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This so easily glosses over the linguistic apartheid in India (other African countries incl.), that it's shocking. See my previous interactions with the WASP im

This so easily glosses over the linguistic apartheid in India (other African countries incl.), that it's shocking. See my previous interactions with the WASP imitations; I gather there are enough of them in India to form markets as large as Japan (oth. unicorns like Flipkart wouldn't survive). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12116787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12116787 A language without economic value dies eventually. It's likely that the complement of the set is poor enough to not be of consequence (India's median income is the lowest of the BRICS - ~ $600 per-capita). India: you have bigger problems than the efficient milking of the population - you need to feed the cow first. Irony of ironies, the country is apparently a "socialist republic". It'd be interesting to know about the kind of "intellectuals" sucking off of the Indian state's (imaginably fat) tits - Chomsky mentions somewhere how post-modernism (the new religion in the humanities), rids a population of desperately needed leaders. Others: No India is not going to beat China economically, nor will Africa. The former will probably produce enough clones and ship them your way for cheap (profit!); the latter will continue in ignominy as its land gets stolen from underneath. (Update: Here come the downvotes!)

vertex-four 10y ago
The thing is - every state in India has its own language, more-or-less. Either you can translate into every single language at extreme cost, or you can use either Hindi or English. Of the two, English is likely slightly wider-spoken these days. India doesn't have a language which you can be guaranteed nearly everyone will speak. English is the closest thing for the classes that are being targeted for ecommerce. Aside from that... looking at your comment history, you seem to really hate India. Any particular reason?
- ittekimasu 10y ago
  As someone who studies culture (as you can tell), my hate is reserved for the neo-colonial entities and the bourgeoisie they cultivate to stay in power. If you call such entities by the names the kakistocracies christen, then yes, I hate most states in the global south. India, like China, however was a historic center (天竺 - heaven axis they called it) unlike most in the global south. To see it brought to the same level as sub-saharan Africa is painful; to realize there are deep structural issues that will keep it that way is even more so. Hate, yes, for the fat maggots feeding on the dying corpses - but that too is a distraction, for it's not the maggots' fault. Rhetorical devices of the form "ah, but that's the our only way towards progress", will not be answered to. I'm tired of worn narrative, you lot bombard me with.
  - oblio 10y ago
    As always for these kinds of tirades: what's your proposed alternative?
  - snovv_crash 10y ago
    Hasn't India always been like that though, with the caste system? Nobody writes epics about the person who dug Arjuna's toilets, and so we see the past through rose-coloured lenses.
    - gajjanag 10y ago
      Nobody has written epics about anyone digging someone else's toilets as far as I know. This is not unique to the Mahabharatha or other Indian epics. As for the caste system, yes, it has had a lot of evils. But then almost all populations around the world have some notion of "class" that is loosely defined, with its own set of evils. I fail to see how this is unique to India, see for instance the topic of ghettos in medieval history. In modern times, the "class" is usually based on financial wealth. Furthermore, in the sense of classification based on profession (the idealistic interpretation of caste), this certainly exists across the world (merchant guilds, high concentrations of a single occupation like Harley St, London, etc). Finally, as for viewing the past through rose-coloured lenses, every historian has his/her own set of biases in terms of coverage and emphasis. There are some who are honest about the reality of this, such as Howard Zinn who mentions it in his preface to "A People's History of the United States", but many delude themselves into thinking that they somehow are magically "unbiased". With respect to works of fiction, the same applies. In the case of Tolkien, the treatment of the orcs is an example, we never see an orc perspective or pov. In the case of the Song of Ice and Fire, there is arguably little treatment of the common population. Military engagements are reduced to the standard historical style focusing on the leaders and "important" entities involved. As for the Mahabharatha, similar issues arise. Nevertheless, it has a surprising amount of depth and complexity in many respects (e.g morally grey characters and a bittersweet ending).
      - otabdeveloper 10y ago
        > we never see an orc perspective or pov Offtopic, but this is false. There's a whole chapter of orcish perspective at the end of book IV.
- rmah 10y ago
