|
 |
Why isn’t Hindi a "popular" language? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6737 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 17 of 197 20 December 2006 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | ||
As things stand today, economic factors would certainly favor India over Pakistan - India has enjoyed quite substantial growth rates and has a larger population. In terms of the number of speakers, using Wikipedia data, Urdu has "61 million native, 160 million total" speakers, while Hindi has "ca. 490 million native, 790 million total". The Hindi data seems inflated compared to the numbers I've seen elsewhere, but one way or the other, Hindi is usually cited among the top 4 world languages. Arabic may catch up some day, in which case Hindi will be among the top 5 world languages. The growth of Arabic will in any case not impact Urdu directly, since the two are not even in the same language group. As far as the future of Hindi as a language, I find it hard to see how a language of several hundred million people is supposed to go into a steep decline all of a sudden. A true language lover would, of course, start with one or the other, but eventually aim to master both writing systems and the higher vocabulary where it is different between the two languages. Edited by frenkeld on 20 December 2006 at 2:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6453 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 18 of 197 20 December 2006 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | ||
|
The lack of interest and the lack of resources are probably part of some nasty vicious cycle. People don't try to learn the language because there are so few materials, and the scarcity of people trying to learn Hindi doesn't encourage anyone to come up with new materials.
The large number of Indians who speak English is another likely factor, as well as the large number of other Indian languages besides Hindi. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6363 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 19 of 197 20 December 2006 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I think it has a reputation (undeserved) for being hard. Also it's not only that most Indians in a business setting are pretty fluent in English, but also English is an official language in India which means that official documents are as available in English as they are in Hindi. I've never heard anyone who visited India say they wished they knew Hindi, but I heard a lot of people who visited Japan and China say if they had known the native language things would've been much easier.
I wouldn't take this as an insult to Hindi, more as a complement to the bilingualism of its population (at least those who are educated). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| brumblebee Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6569 days ago 206 posts - 212 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 20 of 197 20 December 2006 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | ||
|
It probably has a lack of interest because of the language's limit to India and scattered groups of Indians living elsewhere. I think people (especially Americans) are drawn more to Asian languages like Chinese and Japanese because of their international chic factor.
Edited by brumblebee on 20 December 2006 at 4:21pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6453 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 21 of 197 21 December 2006 at 9:00am | IP Logged | ||
I certainly agree. However, then there's the question of why one language becomes chic and another one doesn't. India has more of an image of a poor country than China and certainly Japan, so few Americans travel there for pleasure. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| K2 Groupie Canada Joined 6542 days ago 69 posts - 69 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 22 of 197 21 December 2006 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Well, here's my two cents...Hindi speakers usually already know english and so it really defeats the point of learning the language and then facter in all the various other dialects and all the other languages and then factor in location in India...so Hindi as much as it has the weight of a major language, it still has way to many WELL spoken bilingual people. As mentioned before the lack of resources and the mere obscurity of the language is what's keeping it so confined.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6562 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 23 of 197 22 December 2006 at 2:43am | IP Logged | ||
|
Still, the number of Hindi speakers who don't know English (or know it poorly) vastly outnumber those who do.
I agree with those who think it's a problem of image for now. Japanese and French are seen in the West as the languages of progressive, refined, influential civilizations. India and its cultures have a very different image, but more development and exposure to its cultural resources (like films and music) might help it break out of that mold. Plus, the matter of Indians speaking English only applies to would-be Hindi learners who themselves know English. If a Japanese company wanted to open a factory in Hindi-speaking parts of India, they'd probably need Hindi-speaking managers and staff. I'm sure the lack of resources doesn't help, but if people started buying what's there, the publishers would expand their selections. There's actually a pretty decent selection of books in Japanese for learning Hindi. Edited by Captain Haddock on 22 December 2006 at 2:43am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| onebir Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6957 days ago 484 posts - 502 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 24 of 197 22 December 2006 at 4:14am | IP Logged | ||
Wouldn't they just hire english speaking (japanese) managers and give them hindi-speaking assistants? I imagine the latter wouldn't cost very much. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
