8/29/09

Read more...

8/12/09

English in India

Let us consider Europe as our method of devising rules for the basis of language development in India. Europe is a large land, populated with many different groups of people that speak many different languages. All those languages spoken are well and alive and Europe as a whole is a very developed economy. India is a little different. India is a country comprising of many different groups of people, about 3 times the size the whole of Europe, smaller land, many many different languages but India is not yet a developed nation as a whole. The problem with India is that English (a non-indigenous language) is becoming the medium by which different Indians Communicate. This is a serious problem which in a certain aspect could possibly leave the Indian people enslaved to the western world.


It's important to consider each state of India as an individual country. Each State should have it's own thriving economy by which the medium of business done in that state should be it's native language. I have devise several rules in which I think this can be brought about:

Legislation: All businesses must provide available goods and services to the people of India in their state's native language. All Business must employ the speakers of the native language and thus, business must be conducted in way that caters to the native speakers.

In Kerala, all products are to be labeled in Malayalam, all services and forms should be available in Malayalam, all signs must already be in Malayalam or accompanied by a Malayalam translation. In short, the whole of the Kerala economy must be able to be translated into Malayalam inorder to cater to the Monolingual Malayali citizen.

Hindi: Hindi is already a very popular language in India and if anything should appear as an Imperial Language, it should be Hindi. Indians should be able to travel the length and breadth of India and try to communicate to people that speak Hindi. Hindi should be the countries second language, and serve as the country's medium language. Indian's should attend schools that teach Hindi, not English as SECOND language.

In Kolkata, kids should attend school that operates in Bengali medium which also has hindi as a required elective in the school. Both languages, Bengali in particular, should be spoken, written, and understood, with extreme rigor and proficiency. When a Bengali goes to Delhi, he should have no problem conversing in Hindi with his fellow Indian. When a Bengali travels to Tamil Nadu he will either have to learn a bit of Tamil or communicate with a Tamilian that also has learned Hindi as a second language. No one in Tamil Nadu is required nor obligated to speak Hindi nor Bengali, only Tamil. Therefor the Bengali that decided to live and work in Tamil Nadu has to learn Tamil in order to properly seek employment.

This system will be best preserved by enacting certain legislation that facilitates native speakers that live in there native state. Even provisions can be given within the state amongst varying dialects. Also, private schools may begin to operate with the sort of trend towards local languages.

All in all the dependency for the English language should be cut down, drastically. I believe the BJP has something to this extent similar in mind.
Read more...
 
Blogger