Your "us vs them" attitude seems so deep rooted that you are forgetting 26/11 was planned and executed from Pakistan. I still maintain that India is not that bad.
I don't think that's true and it's a very tainted statement in the guise of a question. There are a lot of Indians (North or south or east or west, hindi or assamese or bengali or oriya or gujarati or telugu or kannada or malayalee or marthi or ...) who are very proud of our diversity and national integration. A few instances of poor judgement does not make it the norm. One should develop the tolerance to overlook them as aberrations or human fallibility. The instance you cite could/does happen with hindi speaking people too.
The current way is a subtly evolved solution. A combination of Hindi and English. One can get by knowing one of those two languages. Knowing both will be a good pass in almost all over barring a few places. Someone who knows no English doesn't go too far in academics or career almost anywhere in India (excepting politics, where one doesn't even need basic education, apparently).
Falguni/Whiteorchid,We can go on arguing on this subject but the subject is so sensitive that we will end up hurting each other.Hence I would put a fullstop here.My arguement would be on the same line as confused2011 because we take pride in being "mannin maindargal"(lord of the land) since we lived here and evrybody else migrated .But I reiterate , not all of us are hindi haters.And I get irked when someone asks me to speak in Hindi right after the first sentence knowing where I am from.And next comes the comment on accent and our hindi is too grammatically correct and not coloqial.Thatz the reason I have this attitude of why bother at all(I cannot speak for everyone).BTW,I did my private hindi tution after school hours .
There is no "us Vs them" here.I take pride in "my" things.Thatz it.I do not have to hate others for that sake.
Ok. I agree with Bhuvnidhi, lets not get into that much depth and put a full stop to it. But I would like to answer the above as mentioned by my friend Confused2011. Please lets not go down that line, that NI's who have different mother tongue do not speak their own language but Hindi. First reason being, they never treat HINDI as other language and hence do not distinguish between their own mother tongue and Hindi. Since even their language is some way or the other inherited from Sanskrit and hindi, they do not feel ashamed or sad of speaking it. Secondly, anyway with the future generation our monther tongue (languages) will disappear eventually and will be overpowered by English (Just the way, all the ancient things are replaced by Modern things, Ancient clothes replaced by modenr clothes, ancient lifestyle replaced by Modern lifestyle etc etc etc. I have seen so many kids here in US (all NI, SI, EI, WI) who speak english (American accent) and who cannot communicate in their own language (forget hindi). And these days it is very common even in India, that parents emphasise their kids on learning english over their language. So its fair and square. Having said so, I do not wish to continue this thread, be whatever anyone's reply. PS: @Moderators: If and when you feel that everybody had a fair chance of replying to each other queries, I really would like to request you to close this thread. IL is a vitual world and all of us here are virtual friends, sisters, bothers, well wisher etc. who are from all parts of our country. And by continuing these personal topics of religione (yes.. religion and not just language) we are hurting each other in one way or the other and I do not want to loose any friends out here.
Pray tell me what language one should use with the uneducated people or ones educated in the local language in each of the southern states if I can only speak 2 languages and if I had to pick Hindi and English? If there are only 2 languages to learn, the choice is clear. Even if it is only one, which only happens to those educated in state government schools or uneducated people these days, the choice is clear too. I reiterate, if one were to speak only Hindi in North India, one can get by because most people who don't speak Hindi can also understand it because of the similarity. And yes. I have met North Indians who don't speak Hindi but we manage to communicate by paying close attention to each other and discerning enough words to make out the meaning. But if that were the case in the south, no amount of careful listening will get one far. The origins of the North and South Indian languages are different and thus, not inter-intelligible. There is no shame involved in speaking or not speaking a language except not speaking a language that one has learnt for many years or speaking a language only with a liberal use of bad words, perhaps. I speak 6 languages with varying degrees of proficiency. 2 South Indian, 2 North Indian, and 2 foreign, out of which I am very fluent in one in each category. Not everyone is able to learn languages the same way. My husband and I took the same class, lived in the same city while learning the 2nd foreign language. Yet, only I can carry on conversations with any comfort. And he has far more brilliant an academic background. Language skills have nothing to do with intelligence or inclination. It has everything to do with opportunity and disposition. I have friends who speak English very poorly but the other language very well and none of us gets embarrassed speaking the other language even though we suck at it. My husband isn't that way. And even if anyone makes fun of one my languages that I don't speak well, I have no problem laughing it off and trying anyway. It is in my interest and is my interest to learn a new language, not theirs. Not everyone is that way. For that matter, for all the "you should learn my language" stipulations, not many have the patience to help someone speak their language. I would, my husband wouldn't. You know whom I learnt Hindi from? A Bengali. Merely by letting me speak it without ridiculing me, just correcting me or helping with the vocabulary, she taught it to me. Not one of the Biharis had the patience to do so (not that all the Biharis are that way, I am sure, and these Biharis are my friends, just not patient in this respect). As I said, it is a matter of opportunity and disposition. The Biharis had the inclination and opportunity but not the disposition to encourage me to learn. One learns through gentle encouragement not by embarrassment. And as we're all past the school stage where there were teachers who did either/or (we all know which teachers we liked best), what will work is positive encouragement or the right incentive and the right opportunity and disposition. Not rules, regulations, or ridicule.
Hindi was considered to be as our National language but due to the diversity of culture, custom & languages, hindi is just made to be our official language. There is no any National Language of India.
i liked what you said bhuvnidhi! my dh is a south indian and he speaks hindi with a accent so some people would make fun and he got so conscious that he tried not to speak hindi, i could feel his discomfort to speak hindi , for the fear of being misjudged! even some people we met who knew english would insist that he speak in hindi , just to make me feel , look this guy does not even know hindi! we both speak a mix of different languages at home and when he spoke with me or my mom in hindi it was good,but i was also irritated by people who had prejudices in mind, some friends were so mean they would ask me does he speak yem as M , and N as yen ! i mean heights! sometimes people dont understand that everyone has a accent , bengalis will speak s as sh , punjabis also have accent even people who speak pure hindi from up have accent, instead of encouraging others we tend to ridicule them and then the problem starts! thankfully my dh is cool guy and did not bother much about my relatives and friends who teased him and now he speaks not only good hindi but also bit of punjabi!
