Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6766 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek
| Message 17 of 113 17 January 2007 at 3:54am | IP Logged |
Is Pondicherry in the "Hindi belt"? I've heard they actually have a French school system there, it being a former French colony.
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NascentOne Pentaglot Newbie Norway Joined 6887 days ago 19 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English, Norwegian*, Hindi, Punjabi, French Studies: German
| Message 18 of 113 17 January 2007 at 8:19am | IP Logged |
Captain Haddock wrote:
Is Pondicherry in the "Hindi belt"? I've heard they actually have a French school system there, it being a former French colony. |
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Pondicherry (which officially changed its name to Puducherry in September 2006) is not part of the Hindi belt. It is a "union territory" located in southern India, as an enclave surrounded by the state of Tamil Nadu. So people in both Tamil Nadu and Puducherry are primarily Tamils. As I pointed out in my last post, not only is Tamil Nadu not a part of the Hindi belt, it is also the only state where Hindi is not compulsory in schools and where it is advisable not to use Hindi when visiting. It would not surprise me to learn that this is the case for Puducherry too.
Regarding the educational system, it is for most pupils the same one as elsewhere in India. However, they have kept French as an official language (alongside Tamil) and the French government supports a "Lycée Français de Pondichéry" in the territory. Even though about 1000 students attend this lycée, the majority of school-age children attend the standard Indian system (which is again based on the British system).
Here is an interesting article detailing the French influence:
"An Indian city holds its French flavor"
Edited by NascentOne on 17 January 2007 at 8:20am
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Eriol Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6864 days ago 118 posts - 130 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Portuguese
| Message 19 of 113 17 January 2007 at 9:00am | IP Logged |
jeff_lindqvist wrote:
What I had in mind was the assumption that many people in Sweden speak English fluently without an accent, and possibly German and/or French to a high level (thanks to Swedish education, which unfortunately doesn't take one very far in terms of fluency).
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If you're looking for someone under 18 in Sweden who speaks four languages fluently I'd say the combination with both French and Ferman will be quite unusual. The chances of finding someone who masters Swedish-English-Albanian-Serbian or Swedish-English-Kurdish-Turkish seems much more likely.
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jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6907 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map
| Message 20 of 113 17 January 2007 at 10:37am | IP Logged |
Indeed, it's very likely that immigrants know more languages than the regular high school student.
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Controversia Newbie United States Joined 6525 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Spanish*
| Message 21 of 113 24 January 2007 at 5:03pm | IP Logged |
I'm 15 years old and I practice some languages. I'm very into learning languages, specially those in the Romance category, simply because my native tongue is there and because it's arguably the branch needed the most needed overall to 'survive' in this world (generally speaking). I only learn languages that I like though, I'm still a teen. :P Italian and French are both incredible languages, and I'm currently wondering what my next language should be: Brazilian Portuguese or German? It's been months since I've been thinking what other language I want to learn, and I'm still undecided - I'm very picky!
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Yaghz Newbie United States Joined 6633 days ago 36 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Japanese
| Message 22 of 113 10 February 2007 at 4:20pm | IP Logged |
Controversia, I think you should study an eastern language. I may be a little biased, though lol. As for myself, I'm not yet 18 and I like to study languages as well. I won't be a polyglot anytime soon, though.
Edited by Yaghz on 10 February 2007 at 4:21pm
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Controversia Newbie United States Joined 6525 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Spanish*
| Message 23 of 113 13 February 2007 at 7:44pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for the advice, I'll keep it in mind. :)
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spikethepunch Newbie United States Joined 6458 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Polish
| Message 24 of 113 21 March 2007 at 2:55am | IP Logged |
...wow, this makes me sad. I'm like, an old teen.
Anyway, most of my friends are not even bilingual. Sure, there are the few exceptions of having a foreign parent or an immigrant...but other than that not many teens really have a strong interest in learnng languages here. It's sad, really. I woke up from this funk a few months ago myself.
Edited by spikethepunch on 21 March 2007 at 2:57am
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