  While you are correct, those states are not small. The number of native speakers for top five major languages as of 2001 are: Hindi (and dialects) 422 mil Bengali 83 mil Telugu 74 mil Marathi 72 mil Tamil 61 mil These are not insignificant populations. If you add in Bengali speakers in Bangladesh, the total hits 189 mil. It's easier to think of India the way you think of EU: an aggregation of peoples and cultures under a political umbrella. As an example, sure many people in germany speak english, but would you really try to seriously gain entry into the german market without localizing into german?
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    And yet if you could enter Germany with the same marketing you give to the UK... wouldn't you? There's a lot of markets which get left out when a company expands to "the EU" - which often means Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and maybe one or two other countries.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    This is of course true. But generally speaking, most of the folks who speak these languages but don't speak Hindi also don't have much money and may not even have internet. In Maharashtra, virtually every middle class person speaks English and Hindi in addition to Marathi. Auto drivers or street vendors will speak only Hindi and Marathi. Of the people I've encountered who don't speak Hindi, most were cooks/maids/similar. A peripherally related question: is it worth translating your software into Dutch? 90% of the Netherlands speaks English and by having English you've also covered the UK. So it's probably not worth it. Now lets compare the Netherlands to Maharashtra. The GDP of the Netherlands is $850B (16M people). The GDP of Maharashtra is about $400B (for 110M people). Half that GDP is just Mumbai (about 20M people) and Mumbai is disproportionately a place where English and Hindi work well. If you are very forward thinking (10+ years), it might be worthwhile gambling that gaining a foothold in regional languages today might pay off when those regions grow. But that's a very long play.
    - fractalb 10y ago
      You may get by with Hindi in Maharashtra, but that's not true in southern states and the North-East
webtechgal 10y ago
> linguistic apartheid in India (other African countries incl.) You appear to be a reasonably educated person, so I guess your use of the word 'other' above is a kind of oversight (because last that I knew, India was in Asia, and not in Africa). > you need to feed the cow first... I am sure the government - and all the citizens - of India will forever remain indebted to you for generously contributing and sharing this piece of infinite wisdom - whoever could have even thought of this otherwise?
ocean3 10y ago
There might not be many online local languages business sites but when you have to do purchase offline it done through local languages. Some of them don't have written written script yet spoken daily by millions.
Ar-Curunir 10y ago
India a socialist republic? I'm not sure where you're getting that from. Sure, there's tons of subsidies for the poor, but that's necessary in a country as large and poor as India. Re: language. There's plenty of strong linguistic identity in the south, East and West of India. The north has a weaker cultural identity, but the rest take great pride in their language and culture.
- ittekimasu 10y ago
  From its constitution.
  - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
    India is a republic, but I'm.not really sure about the socialist part.
cscurmudgeon 10y ago
> The former will probably produce enough clones Like China does or better than it?
- ittekimasu 10y ago
  Hmm. In India, education, laws, governance, pretty much every sphere of power, last I looked, is run in English, for the English (vestiges). China, like most nations, may aspire towards Western nations, but K-pop/Internet/TV inspired fads are no match for such awesome structures enforces under the threat of violence. As outsiders, it's likely to be difficult to appreciate this - I recommend Naipaul (although he tends to believe colonization was some godsend).
erbdex 10y ago
> India: you have bigger problems than the efficient milking of the population - you need to feed the cow first. Absolutely disagree. Some data-points in this regard: - Rural FMCG share is already greater than Urban. - While rural markets grew by 16%, urban did 12%. - For many like Dabur India, 50 per cent of their domestic sales comes from rural markets. > No India is not going to beat China economically, nor will Africa. I wonder why you'd think that monetisation via Internet is the only thing that adds value to a society. In developing nations, Internet trickles democracy down like nothing else. The kind of equality and voice that the Internet gives, is especially required for people who don't have a high SEC category. Another important pillar of long term economic growth to a nation is- productivity growth. Internet inclusion drives that. http://www.ibef.org/industry/indian-rural-market.aspx http://www.ibef.org/industry/indian-rural-market.aspx http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/with-urban-recovery-miles-away-companies-keep-their-rural-bets-for-now-115051000470_1.html http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/with-urba... http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/fmcg-firms-brace-for-new-rural-reality-114010801871_1.html http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/fmcg-firm...
anewhnaccount 10y ago
Here's Chomsky on postmodernism: http://www.mrbauld.com/chomsky1.html http://www.mrbauld.com/chomsky1.html

