among the other language speakers of India, the decision to choose Hindi as the official language was seen as an attempt to erase their cultures. After different struggles – political, violent and passive – the central government decided to allow the state governments to pick their official languages and recognized constitutionally other languages of India. For now the Indian constitution recognizes 18 Indian languages. One of meanings of the constitutional recognition is the right to use any of these languages for government service examinations. But, in reality this possibility isn’t always given to the examinee.

The different states of India have different official languages, some of them not recognized by the central government. Some states have more then one official language. Bihar in east India has three official languages - Hindi, Urdu and Bengali – which are all recognized by the central government. But Sikkim, also in east India, has four official languages of which only Nepali is recognized by the central government. Besides the languages officially recognized by central or state governments, there are other languages which don’t have this recognition and their speakers are running political struggles to get this recognition. Anyway as stated earlier the central government decided that Hindi is the official language of India and therefore it has also the status of official language in the states. Another language that has a official status in all states is English.

http://adaniel.tripod.com/Languages2.htm

 

[JohnyD]

yes to some extent...but gr8 think about Indian society is, average person can speak more than one language fluently....in cities like mumbai...most of the people speak at least 3 languages fluently....

 

[illusion8]

@harpoon I stand corrected, I posted based on my personal assumptions but you are right India does not have a national language

There's no national language in India: Gujarat High Court - Times Of India

But the whole issue is as confusing as the above Gujarat high court verdict, so all in all its a very complicated matter.

 

[Bhairava]

The reason is that English is the only language acceptable to all Indians.

People in South India will not speak Hindi, even though they may have learnt it in school. I don't expect Indians on this forum will admit it, but you just need to ask South Indians in real life.

They will tell you.

Every single one.

There is a difference in your interpretration and what we are saying.

We don't want to accept any language as National langauge, not even English.

I'm a South Indian.

 

[harpoon]

PS :It doesn't take much time for a language to disappear .Persian or Farsi was the official language for many centuries throughout the moghul rule of india , now its an alien language.

Persian and Parsi were court languages. In otherwords they were the language of the elite which never penetrated into the masses. So when the courts that patronized it disappeared, so did the language. That cannot be said about the Indian languages and even English. English started off as the language of our then colonial masters, but now its as Indian as anyother Indian language.

 

[Bhairava]

I know. I was explaining why English is needed even though Hindi is the 'national' language. Many (most?) Indians simply do not accept Hindi as their language.

Thinktank,I think you are attempting to stir the sh!t here. But there is no national language in India. There are only official language.

 

[JohnyD]

There are 22 different languages that have been recognised by the Constitution of India, of which Hindi is an Official Language. Article 343(3) empowered Parliament to provide by law for continued use of English for official purposes

India at a glance - Profile - Know India: National Portal of India

 

[Abhishek_]

that's the beauty of India. We have so many differences, but at the end of the day.
We are one people, one heart, one soul.

Live long and Prosper mother