What’s official about a language?

christelle — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:08:38 +0000

When a language which is the primary tongue of 30% of the nation is made the “national language,” you are gonna have to face the 70% – After moving to Hyderabad, I get reactions ranging from polite, curious questions to ridicule when I ask people to stick to English.

Well, for some of us, learning Hindi is not a choice – for others, Hindi is not a choice. Yes, I grew up in places where you heard Hindi only on Doordarshan (nowadays, cable TV too) and where schools offered just two languages – Tamil, English. Even in schools that offered a third language, it was French (because it was easy?) or another Dravidian language.

Yes, I know that isn’t great – but, you know, I didn’t get to set the rules when I was in school. It isn’t bad at work – though, people tend to assume you know Hindi! I think the first time I had a problem big-time was when I went out for a trip with this group – and they were speaking in Telugu/Hindi. Well, there was at least one person who took the time and effort to speak to me (in English) – may his tribe increase. The sad part, though, was that most of them didn’t care – and, worse, at least one person knew that my Hindi isn’t fluent!

In fact, it was worse than being out on the road. Do you know why? Because, when a conductor, bus driver, or shopkeeper realises that I don’t know the language, they try their best to use the simplest of words and use English if they know. Also, I am not trying to build relationships there – I manage to get what I want and I will get going. However, when you go out as a group, you are trying to get to know them – where language matters all the more.

After such an experience, quite naturally, I spoke about it to a couple of people and got some suggestions, including reply in Tamil – now, that’s gonna be fun!

The other day, when I couldn’t sleep, I was searching for more information on India and the languages in this country. Not surprisingly:

“Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people; there are 21 other official languages: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanscrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu” [source]

So, the next time you think of saying “Arre, national language – how can you not know?” – ask yourself if you are a hockey player.

Got it?

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I drew the lines!

christelle — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:01:00 +0000

Jan 31 – I went from

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VAT and What not….

christelle — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 01:10:00 +0000

I picked up the newspaper, and while I was scanning through, something caught my eye – there was this news article that hotels were charging VAT for liquor while they should not be doing so. Apparently, liquor is exempted from VAT.
“Products including petrol, diesel, aviation turbine fuel, liquor and lottery tickets will be exempted from VAT.” (Source: news.bbc.co.uk)

Somehow, I don’t get the logic of taxing food and exempting liquor! Any ideas?

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Myriad of Thoughts... » Goverment

What’s official about a language?

I drew the lines!

VAT and What not….