Post 7 (Bharatvarsh):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I realised only recently and have started reorienting myself towards shudh Telugu,<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->That is just awesome. Do you read a lot of Telugu novels and poetry? When people do that, their language will sky-rocket and they'll become far more than a very skilled speaker in it. They'll be someone who can use it build their own ideas or creative content. It becomes a living language again - alive rather than merely maintained.
My mother used to read lots of old Tamil novels, but there are no such books available here. She is rather sad about that, but keeps rereading the little she owns.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->when I hear stuff like "tu believe karta?" instead of "tu vishwas karta?" I don't know whether to laugh or cry.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Perhaps you can better their use of the language indirectly by talking in Shudh Telugu throughout, no matter how they respond. At least they'll pick up new words and associated usage context from you.
A Kannadiga girl I know did the same to some classmates of her relative, all Bangalorean university students. They pride themselves on not knowing Kannada and on their English, which is actually not very good I'm told. She only spoke in Kannada to them (although her English is wonderful) because she was in her home state and did not want to miss the opportunity of speaking her language. The students didn't know how fast to better their Kannada. Even allowing that they might have done so mostly to impress her (she is remarkably beautiful), for whatever reason, it had some positive result.
Lots of unrelated things:
(1) I have observed that when people are not good in their own language (the language of the first 10 years of their childhood), they are unable to pick up other languages well. All later language learning becomes imperfect, incomplete, because subsequent languages (as opposed to concurrent ones) are learned based on the first one.
When people are trying to find words to express something - when they're 'thinking' in their languages - they can only do so if they are somewhat good at it. If you're not good enough at the first, then how do you translate something into another language or even learn to think properly in the second?
In India, even when they teach 'English' as the only language at school (like in my LKG, where it was English-Only and the penguin teachers would also beat you if you spoke to each other in Tamil; as we didn't know English at all, we kept quiet) the English is so poor that in their only language the teachers and their charges become deficient. It is really sad.
Fortunately, in our case, we had Tamil parents who would speak to us in Tamil and teach it in that way.
(2) This probably doesn't include you, but most Indians including Indian 'teachers' of English have learnt to speak and write in it so as to consistently make certain mistakes. It turns out that that funny and well-known sentence structure with 'onlee' is but one of several that we do. A Scottish friend pointed out to me about how even very good English-speakers from India make certain subtle mistakes that easily indicate where they're from. The other ones seemed rather normal to me (maybe that's why I can't recall them). But they're grammatically wrong sentences in actual English, it seems.
When our teachers don't know proper English, they shouldn't really be teaching it. And certainly not as the only language.
(3) I watched a British documentary on the English language. It was very informative and well-made. It had a lot about how the language was formed, how it originated in the 5th century as well as its future: with examples like how English is becoming very common in Singapore but it's not always intelligible to other English-speaking people in the world. It was rather funny to see Singaporeans speak in their English, I couldn't follow much of it. I wonder if that's how it is for others who hear many of us speak. For instance, I could barely understand Aishwarya's interview on 60 Minutes (or was it 20/20) until I got used to her way of speaking. But perhaps I prefer that to L Dutta's pretentious and overdone Brit accent.
(4) As for Burkha Dutt, arguing for an English-Only future for India as she did, I wish she would move to Germany, France, the Netherlands or Belgium and contend the same but about those countries. She'd be censured in those countries as soon as she uttered those words and rightly so. They are very, very proud of their languages - they have every right to be, who else but they would wave their flag? - and rather resent the intrusions made by English.
Netherlands is the most accomodating of the three, allowing many English words that have entered their language to be spelled as they are in English; the Flemish part of Belgium spell those English words according to Dutch phonetics (for example, I read a Flemish-Dutch article with 'kompjoeter' for computer) and the Germans will only allow any English word to be the sole option if they absolutely cannot find/create a German equivalent to be used more commonly.
The German and the French are the most resistant to English, with the French the most antagonistic to and resentful of English intrusion.