vertex-four 10y ago

The thing is - every state in India has its own language, more-or-less. Either you can translate into every single language at extreme cost, or you can use either Hindi or English. Of the two, English is likely slightly wider-spoken these days. India doesn't have a language which you can be guaranteed nearly everyone will speak. English is the closest thing for the classes that are being targeted for ecommerce. Aside from that... looking at your comment history, you seem to really hate India. Any particular reason?

ittekimasu 10y ago
As someone who studies culture (as you can tell), my hate is reserved for the neo-colonial entities and the bourgeoisie they cultivate to stay in power. If you call such entities by the names the kakistocracies christen, then yes, I hate most states in the global south. India, like China, however was a historic center (天竺 - heaven axis they called it) unlike most in the global south. To see it brought to the same level as sub-saharan Africa is painful; to realize there are deep structural issues that will keep it that way is even more so. Hate, yes, for the fat maggots feeding on the dying corpses - but that too is a distraction, for it's not the maggots' fault. Rhetorical devices of the form "ah, but that's the our only way towards progress", will not be answered to. I'm tired of worn narrative, you lot bombard me with.
- oblio 10y ago
  As always for these kinds of tirades: what's your proposed alternative?
- snovv_crash 10y ago
  Hasn't India always been like that though, with the caste system? Nobody writes epics about the person who dug Arjuna's toilets, and so we see the past through rose-coloured lenses.
  - gajjanag 10y ago
    Nobody has written epics about anyone digging someone else's toilets as far as I know. This is not unique to the Mahabharatha or other Indian epics. As for the caste system, yes, it has had a lot of evils. But then almost all populations around the world have some notion of "class" that is loosely defined, with its own set of evils. I fail to see how this is unique to India, see for instance the topic of ghettos in medieval history. In modern times, the "class" is usually based on financial wealth. Furthermore, in the sense of classification based on profession (the idealistic interpretation of caste), this certainly exists across the world (merchant guilds, high concentrations of a single occupation like Harley St, London, etc). Finally, as for viewing the past through rose-coloured lenses, every historian has his/her own set of biases in terms of coverage and emphasis. There are some who are honest about the reality of this, such as Howard Zinn who mentions it in his preface to "A People's History of the United States", but many delude themselves into thinking that they somehow are magically "unbiased". With respect to works of fiction, the same applies. In the case of Tolkien, the treatment of the orcs is an example, we never see an orc perspective or pov. In the case of the Song of Ice and Fire, there is arguably little treatment of the common population. Military engagements are reduced to the standard historical style focusing on the leaders and "important" entities involved. As for the Mahabharatha, similar issues arise. Nevertheless, it has a surprising amount of depth and complexity in many respects (e.g morally grey characters and a bittersweet ending).
    - otabdeveloper 10y ago
      > we never see an orc perspective or pov Offtopic, but this is false. There's a whole chapter of orcish perspective at the end of book IV.
rmah 10y ago
While you are correct, those states are not small. The number of native speakers for top five major languages as of 2001 are: Hindi (and dialects) 422 mil Bengali 83 mil Telugu 74 mil Marathi 72 mil Tamil 61 mil These are not insignificant populations. If you add in Bengali speakers in Bangladesh, the total hits 189 mil. It's easier to think of India the way you think of EU: an aggregation of peoples and cultures under a political umbrella. As an example, sure many people in germany speak english, but would you really try to seriously gain entry into the german market without localizing into german?
- vertex-four 10y ago
  And yet if you could enter Germany with the same marketing you give to the UK... wouldn't you? There's a lot of markets which get left out when a company expands to "the EU" - which often means Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and maybe one or two other countries.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  This is of course true. But generally speaking, most of the folks who speak these languages but don't speak Hindi also don't have much money and may not even have internet. In Maharashtra, virtually every middle class person speaks English and Hindi in addition to Marathi. Auto drivers or street vendors will speak only Hindi and Marathi. Of the people I've encountered who don't speak Hindi, most were cooks/maids/similar. A peripherally related question: is it worth translating your software into Dutch? 90% of the Netherlands speaks English and by having English you've also covered the UK. So it's probably not worth it. Now lets compare the Netherlands to Maharashtra. The GDP of the Netherlands is $850B (16M people). The GDP of Maharashtra is about $400B (for 110M people). Half that GDP is just Mumbai (about 20M people) and Mumbai is disproportionately a place where English and Hindi work well. If you are very forward thinking (10+ years), it might be worthwhile gambling that gaining a foothold in regional languages today might pay off when those regions grow. But that's a very long play.
  - fractalb 10y ago
    You may get by with Hindi in Maharashtra, but that's not true in southern states and the North-East

