The building guard rings my doorbell, armed with dire news: “Aapka cable cut karne ko ayaa hai.” Cable? But I have Tata Sky. I run down to investigate only to be confronted by an irate young man in khaki. “No cable! Electric, electric,” he growls, impatient at our misapprehension. We begin to argue, I in Tamil, he in Kannada, our voices rising in frustration, as the guard tries to make peace in Hindi. What I remember most clearly is the BESCOM fellow’s contempt for my inability to speak his language – a deficiency that damns me as an outsider.
Language is a marker of identity, but also difference, a truism that is easy to forget in the cosmopolitan confines of Bangalore. This is a multi-ethnic, multilingual city, more so over the past twenty years thanks to the IT boom. In ‘new’ Bangalore, Manipuri beauticians, Malayali nurses, Punjabi housewives, Tamil maids, and Andhra businessmen live cheek by jowl, expanding each other’s linguistic horizons. The Gujarati businessman at the vet’s clinic chats in Kannada with the assistant, drumming up some broken Tamil as he makes small talk with me. My maid, who arrived in the city as a young illiterate woman from Dharmapuri, has since added three languages – Kannada, Hindi, and English – to her skill set. “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse,” averred the Spanish Emperor Charles V. The youngest generation of Bangaloreans are no less talented. “My child already speaks four languages,” is the boast I hear most often from other parents. Too bad I can’t say the same about mine.
Full report here Bangalore Mirror
Showing posts with label linguistics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label linguistics. Show all posts
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Study on orientalism
In this book, Michael Dodson examines the historical ontology of orientalism, empire, and nationalism — the three major obsessions of the last generation — in the light of rarely used sources in Sanskrit, Hindi, and English, and with fresh insights into the making of modern India. It explores the varied scholarly manifestations in literature, history, and linguistics, related to the period 1770-1880, projecting the image of ‘Indian Civilisation.'
Themes
The book draws on three principal themes: the East India Company's use of orientalist knowledge and the Sanskrit pundits for strengthening state power in Bengal in the late 18th century; the uses of orientalist methodologies in education for the civilising mission in the 19th century; and, the adaptation, by Indian Sanskrit scholars, of some of orientalism's discursive constructs in the production of newly inflected Hindu identities.
The core argument is that orientalism in India is best understood not as a static modus operandi but as a shifting set of policy positions and localised practices, which were constantly adapted to changing circumstances in the colonial context as well as in respect of evolutions in metropolitan British thought.
Full report here Hindu
The book draws on three principal themes: the East India Company's use of orientalist knowledge and the Sanskrit pundits for strengthening state power in Bengal in the late 18th century; the uses of orientalist methodologies in education for the civilising mission in the 19th century; and, the adaptation, by Indian Sanskrit scholars, of some of orientalism's discursive constructs in the production of newly inflected Hindu identities.
The core argument is that orientalism in India is best understood not as a static modus operandi but as a shifting set of policy positions and localised practices, which were constantly adapted to changing circumstances in the colonial context as well as in respect of evolutions in metropolitan British thought.
Full report here Hindu
Monday, May 3, 2010
Archaeo-Linguistic Ghost of Neo-Colonialism
*I’m inclined to side with the poets, and take issues of linguistic clarity with a lethal seriousness… but this situation is getting so much weirder, at a rate we can scarcely describe. Language has been delaminated from regionality by digital culture. It will never be stapled back on there again.
*There must be a lot of places in this world — Burma and Afghanistan leap to mind — where Indian cultural power exports English and enforces it on non-Indian peoples. Then there are the Chinese, who don’t resent English as an imposition of the Raj, but envy it as a tool of globalization that the Indians have, and they yet don’t. If you’re an Indian patriot, do you really want the Chinese to speak more English than you? In what conceivable way is that in your national interest?
*There’s a brief mention in this article of Indian ethnic, Indian born monolingual English speakers. They must be an interesting crowd. This being India, there must be at least a couple dozen million of those people.
Full report here Wired.com
*There must be a lot of places in this world — Burma and Afghanistan leap to mind — where Indian cultural power exports English and enforces it on non-Indian peoples. Then there are the Chinese, who don’t resent English as an imposition of the Raj, but envy it as a tool of globalization that the Indians have, and they yet don’t. If you’re an Indian patriot, do you really want the Chinese to speak more English than you? In what conceivable way is that in your national interest?
*There’s a brief mention in this article of Indian ethnic, Indian born monolingual English speakers. They must be an interesting crowd. This being India, there must be at least a couple dozen million of those people.
