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Why isn’t Hindi a "popular" language? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5842 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes  Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 41 of 197 22 January 2009 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've asked my colleagues about this and they say the prefer to speak Hindi between themselves over English. With a couple of these guys it's a national pride thing - why speak someone elses language when they have their own...
But when they speak Hindi it's often possible to guess what they are talking about because there are plenty of English words and expressions, even numbers sometimes, in English ! (well maybe some Chinese speakers in Singapore..) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kshatriya Newbie India Joined 5755 days ago 13 posts - 26 votes Studies: French | Message 42 of 197 25 February 2009 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Namaste Everybody,
Well, I'm a native speaker of Hindi. I always prefer to speak in Hindi rather than English. Someone mentioned that it is an status symbol for people to speak in English in India. Yes it is, but not for everybody. Its for the people who considered that Britishers were better than what they are, and its a human tandency to learn things of the superior one. But I don't call those poeple as Indian. When you don't respect your culture and language then you don't belong to that country. English is important in India, you get job in private companies because of English, then obviously people wont stress on learning any other language. I always believed on one thing, 'respect yourself then only world will respect you'. And in India we need this attitude. 9 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| jbbar Senior Member Belgium Joined 5804 days ago 192 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English | Message 43 of 197 26 February 2009 at 5:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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For starters, English is the co-official language of the Indian union and basically it's de facto national language. The federal government uses English. Communication between the individual states has to be conducted in English. The economically most developed states are located in Dravidian South India where people tend to dislike the Indo-Aryan Hindi language and prefer to use English instead. Native Hindi speakers rank among the poorest, under educated and often illiterate people of India. Besides that, there aren't too many good resources available for learning Hindi. Despite the fact that it is an Indo-European language, it is still considerably different in many ways from the typical Western European languages. There are also few practise opportunities in most Western countries and most Indians online tend to come from the South and thus aren't native Hindi speakers, or don't speak the language at all.
I had a strong interest in Hindi and learned it for some time but I have long given up on it because it's really quite useless to me. I also never got used to the postpositions and its peculiar word order, no matter how hard I tried. The sound system isn't exactly easy either. Devanagari looks very nice and, yes, it's phonetic, but that doesn't make it easy to read. Each word is like a puzzle. Overall I'd say it's not that hard to learn to understand the language but it is difficult to speak correctly, in my opinion. jbbar 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Impiegato Triglot Senior Member Sweden bsntranslation. Joined 5437 days ago 100 posts - 145 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, Italian Studies: Spanish, French, Russian | Message 44 of 197 09 January 2010 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I am interested in learning hindi. Now that English is no longer an official language in India, Hindi may become more important. On the other hand, international companies in India may prefer to use Englsih also in the future if they have customers in other countries. Is it true that since about eight months English has no official status any more? I can imagine that this is only a formal statement. What it looks like in reality is probably quite different.
As far as I know, the reason for not letting hindi be the lingua franca is that a large part of the population living in the southern parts of India does not learn hindi at all in school. Therefore, English was considered better to use as a more neutral means of communation. The usefulness due to globalization is of course another reason. I am also astonished by the fact that hindi is not more popular in Europe than it is today. In Sweden, for example, just a couple of universities offer courses in Hindi and there are no possibilities to study the language before the university studies. There are certainly courses in some educational associations as well. Wouldn't it be useful to know hindi when Europeans do business in India or with Indian companies in Europe? What I mean is that even if the negotations will be in English and all the documents are written in English, being able to communicate in Hindi will enable the businessmen to understand conversations between Indians. After all, maybe up to one billion people can understand hindi, even if all these do not have mother tongue proficiency in the language. Edited by Impiegato on 10 January 2010 at 9:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vikramkr Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6073 days ago 248 posts - 326 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese | Message 45 of 197 10 January 2010 at 7:30am | IP Logged | |||||
These remarks are kind of unnecessary, don't you think? Yes, South India has a higher literacy rate, but every state has its problems. With all due respect, why the hell are you labeling every Hindi-speaking state as backwards? Hindi is a rich and linguistically interesting language spoken by EVERYONE in those states (not just the street vendors). Sure, English is the language of business in India, but if you are a foreigner who can speak Hindi you will be greatly respected. And who's to say that some business isn't conducted in Hindi? 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Impiegato Triglot Senior Member Sweden bsntranslation. Joined 5437 days ago 100 posts - 145 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, Italian Studies: Spanish, French, Russian | Message 46 of 197 10 January 2010 at 1:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
I have also thought about this. One should not underestimate the respect factor and I also imagine that the business is generally conducted like this: Indian v foreigner: English Indian v Indian: often Hindi, rarely English (depending on the regions in which the businessmen/women are grown up). Is this division correct? Speaking Hindi in contact with Indians means that you will understand both the formal discussions and the informal ones. A lot of important decisions are often made in informal groups. The business meeting represents the formal one, where English probably will be spoken with a foreigner. Edited by Impiegato on 10 January 2010 at 9:34pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5813 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German | Message 47 of 197 10 January 2010 at 2:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
Actually English is an official language in India, and it was given that role for the very reason of preventing Hindi to become important in the southern states 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5681 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 48 of 197 10 January 2010 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes and no. If two Hindi speaking business men meet, they may use Hindi out of convenience or to gain favour with each other. At the same time, they may just speak English to establish that they are competent, serious, world class, etc. In this sense, the use of English is as important as proper attire, grooming, and behaviour. 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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