Linguistic States - India

[irmamar]

Maybe Raji or somebody who knows something about India can tell me what Linguistic States are. I'm studying linguistic situation in India (not in depth) and the book says that in 1956 Linguistic States were formed. I understand that it must be a kind of administrative division, depending on the distribution of the spoken languages, but I'm not sure.

The book also says that there were a great effort to substitute English with Hindi, but they were not able to detach it from English, so it was adopted as the second official language. Why weren't they able to do it? Were English so spread that everybody used to speak English?

Thanks.

[poli]

Originally Posted by irmamar

Maybe Raji or somebody who knows something about India can tell me what Linguistic States are. I'm studying linguistic situation in India (not in depth) and the book says that in 1956 Linguistic States were formed. I understand that it must be a kind of administrative division, depending on the distribution of the spoken languages, but I'm not sure.

The book also says that there were a great effort to substitute English with Hindi, but they were not able to detach it from English, so it was adopted as the second official language. Why weren't they able to do it? Were English so spread that everybody used to speak English?

Thanks.

English is politically and religiously neutral in India. An Urdu-speaking Moslem may be resistant to learning Hindi (which is a similar language with a different alphabet almost like Castillian and Ladino but not quite as close) because Hindi is largely the language of Hindus. English, however unitesthem. Britain's long occupation of India really had a strong linguistic influence over the country (Pakistan too). I know nothing about linguistic states, but I'm sure you assumption is correct.

[irmamar]

Thank you, poli.

[pjt33]

Originally Posted by irmamar

Were English so spread that everybody used to speak English?

The middle and upper classes, yes. English was the language of government and education.

[irmamar]

Yes, it is. But I think that everybody there speaks English.

[JPablo]

Maybe so, but I have a friend who speaks Gujarati (there are about 46 million people speaking this language in the NorthWest state of India) and she is totally fluent in English (maybe because she has been living in California for decades...)

I am not that sure, however, that everybody speaks English that fluently... otherwise Bollywood would not be doing films in Hindi... and apparently that film industry is even bigger than Hollywood...

[irmamar]

As far as I know (or I have understood, que todo es posible ), Indian government is making great efforts to spread Hindi, since this language has a literary nature and it is spoken about 40% of population in India, which is not an important average, having in mind that it is an official language. So, films in Hindi are important to spread that lenguage. Or I think so.

[poli]

You are probably right Irmamar. PJT is also right about social class. Upper classes speak English and because India has a large population, hundreds of millions are upper-class English speakers. In the United States if you call for customer service for a computer or other things, you often are connected to someone in India. Some migrate to the United States. I have only met one person from India who did not speak English and he was a land owner who did not come from a poor family. The rhythm of Indian English is quite different from American and British English.

I know that Barcelona has an established population of English-speaking Indians.

[irmamar]

Thanks. I don't go often to Barcelona, and there aren't many Indians here (in fact, I don't know any Indian person)

But well, thank you.

[poli]

Yo pasé tres días alli y quedé sorprendido ver que muchos dueños de negocios tenían caras típicas de la India, pero hablaron español. No esta seguro si eran indios (tal vez gitanos pesaba yo) Una noche fui a un restaurante donde llegaron algunos americanos muy pero muy blancos y ni una palabra de español hablaron. Los hombres y las mujeres parecían George Washington. En mesero les habló con accento indio-iglés.

http://www.internations.org/expats/m...celona/indians

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by poli

http://www.internations.org/expats/m...celona/indians

That only shows 50 Indians in Barcelona, compared with over 500 Germans.

[JPablo]

Yes, the Germans have been coming since the 70s and there are entire little towns in Girona and Mallorca where, if your German is nonexistent... you can't buy a loaf of Brot!

The Indians phenomena I believe it starts less than 20 years ago... (?)

Sorry, I have to correct myself... In Asterix in Hispania there is already a clear reference about Germans coming through about 50 or 45 B.C. !

(Not to mention the Visigodos, Suevos y Alanos... todas ellas tribus germánicas... los españoles somos muchos godos, y Carlos I de España y V de Alemania, hablaba mejor el alemán que el español... y...)

[pjt33]

Originally Posted by poli

I know that Barcelona has an established population of English-speaking Indians.

I was served by one in a supermarket when I was there. He seemed to find it rather amusing that I used my little Catalan on him.

Originally Posted by Perikles

That only shows 50 Indians in Barcelona, compared with over 500 Germans.

I had to disabuse an Australian friend of the notion that the photo he had taken in Cataluña showing a house named "4Germans" was evidence of immigration...

[JPablo]

Originally Posted by pjt33

I was served by one in a supermarket when I was there. He seemed to find it rather amusing that I used my little Catalan on him.

Molt bé, noi! En catalá, si us plau.
[Well done, lad! In catalonian, please.]

I had to disabuse an Australian friend of the notion that the photo he had taken in Cataluña showing a house named "4Germans" was evidence of immigration...