webtechgal 10y ago

> linguistic apartheid in India (other African countries incl.) You appear to be a reasonably educated person, so I guess your use of the word 'other' above is a kind of oversight (because last that I knew, India was in Asia, and not in Africa). > you need to feed the cow first... I am sure the government - and all the citizens - of India will forever remain indebted to you for generously contributing and sharing this piece of infinite wisdom - whoever could have even thought of this otherwise?

ocean3 10y ago

There might not be many online local languages business sites but when you have to do purchase offline it done through local languages. Some of them don't have written written script yet spoken daily by millions.

Ar-Curunir 10y ago

India a socialist republic? I'm not sure where you're getting that from. Sure, there's tons of subsidies for the poor, but that's necessary in a country as large and poor as India. Re: language. There's plenty of strong linguistic identity in the south, East and West of India. The north has a weaker cultural identity, but the rest take great pride in their language and culture.

ittekimasu 10y ago
From its constitution.
- Ar-Curunir 10y ago
  India is a republic, but I'm.not really sure about the socialist part.

cscurmudgeon 10y ago

> The former will probably produce enough clones Like China does or better than it?

ittekimasu 10y ago
Hmm. In India, education, laws, governance, pretty much every sphere of power, last I looked, is run in English, for the English (vestiges). China, like most nations, may aspire towards Western nations, but K-pop/Internet/TV inspired fads are no match for such awesome structures enforces under the threat of violence. As outsiders, it's likely to be difficult to appreciate this - I recommend Naipaul (although he tends to believe colonization was some godsend).

erbdex 10y ago

> India: you have bigger problems than the efficient milking of the population - you need to feed the cow first. Absolutely disagree. Some data-points in this regard: - Rural FMCG share is already greater than Urban. - While rural markets grew by 16%, urban did 12%. - For many like Dabur India, 50 per cent of their domestic sales comes from rural markets. > No India is not going to beat China economically, nor will Africa. I wonder why you'd think that monetisation via Internet is the only thing that adds value to a society. In developing nations, Internet trickles democracy down like nothing else. The kind of equality and voice that the Internet gives, is especially required for people who don't have a high SEC category. Another important pillar of long term economic growth to a nation is- productivity growth. Internet inclusion drives that. http://www.ibef.org/industry/indian-rural-market.aspx http://www.ibef.org/industry/indian-rural-market.aspx http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/with-urban-recovery-miles-away-companies-keep-their-rural-bets-for-now-115051000470_1.html http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/with-urba... http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/fmcg-firms-brace-for-new-rural-reality-114010801871_1.html http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/fmcg-firm...

anewhnaccount 10y ago

Here's Chomsky on postmodernism: http://www.mrbauld.com/chomsky1.html http://www.mrbauld.com/chomsky1.html