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Why isn’t Hindi a "popular" language? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Impiegato Triglot Senior Member Sweden bsntranslation. Joined 5227 days ago 100 posts - 145 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, Italian Studies: Spanish, French, Russian | Message 49 of 197 10 January 2010 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
What strikes me reading your message is that it implies that English is a prestigious language in India and that Hindi seems to be less prestigious. From a strictly pragmatic point of view, it would be better to speak Hindi if both the Indian businessmen feel like doing so and think that Hindi is the language they really prefer (if Hindi is the language they prefer emotionally, the language they prefer to express nuances and the language their minds use to think). What I mean is that the tendency might be like in the Maghreb region in the northern parts of Africa: French is traditionally used in the courts, by the authorities and in business, but people speak an Arabic dialect or a Berber language at home. Nevertheless, I have heard that the situation is slowly changing in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia: Moroccan Arabic, Algerian Arabic and Tunisian Arabic tend to replace French also in the public life and in business. Do you mean that there are Indians doing business with other Indians using English instead of Hindi only because English is considered a prestigious language showing that you are well-educated and so on? Hindi is actually more spread in India and no Indians have as far as I know English as mother tongue, whereas hundreds of millions speak Hindi as mother tongue. Edited by Impiegato on 10 January 2010 at 10:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5716 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 50 of 197 12 January 2010 at 4:09am | IP Logged | |||||
While lots of people may speak Hindi, there are also people that speak Marathi or Bengali or Gujarati, etc, that don't speak Hindi (and for political/emotional reasons, don't want to speak Hindi). For those people, English is a neutral language that can be used for communication. This is my guess as to why the situation is like this. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6166 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 52 of 197 15 January 2010 at 12:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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Because you only learn Hindi if you want to talk to Indians probably because you will be
going to India. I don't want to talk to Indians. I want to talk to hot Polish chicks and Norwegian models. lol 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kshatriya Newbie India Joined 5545 days ago 13 posts - 26 votes Studies: French | Message 53 of 197 15 January 2010 at 6:26am | IP Logged | |||||
Nope, it isn't correct for majority. Out of four south Indian states, only one state which is state of Tamil Nadu don't want to learn or speak in Hindi, reason, political influence, nothing else. But, the other 3 states likes and speak Hindi from their heart. They are taught Hindi in their college, they like to watch hindi movies etc etc etc, but all this is not there in state of tamil nade. IRONIC. If you know Hindi, you can survive in almost all the states in India. Majority of the people know how about Hindi. English is used in the center government, because and only because of the state of tamil nadu. They are too proud of their language, because it is as much older as sanskrit and they have written texts as old as 5000 years. Hindi is a mixture of sanskrit and persian, so is not a pure Indian language, is one of the reason not liked by people of Tamil nadu. Being a democracy, India cannot force anything on the people. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kshatriya Newbie India Joined 5545 days ago 13 posts - 26 votes Studies: French | Message 54 of 197 15 January 2010 at 6:27am | IP Logged | |||||
Yeah, must be the reason why so much Indian bashing is going on in Australia. Anyways, thanks mate. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kshatriya Newbie India Joined 5545 days ago 13 posts - 26 votes Studies: French | Message 55 of 197 15 January 2010 at 6:31am | IP Logged | |||||
If an Indian is educated and he/she can speak English, he/she can also speak Hindi, without a doubt. On the uneducated people who has some other language as their mother tongue, cannot speak Hindi. English is the common language only for the people of Tamil Nadu and Kerela, not any other state. Even the Tamil people now started learning Hindi, still a minority though. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Deji Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5234 days ago 116 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Hindi, Bengali | Message 56 of 197 16 January 2010 at 4:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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It is very hard for a Westerner to keep a conversation going on in Hindi. The minute you have a problem--hop!
Indians go back to English. Or maybe you didn't have a problem, but we're back in English anyway. I hear that the younger generation is speaking English IN THEIR FAMILIES. You are better off speaking with uneducated people, but then god knows what kind of ludicrous accent you are picking up. I mean ludicrous for you, not for them. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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