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Fun fact: People who actually don't speak fluent English are more often than not ridiculed, looked down upon and judged immediately. For some reason, the countr

by asenna 10y ago

Fun fact: People who actually don't speak fluent English are more often than not ridiculed, looked down upon and judged immediately. For some reason, the country treats knowing english as a litmus test - You either know english or you're not really that knowledgable (You've to work doubly hard to prove your knowledge). I might be generalizing a bit but it's truly a widespread thing, I'm sure other Indian HN users can attest to this. - You try to strike a conversation with a girl in Hindi in a bar, you will get laughed at or ignored. But you speak fluent english and you have a much higher chance of having a conversation. - Every parent wants to send their child to an english medium school and it's only the poor ones who don't have many options around who settle for their children to be in a local language school (The quality of teachers would also vary accordingly). - A sportsperson (usually a cricketer), goes up to the post-match presentation to take an award and speaks in broken english, millions of people watching it would start cracking jokes on him. There are countless other examples. Yes, knowing english is good to compete in a global economy but the obsession with the language that the middle/upper class shows is ridiculous. There are several reasons for this trend but it's definitely a direct impact of the British rule. There is a brilliant Bollywood family movie on this topic - English Vinglish (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2181931/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2181931/) I would really recommend you to watch it if you're into good foreign cinema.

ittekimasu 10y ago
It almost appears as if there is a class of Indians who learn English first and then barely, if at all, learn any of the native languages. I wonder if the similar GDP per-capita of India, Africa are the result of such shared colonial baggage. I've never seen this stuff never mentioned in the media; I had know about the colonial education/stifling wartime British bureaucracy etc. and assorted ideas from reading Naipaul's book. I didn't think it was this bad. I find it ironic that such elites hold the values of enlightenment Europe to such high standard while implementing the policies of medieval Europe. Best of luck to you; considering the boisterous opposition here, I can only imagine what it'd take to bring political change in such a vast country.
yomritoyj 10y ago
The problems you point out are real, but they are the problems of class differences. India has a growing middle class, and this class needs markers to differentiate itself from the lower classes it has only recently left behind. Speaking English acts as a marker now, but if it went away for some reason I'm sure there would be new markers to take its place. Think of the kind of ‘Indian’ culture promoted by the government and the schools: Indian classical music, Indian classical dance, Sanskritised Hindi. They are as alien to the everyday lives of most people in India as English is. But they were created to give the elites and the government of India a high culture of their own which was not tainted by colonialism and whose command they could use to differentiate themselves from the non-elite. The bar situation has an additional twist. Most bilingual people I know would use the Indian language with friends and family and English with strangers. So trying to start a conversation in Hindi may come across as being too familiar too soon.

by asenna 10y ago

ittekimasu 10y ago

It almost appears as if there is a class of Indians who learn English first and then barely, if at all, learn any of the native languages. I wonder if the similar GDP per-capita of India, Africa are the result of such shared colonial baggage. I've never seen this stuff never mentioned in the media; I had know about the colonial education/stifling wartime British bureaucracy etc. and assorted ideas from reading Naipaul's book. I didn't think it was this bad. I find it ironic that such elites hold the values of enlightenment Europe to such high standard while implementing the policies of medieval Europe. Best of luck to you; considering the boisterous opposition here, I can only imagine what it'd take to bring political change in such a vast country.

yomritoyj 10y ago

The problems you point out are real, but they are the problems of class differences. India has a growing middle class, and this class needs markers to differentiate itself from the lower classes it has only recently left behind. Speaking English acts as a marker now, but if it went away for some reason I'm sure there would be new markers to take its place. Think of the kind of ‘Indian’ culture promoted by the government and the schools: Indian classical music, Indian classical dance, Sanskritised Hindi. They are as alien to the everyday lives of most people in India as English is. But they were created to give the elites and the government of India a high culture of their own which was not tainted by colonialism and whose command they could use to differentiate themselves from the non-elite. The bar situation has an additional twist. Most bilingual people I know would use the Indian language with friends and family and English with strangers. So trying to start a conversation in Hindi may come across as being too familiar too soon.