I read a few years ago that Hindi is offered as a foreign language in a few public high schools in the U.S. Which technically means that federal or state funds are used to teach it. Nice. How Hindi is Catching on in U.S. Schools and Colleges From 2015: A few years ago, Edison, a New York suburb with a bustling Indian population of doctors, engineers and techies became one of the first school districts in the U.S. to use federal money to teach Hindi. Besides Edison, nationwide, two other districts Dallas and Houston offer Hindi as a foreign language. Not sure how this will sit with OP : ) but I don't think Tamil is offered yet in any high school in the U.S. I could be wrong or out of touch with the latest in this matter. I do know that our local Tamil teaching program is staffed by some of the most passionate and extremely well-organized volunteers I have ever come across. Generally, such groups of people approach the school district and make a case for their language being offered by the school. One lucky volunteer can end up with a relaxing language teacher job (with pension). : ) As an aside, my child once told me that native speakers of a language are sometimes not allowed to take their mother-tongue as foreign language in high school. The school does this to ensure that those students do not have an unfair advantage in class.
Kids can test out of foreign language requirement in our district with Tamil along with a few other languages. Telugu isn’t one of those although the ballots can be printed in Telugu.
@Rihana Tamil is flourishing all over the world in its own way, its only in India the center is trying to suppress the language Canada Canada officially declares pride in its Tamils, passes Bill calling for Tamil Heritage Month China A University In Beijing Is Teaching Tamil Just Because The Students Just Love The Language Japan Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka its used in public signs. Singapore committed to keeping Tamil as an official language, says cabinet minister P.S you should watch the Japan Rajinikanth videos its fun
The latest Tamil culture suppression done by Central Government is Keeladi No museum for Keeladi in budget upsets TN's archeological enthusiasts - The Federal Rs 643.84 crore to be promote a dead language and no budget for a museum to preserve the items found at the archeological site. Anyone who wants to know the significance of Keeladi can watch these videos
In America the "official languges" differ from state to state. The Grey colored ones on the map do not have any official languages. Dark blue English Only, light blue - two languages. English Language Unity Act - Wikipedia
Sanskrit will die if we don’t encourage it. I don’t know Hindi or Sanskrit but I wouldn’t want the latter to suffer. Our culture is based on religion and Vedas play an important role in it. Vedas, Hindu slogas and scriptures are all in Sanskrit and translated into regional language for the convenience of the common people like me to recite. But we cannot let it die and it needs some fraction of the people who are continuing the spread of Vedas by giving some financial renumeration for them. Otherwise the language will die. The other regional languages have been in circulation and will not disappear to the extent of Sanskrit. I would prefer to have learnt Sanskrit in school instead of Hindi because I have desire to study that language than Hindi. Too late to regret as I have crossed those years and now have many other issues to tackle than to learn Sanskrit. I don’t know how many people will agree to this logic but I feel Sanskrit should be saved to whatever extent possible. Mahaperiyava played an important role in encouraging the learning of Sanskrit and the Vedas. Paramacharya on Sanskrit – Tamil and Vedas
Be happy to know that many primary books are on the internet. Here is something from SabdhaManjari that many would recognize. Some footnotes are in English.
So you are saying that it is fine if we ignore other languages and keep allocating huge amount of tax payer money to one single language?
For all north indians people from kerala, chennai, karnataka and telengana Andhra all one and the same "kala madrasi". You know its origins. During Britishers time all southern states were under one name called " The Madras Presidency".
@Agathinai - 643 crores is a lot of money. Something for the language is understandable. When there is a budget surplus then allocation of funds for Sanskrit makes sense. We are not in a budget surplus. Lots of things can be accomplished with 643 crores. A part of the government schools can be funded to get the people who need it out of poverty - give them some real education. I don’t think anyone has a problem with Sanskrit getting funds. It’s the excess spending for it that is being questioned. A fraction of that money is good enough for the upkeep of the language so it truly doesn’t become extinct. There are WhatsApp Sanskrit classes these days. I’ve seen versions in Telugu and Malayalam. Should be available in Tamil. Do look into it. There is no end date to learning a language. When we were taught it was the Devanagari script so Hindi came in handy but private tutors on WhatsApp are teaching it in all languages(using the local language script).