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I had two Indian co-workers once, and we got into talking about languages. I was a bit surprised at the time to find out that the only language they shared in c

I had two Indian co-workers once, and we got into talking about languages. I was a bit surprised at the time to find out that the only language they shared in common was English. One spoke English, Tamil, and a regional dialect, and the other spoke English, Hindi, and a (different) regional dialect. I later came to find that this is actually quite common in India. And I understand English is still widely taught there, as a legacy of British colonialism, and so many (most?) Indian people - especially in urban areas - do speak English to some extent.

Aloha 5y ago
English is the lingua franca in India for a reason, one of the things I found interesting about the British Raj, is, the english sowed the seeds of tools of their own exit - Railways, English and Civil Society (specifically the Indian Civil Service and some vague ideals of Democracy). Those three things took the area that comprised British India, from a bunch of loosely connected nation-states, each with their own cultures, languages, and religions - while still having much in common, but not something that was easily unifiable, to something much more cohesive, to something that could be united. Then leaders came along who were educated in Britain, filled with British democratic ideals who learned how to subvert to colonial system from within. Who then did so, they wrestled what was considered the crown jewel of the empire from the British, with the tools the British gave them. It's still a brilliant feat, because it used colonialism to subvert and ultimately defeat colonialism. None of this should be construed as a defense of the Raj, or to imply that India could not have unified itself without those tools, but it turned an impossibly gargantuan task into a merely very hard one, because those tools allowed (at least temporarily) for people to overcome sectarian differences, and work together as one people towards a common goal with a common understanding. I wish people knew more about partition however, partition is the greatest humanitarian crisis the world knows nearly nothing about, it rivals even the holocaust in size, and it didn't have to happen, but for a lack of trust between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. I believe that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh would be stronger today if it was one nation rather than three.
- u801e 5y ago
  > I believe that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh would be stronger today if it was one nation rather than three. There are many culteral differences and even different languages that are not mutually intelligible between different states and provinces. Europe is a union, but not a single country. Perhaps India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and other nations in South Asia could be part of a union, but I don't really think that it would work out as a single country. In fact, present day Myanmar/Burma was also governed by the British prior to World War II, but it didn't become part of India (mainly due to the British separating it from India in the late 1930s). Would Nepal want to be part of the single country, given that it was never colonized by the British?
  - Aloha 5y ago
    I think it would have worked out as a federal structure, yes, a high degree of regional autonomy, with a shared economy, military and foreign policy.
1-more 5y ago
To add: the Dravidian languages of South India (Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, etc) have no common ancestor with the Indic/Indo-Aryan languages of the North (Hindi, Gujurati, Punjabi, etc) which are part of the Indo-European family. So while they may have some loanwords across them, the grammar and the majority of the vocabulary is totally foreign.
Arnavion 5y ago
>And I understand English is still widely taught there, as a legacy of British colonialism, and so many (most?) Indian people - especially in urban areas - do speak English to some extent. "English is still widely taught here" is an understatement. Upper- and middle-upper-class children usually go to "English medium" schools, where all classes are taught in English (except for the local language class, eg the Hindi class is taught in Hindi), and you're expected to speak only English when talking to other kids and teachers as long as you're on school grounds. And yes, the only common language you can expect to find when talking to someone who could be from any other part of India is English. If you were talking to shopkeepers, laborers, etc, you'd likely need to use the local language, though they'll have a bare understanding of English words for things like the items they sell. Even when speaking to people who do understand the local language, most people will speak in a blend of English and the local language, eg Hinglish (English + Hindi) where many nouns will be from English and connecting words will be from Hindi. People who speak in pure Hindi tend to be of the "old-fashioned" stereotype - Sanskrit / Hindi teachers or religious teachers / saints or nationalist extremists.
- mindcrime 5y ago
  "English is still widely taught here" is an understatement. Upper- and middle-upper-class children usually go to "English medium" schools, where all classes are taught in English (except for the local language class, eg the Hindi class is taught in Hindi), and you're expected to speak only English when talking to other kids and teachers as long as you're on school grounds. Wow. I didn't realize that English was that deeply embedded into Indian society. Fascinating how these things play out over time.
  - hungryforcodes 5y ago
    I had no idea either! That's pretty interesting. Though I got huge downvotes for my question -- thanks everyone. We don't all know English is so wide spread in India.
koyote 5y ago
Many years ago while travelling in Kerala I got chatting to an Indian guy on the bus. It turned out that he was from northern India and he mentioned that he too was a tourist in Kerala because he did not speak the local language. He had to speak English to everyone and would have had the same communication challenges that I had. His skin colour was also quite a bit lighter so even though he did not stand out quite as much as me, he was still quite recognisable as an outsider. Now this sounds quite obvious if you have ever read up about India and its languages/cultures/ethnicities, but even though I technically knew this I was still baffled that you could be such an outsider in your own country.
known 5y ago
There is a "Temple" for English in India https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-12355740 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-12355740

