I’ve been really inactive for a year or two now, not really posting anywhere except for the DA thread. So I just thought i should do something that would add to the community experience, do my bit, you know.
So here I am, I’m an Indian citizen (not the native american red indian btw) and I’m ready to answer your questions and clear any doubts you may have on India and its culture, history etc.
I’m doing this because lately there has been an Indian influence on international(especially American) pop culture and most of it gives people the wrong idea about India and it’s people.
One more thing, I’m currently undergoing a bachelor’s degree in engineering so i’m busy(like everyone) and i have limited access to the web every day, so please cut me some slack when it comes to the speed with which i answer questions. Keeping these factors in mind, i will do my best to post at least once a day.
So anyway, lets get on with this. I hope everyone can keep it civil, because we are all very civilised people here.
I do have a question. I’ve been working on a little side-project involving the languages of the world, and I can say that the Indian area is one of the richest parts of the world language-wise. You’ve got the few alive languages derived from Maharastri, you’ve got the tons of languages derived from Magadhi (mostly in the Bengali-Assamese and Bihari families) and THEN you’ve got the whole Hindustani affair with lots and lots of dialects.
Reading Wikipedia left me with the impression that the languages and dialects currently used can be pretty different from one another even to the point of not being understandable by others, especially when changing region. So my question is, is this really the case? And then how does the population deal with such diversity? Are you all fluent in multiple dialects? What language would you speak if you had to go to a very remote part of the country, and can you be sure everyone would understand you? Are there any current attempts at uniformising the languages, and on the other side at protecting linguistic heritage? And is there a general opinion on that?
How’s the industrialization going? Over here people see pictures of Mukesh Ambani’s house overlooking the slums of Mumbai and go “what the fuck.” It just seems like for a secular Democracy with so many smart people in it, India has had a lot of trouble getting their economy in order. Is that the case, or is it just a lack of perspective on our part?
Haha, you don’t have one question, you have many! Well, i appreciate the fact that you are doing such an interesting project and have decided to include Indian languages into it.
Now let me answer your questions one by one.
Firstly, yes, that is the case. India has 28 states and most of them have their own distinct language. Especially in the South Indian region which consists of 4 specific big states, the situation is even more pronounced where each of the states have their own unique language written in vaguely similar scripts, yet differing from the rest of India by a mile. They sound very different from each other, and nobody not native to those parts can even begin to comprehend them.
Now, if you go to East or West (but not North) India a similar situation exists.
No, the average Indian from the rural sector in South India(the four states) will be fluent in only one language, that of their state. Now, a sizable portion of the average Indian population in the rest of the states will most probably be fluent in ‘Hindi’, in addition to their local language.
‘Hindi’ is the official language of India, although it isn’t the national language(there is none).
In most of the central, western and northern states in and around the NCR(national capital region) most people speak Hindi fluently as a first or a second language depending on which state they are in. There are a few states such as ‘Uttar Pradesh’, ‘Bihar’, ‘Jharkhand’, ‘Haryana’ where pure Hindi or a variation of it is used as the first language.
Now to really answer your question >> If you have read about India’s vast history you will know that the British ruled over us for about 150 years. In that time they managed to make English the main language to be used for official purposes everywhere, and by the end of their rule most urban schools had turned to English as the main medium for education. And the trend only grew in the years following India’s Independence. Schools, colleges, universities, offices(the private ones mostly) and most commercial and industrial hot-spots have been using English as the main medium. Here i’m talking only about the urban sector.
On the rural side English has had much less of an impact since their is not much need for the rural people to learn it. So the point is that, if you’re from one of the urban centers of india and you have had an English based education, then you can go to another urban center and communicate with another person like you. Although the second option of just learning the other guy’s language is also present, in urban India it happens rarely.
If you had to go to a part of the country far removed from your home state then you might as well hire a translator when you get there. But that too depends once again really on whether you’re going to an urban or a rural place and whether you’re coming from an urban or rural place. And as I have said before, most people in most states in central, east and north India can speak some form of Hindi, so the problem only arises if you travel to the opposite ends of the country.
Well not really, no. People are quite OK with just living where they were born for their entire lives and for those who do move around(most of the urban middle class pop.) English is the main language(not out of choice but necessity).
Truth is, the current situation of languages is so complex that I’ll have to write an essay to explain the nitty gritty of the situation to you.
Now that I may have clarified some of your doubts, you may ask me some more specific questions, if you want to, regarding urban language distribution for example and I’ll be happy to answer them.
Hey there Shadi(did you know that ‘shadi’ means ‘marriage’ in Hindi?).
Ok, so yeah, i do think that some of the Indian movies are really silly! But before we go any further let me clear things up.
The Indian movie industry is divided into four main parts- Bollywood(language used is Hindi), Kollywood(Tamil), Tollywood(Telugu) and the rest of the industry. As you can see these names are portmanteaus of some words with Hollywood.
Now I’m telling you this because the majority of Tamil, Telugu and the ‘rest’ of the industries make obnoxious movies with bad acting and really, really silly songs and dances trying to show off the clearly abysmal dancing skills of some high profile actor/actress. Most of these have infiltrated the minds the youth of the respective states and seem to be governing their stupid attempts at being cool. For example, bikes(motorcycles) are all the rage at my university which is In Tamil Nadu(home of Kollywood)(Although I’m not a native of this state.) This is because bikes have been generally portrayed to be the thing which defines your coolness and ability to get girls.