The Netherlands subtitles all English language films except those meant for children (Belgium and the Netherlands produce separate Dutch dubs for the same moview, to allow for their two different dialects), Germany and France dub every film whether it's for kids or adults, and regardless of that English films don't even do too well in France in the first place. The French are very proud of their own language and look down on the presumptions of English.
Meanwhile, Burkha and her kind are so set in their colonial 3rd-world 2nd-hand mentality that they cannot imagine/allow any temporarily-colonised country to now re-assert its right to insist on the use of (let alone be proud of) local languages. In their perpetually colonised minds, these pseculars - imagining they had long since broken free from the shackles of 'colonialism' and even thinking they were the first to do so, hence their claim to lead the 'ignorant' Indian masses - think that relinquishing one's ancient language is a sign of progress.
They have no idea that one's own natural languages are a product of the thinking pattern of one's ancestors and nation - a development of millennia that encapsulates a people's character and evolution as far as these can be represented in language. They don't have a clue that to borrow another's language is to change to the thinking pattern of another people. This is okay when one learns an additional language. But when one entirely forgoes one's own for another people's, you're completely restricting yourself to the thought-pattern of that other people. You have in effect closed yourself off from the way your ancestors thought, explained ideas and communicated. Humans being speaking animals, in this way you are no more a product of your ancestors - yet you're not a product of that foreign language's people either. You're just someone who orphaned yourself. Not a very clever or respectable move by any population's standards.
As is recognised by all people, including the west, language is a key identifier of nations and populations. When you sign your language away, you are signing yourself away. This is okay for christoislamic converts - who had already signed themselves away in another manner, that makes dropping their ancestral language a comparatively minor change for them and a natural progression in fact.
But for Dharmics in India to drop Indian languages in favour of English-Only would just be the beginning of being completely uprooted.
Let the pseculars do this. Everyone makes fun of them as spineless try-hard-people-pleasers anyway, even in other countries, where such characters (who fit the definition of psecular to a Tee) are known as people who'd sell themselves asap, their identity included, to fit in any box.
Dharmic Indians however have no reason to follow suit.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I realised only recently and have started reorienting myself towards shudh Telugu,<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->That is just awesome. Do you read a lot of Telugu novels and poetry? When people do that, their language will sky-rocket and they'll become far more than a very skilled speaker in it. They'll be someone who can use it build their own ideas or creative content. It becomes a living language again - alive rather than merely maintained.
My mother used to read lots of old Tamil novels, but there are no such books available here. She is rather sad about that, but keeps rereading the little she owns.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->when I hear stuff like "tu believe karta?" instead of "tu vishwas karta?" I don't know whether to laugh or cry.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Perhaps you can better their use of the language indirectly by talking in Shudh Telugu throughout, no matter how they respond. At least they'll pick up new words and associated usage context from you.
A Kannadiga girl I know did the same to some classmates of her relative, all Bangalorean university students. They pride themselves on not knowing Kannada and on their English, which is actually not very good I'm told. She only spoke in Kannada to them (although her English is wonderful) because she was in her home state and did not want to miss the opportunity of speaking her language. The students didn't know how fast to better their Kannada. Even allowing that they might have done so mostly to impress her (she is remarkably beautiful), for whatever reason, it had some positive result.
Lots of unrelated things:
(1) I have observed that when people are not good in their own language (the language of the first 10 years of their childhood), they are unable to pick up other languages well. All later language learning becomes imperfect, incomplete, because subsequent languages (as opposed to concurrent ones) are learned based on the first one.
When people are trying to find words to express something - when they're 'thinking' in their languages - they can only do so if they are somewhat good at it. If you're not good enough at the first, then how do you translate something into another language or even learn to think properly in the second?
In India, even when they teach 'English' as the only language at school (like in my LKG, where it was English-Only and the penguin teachers would also beat you if you spoke to each other in Tamil; as we didn't know English at all, we kept quiet) the English is so poor that in their only language the teachers and their charges become deficient. It is really sad.
Fortunately, in our case, we had Tamil parents who would speak to us in Tamil and teach it in that way.