Aloha 5y ago

English is the lingua franca in India for a reason, one of the things I found interesting about the British Raj, is, the english sowed the seeds of tools of their own exit - Railways, English and Civil Society (specifically the Indian Civil Service and some vague ideals of Democracy). Those three things took the area that comprised British India, from a bunch of loosely connected nation-states, each with their own cultures, languages, and religions - while still having much in common, but not something that was easily unifiable, to something much more cohesive, to something that could be united. Then leaders came along who were educated in Britain, filled with British democratic ideals who learned how to subvert to colonial system from within. Who then did so, they wrestled what was considered the crown jewel of the empire from the British, with the tools the British gave them. It's still a brilliant feat, because it used colonialism to subvert and ultimately defeat colonialism. None of this should be construed as a defense of the Raj, or to imply that India could not have unified itself without those tools, but it turned an impossibly gargantuan task into a merely very hard one, because those tools allowed (at least temporarily) for people to overcome sectarian differences, and work together as one people towards a common goal with a common understanding. I wish people knew more about partition however, partition is the greatest humanitarian crisis the world knows nearly nothing about, it rivals even the holocaust in size, and it didn't have to happen, but for a lack of trust between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. I believe that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh would be stronger today if it was one nation rather than three.

u801e 5y ago
> I believe that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh would be stronger today if it was one nation rather than three. There are many culteral differences and even different languages that are not mutually intelligible between different states and provinces. Europe is a union, but not a single country. Perhaps India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and other nations in South Asia could be part of a union, but I don't really think that it would work out as a single country. In fact, present day Myanmar/Burma was also governed by the British prior to World War II, but it didn't become part of India (mainly due to the British separating it from India in the late 1930s). Would Nepal want to be part of the single country, given that it was never colonized by the British?
- Aloha 5y ago
  I think it would have worked out as a federal structure, yes, a high degree of regional autonomy, with a shared economy, military and foreign policy.

1-more 5y ago

To add: the Dravidian languages of South India (Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, etc) have no common ancestor with the Indic/Indo-Aryan languages of the North (Hindi, Gujurati, Punjabi, etc) which are part of the Indo-European family. So while they may have some loanwords across them, the grammar and the majority of the vocabulary is totally foreign.

Arnavion 5y ago

>And I understand English is still widely taught there, as a legacy of British colonialism, and so many (most?) Indian people - especially in urban areas - do speak English to some extent. "English is still widely taught here" is an understatement. Upper- and middle-upper-class children usually go to "English medium" schools, where all classes are taught in English (except for the local language class, eg the Hindi class is taught in Hindi), and you're expected to speak only English when talking to other kids and teachers as long as you're on school grounds. And yes, the only common language you can expect to find when talking to someone who could be from any other part of India is English. If you were talking to shopkeepers, laborers, etc, you'd likely need to use the local language, though they'll have a bare understanding of English words for things like the items they sell. Even when speaking to people who do understand the local language, most people will speak in a blend of English and the local language, eg Hinglish (English + Hindi) where many nouns will be from English and connecting words will be from Hindi. People who speak in pure Hindi tend to be of the "old-fashioned" stereotype - Sanskrit / Hindi teachers or religious teachers / saints or nationalist extremists.

mindcrime 5y ago
"English is still widely taught here" is an understatement. Upper- and middle-upper-class children usually go to "English medium" schools, where all classes are taught in English (except for the local language class, eg the Hindi class is taught in Hindi), and you're expected to speak only English when talking to other kids and teachers as long as you're on school grounds. Wow. I didn't realize that English was that deeply embedded into Indian society. Fascinating how these things play out over time.
- hungryforcodes 5y ago
  I had no idea either! That's pretty interesting. Though I got huge downvotes for my question -- thanks everyone. We don't all know English is so wide spread in India.

koyote 5y ago

Many years ago while travelling in Kerala I got chatting to an Indian guy on the bus. It turned out that he was from northern India and he mentioned that he too was a tourist in Kerala because he did not speak the local language. He had to speak English to everyone and would have had the same communication challenges that I had. His skin colour was also quite a bit lighter so even though he did not stand out quite as much as me, he was still quite recognisable as an outsider. Now this sounds quite obvious if you have ever read up about India and its languages/cultures/ethnicities, but even though I technically knew this I was still baffled that you could be such an outsider in your own country.

known 5y ago

There is a "Temple" for English in India https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-12355740 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-12355740