Point is, it’s not just their silliness that irks me, but their downright stupidity when it comes to story, execution, and dancing(of course) while they’re trying to ape western style in everything.
Anyway, thankfully the majority of India cinema is ruled by Bollywood(Hindi) which honestly is not as bad. If you want to know exactly what Bollywood is then all I have to do is name the worst and most infamous of all Bollywood movies- Slumdog Millionaire. It is the most screwed up shit ever and the sad part is that’s what started this whole misconception about the poverty and crassness of Indian people. And I hate that not only was it made by an Englishman, but that it went to become internationally famous solely because it was directed by him. There were so many better Indian movies that had been submitted to the Academy Awards that year, but no, that movie took front stage. Almost any Indian you ask will agree that the portrayal of Indians in this movie was utterly disgusting and exaggerated to say the least. And A.R. Rahman won an oscar for the music he made for this movie solely because of the fact that it seemed to take the fancy of all people who weren’t Indian. I mean, that guy has made tons of better music over the past decade or two which has gone completely unnoticed just because it wasn’t part of some Britisher-directed movie which took the world by storm. :fffuuu:
Anyway, End Of Rant. The general Indian movie which the rest of the world knows about is mostly some POS, and not one of the better ones like ‘My
Name Is Khan’ (which i’m pretty sure Shadi will like since it portrays Muslims as good people, which they are) or ‘Wake Up Sid!’ or ‘Fashion’ or ‘Black’ etc. which do not have extended or any dance sequences and other nonsense, which makes even Indian people laugh nowadays.
Lol, they don’t. Although, people working at call centres do get some form of accent training so that when they take calls from America, they don’t sound too different.
Not. We smokum war pipe! :fffuuu:
Don’t worry, people out here do the same when it comes to the Ambani’s and their ostentatiousness. Those people have no value for money and like every country has their own brand of uber-rich, flamboyant industrialists, we have ours.
And well the problem seems to be a little bit of both the things that you have stated. The main problem is the same as everywhere else, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and everybody in this rat race for survival and money. Sad really.
Anyway, the Indian economy has been on the rise for some time now, despite the global recession and all that.
But what I should really be clarifying out here is that Mukesh Ambani lives in Mumbai and as you may already know, Mumbai(Bombay) is the center of Bollywood. Everything Bollywood comes and goes through there. Similarly, it is the commercial capital of India and thus attracts everybody from all parts of rural India to the city with the promise of good jobs, a better life etc. But what usually happens is that these people start living on the streets in the slums that have been choking Bombay for years now. Or in that eyesore called the ‘Dharavi Slum’ which you can see in the film Slumdog Millionaire. Now the fact is that Mumbai is the only city in India to have a slum that large or slums at all. All other cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi etc. have really well planned, clean, non-slummed areas which make up the majority of their space.
So just by looking at Mumbai’s pictures(of which there are several beautiful ones besides the sad ones) one can’t really gauge the economic disparity in the rest of the country, which isn’t as bad. And I have lived in Mumbai for almost 14 years now, so I definitely know what I’m talking about.
So I hope my answers and my English are comprehensible and satisfactory. If there is any serious flaw in the above then please feel free to point it out.
yup I understand now, and I watched “my name is Khan” and I really liked it, and yeah I know that my name means marriage cause lotta of Indians told me that
Haha, yeah it didn’t occur to me that you may know Indians other than me. :retard: So wow, you’ve watched that movie then. I’m glad you liked it. BTW, which languages can you speak other than English?
Thanks a lot. I’m not going to go more specific because I already have the info I need, but I’m quite surprised that the inability to understand the different languages between two remote areas is so profound. Since they all have a somewhat recent common ancestor, I thought the differences would mostly be cosmetic. I also didn’t expect such urban/rural differences. That would be weird to leave town for a few dozens of kilometres and reach a place where you don’t understand what people say.
And yeah, I admit I didn’t think much about it when I wrote my post but it’s pretty obvious that with such differences, the “common” language is actually going to be English. Very instructive, thank you for your time.
Hey, I’m glad I could help.
I think you may have misunderstood one thing. The difference between an urban and rural place is not that people won’t be able to communicate, it’s just that the rural people won’t be that fluent in English compared to their urban counterparts. Actually the vast majority of them won’t know more than a few words, and for the older generations one can’t even say that much.
So the point is that within the same state, since everyone speaks the same language, the rural and urban people can easily communicate with each other.
And about our ancestry. It’s a mixture of the Aryans, Dravidians and a lot of others like the Mughals. So the differences are unavoidable.
Cuz it’s awesome!
I’m sorry to be the one telling you this but truth is, you can’t!:’(
Or you can, depending on whether you have a deleted data retrieval software. Simple.
Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.
and I’m ready to answer your questions and clear any doubts you may have on India and its culture, history etc.
But that too depends once again really on whether you’re going to an urban or a rural place and whether you’re coming from an urban or rural place. And as I have said before, most people in most states in central, east and north India can speak some form of Hindi, so the problem only arises if you travel to the opposite ends of the country.