(2) This probably doesn't include you, but most Indians including Indian 'teachers' of English have learnt to speak and write in it so as to consistently make certain mistakes. It turns out that that funny and well-known sentence structure with 'onlee' is but one of several that we do. A Scottish friend pointed out to me about how even very good English-speakers from India make certain subtle mistakes that easily indicate where they're from. The other ones seemed rather normal to me (maybe that's why I can't recall them). But they're grammatically wrong sentences in actual English, it seems.
When our teachers don't know proper English, they shouldn't really be teaching it. And certainly not as the only language.
(3) I watched a British documentary on the English language. It was very informative and well-made. It had a lot about how the language was formed, how it originated in the 5th century as well as its future: with examples like how English is becoming very common in Singapore but it's not always intelligible to other English-speaking people in the world. It was rather funny to see Singaporeans speak in their English, I couldn't follow much of it. I wonder if that's how it is for others who hear many of us speak. For instance, I could barely understand Aishwarya's interview on 60 Minutes (or was it 20/20) until I got used to her way of speaking. But perhaps I prefer that to L Dutta's pretentious and overdone Brit accent.
(4) As for Burkha Dutt, arguing for an English-Only future for India as she did, I wish she would move to Germany, France, the Netherlands or Belgium and contend the same but about those countries. She'd be censured in those countries as soon as she uttered those words and rightly so. They are very, very proud of their languages - they have every right to be, who else but they would wave their flag? - and rather resent the intrusions made by English.
Netherlands is the most accomodating of the three, allowing many English words that have entered their language to be spelled as they are in English; the Flemish part of Belgium spell those English words according to Dutch phonetics (for example, I read a Flemish-Dutch article with 'kompjoeter' for computer) and the Germans will only allow any English word to be the sole option if they absolutely cannot find/create a German equivalent to be used more commonly.
The German and the French are the most resistant to English, with the French the most antagonistic to and resentful of English intrusion.
The Netherlands subtitles all English language films except those meant for children (Belgium and the Netherlands produce separate Dutch dubs for the same moview, to allow for their two different dialects), Germany and France dub every film whether it's for kids or adults, and regardless of that English films don't even do too well in France in the first place. The French are very proud of their own language and look down on the presumptions of English.
Meanwhile, Burkha and her kind are so set in their colonial 3rd-world 2nd-hand mentality that they cannot imagine/allow any temporarily-colonised country to now re-assert its right to insist on the use of (let alone be proud of) local languages. In their perpetually colonised minds, these pseculars - imagining they had long since broken free from the shackles of 'colonialism' and even thinking they were the first to do so, hence their claim to lead the 'ignorant' Indian masses - think that relinquishing one's ancient language is a sign of progress.
They have no idea that one's own natural languages are a product of the thinking pattern of one's ancestors and nation - a development of millennia that encapsulates a people's character and evolution as far as these can be represented in language. They don't have a clue that to borrow another's language is to change to the thinking pattern of another people. This is okay when one learns an additional language. But when one entirely forgoes one's own for another people's, you're completely restricting yourself to the thought-pattern of that other people. You have in effect closed yourself off from the way your ancestors thought, explained ideas and communicated. Humans being speaking animals, in this way you are no more a product of your ancestors - yet you're not a product of that foreign language's people either. You're just someone who orphaned yourself. Not a very clever or respectable move by any population's standards.
As is recognised by all people, including the west, language is a key identifier of nations and populations. When you sign your language away, you are signing yourself away. This is okay for christoislamic converts - who had already signed themselves away in another manner, that makes dropping their ancestral language a comparatively minor change for them and a natural progression in fact.
But for Dharmics in India to drop Indian languages in favour of English-Only would just be the beginning of being completely uprooted.
Let the pseculars do this. Everyone makes fun of them as spineless try-hard-people-pleasers anyway, even in other countries, where such characters (who fit the definition of psecular to a Tee) are known as people who'd sell themselves asap, their identity included, to fit in any box.
Dharmic Indians however have no reason to follow suit.