Full report here Wired.com
Monday, April 5, 2010
Survey to map Himalayan languages
The first phase of the ambitious project of People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) will begin later this month, in which a survey on Himalayan languages and of central tribal belt of India will be carried out. The decision to launch PLSI initiative was taken by city-based NGO Bhasha Research and Publication Centre (BRPC) at the national meet 'Bhasha Confluence' held in Vadodara.
This survey will recreate history after 100 years. George Abraham Grierson had produced a 12-volume Linguistic Survey of India (1903-1923) material for which was collected in the last decade of the 19th century. In fact, the results of PLSI will be in juxtaposition to Grierson's survey.
Even in 2007, the Linguistic Survey of India was planned and touted as the biggest ever to be conducted in the world. Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) in Mysore was to conduct it, but the exercise was abandoned.
Full report here Times of India
This survey will recreate history after 100 years. George Abraham Grierson had produced a 12-volume Linguistic Survey of India (1903-1923) material for which was collected in the last decade of the 19th century. In fact, the results of PLSI will be in juxtaposition to Grierson's survey.
Even in 2007, the Linguistic Survey of India was planned and touted as the biggest ever to be conducted in the world. Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) in Mysore was to conduct it, but the exercise was abandoned.
Full report here Times of India
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Linguist says Indian languages are threatened
Eminent linguist and the founder director of the Central Institute of Indian Languages D.P. Pattanayak pointed out that all Indian languages are threatened. And it is not only the small, tribal languages, but even major languages like Hindi. The octogenarian was speaking at the inauguration of the two-day Bharat Bhasha Confluence, organised by the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre, which began in Vadodara on Monday.
Among those present were speakers of 320 Indian languages representing all states and union territories along with a host of luminaries, including writer-activist Mahasveta Devi and noted Gandhian Narayanbhai Desai.
Pattanayak has also urged the central government to conduct the long overdue linguistic survey in the country.
‘This is the only way to know all our languages,’ Pattanayak said.
Full report here Calcutta Tube
Among those present were speakers of 320 Indian languages representing all states and union territories along with a host of luminaries, including writer-activist Mahasveta Devi and noted Gandhian Narayanbhai Desai.
Pattanayak has also urged the central government to conduct the long overdue linguistic survey in the country.
‘This is the only way to know all our languages,’ Pattanayak said.
Full report here Calcutta Tube
Monday, March 15, 2010
Scholar analyzes South Asia English
English as spoken in South Asia is evolving, but there is no sign it is turning into a separate dialect that English speakers from other continents might not understand, according to Joybrato Mukherjee, a top German linguistics scholar.
The University of Giessen professor uses computer analysis, based on one-million-word samples of Indian and five other South Asian varieties of English, to discover their distinctive words as well as slight regional differences in grammar.
English spread around the globe with the British Empire. Linguists say there is no authoritative standard English. All the spinoffs exist side by side and are “right” for the people who speak them. English in India functions a little differently from English in England. Take the word, “prepone,” the opposite of postpone, which most other English speakers have never heard of.
Full report here Manila Bulletin
The University of Giessen professor uses computer analysis, based on one-million-word samples of Indian and five other South Asian varieties of English, to discover their distinctive words as well as slight regional differences in grammar.
English spread around the globe with the British Empire. Linguists say there is no authoritative standard English. All the spinoffs exist side by side and are “right” for the people who speak them. English in India functions a little differently from English in England. Take the word, “prepone,” the opposite of postpone, which most other English speakers have never heard of.
Full report here Manila Bulletin
Pratap Naik to attend linguistics conference
Dr Pratap Naik, the director of Thomas Stephens Konkani Kendr has been invited by the Research Institute for languages and cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan to attend the Missionary Linguistics Conference to be held at Tokyo from March 16 to 19.
Naik is one of the eleven international scholars who have been invited to attend the conference and present the paper. He will read a paper on “Contribution of Missionaries to Konknni Linguistics”. This is second visit to Japan.
Earlier, in 2006 Pratap Naik was invited by the Sophia University, Tokyo to attend an international colloquium and there he had presented a paper on “The Contribution of the Jesuits to education and the Konknni language in Goa (1542-1759).
Full report here Daijiworld
Naik is one of the eleven international scholars who have been invited to attend the conference and present the paper. He will read a paper on “Contribution of Missionaries to Konknni Linguistics”. This is second visit to Japan.
Earlier, in 2006 Pratap Naik was invited by the Sophia University, Tokyo to attend an international colloquium and there he had presented a paper on “The Contribution of the Jesuits to education and the Konknni language in Goa (1542-1759).
Full report here Daijiworld
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The tragedy of dying languages
The death of the last speaker of an ancient language in India's Andaman Islands highlights the fact that half of the world's 7,000 languages are in danger of disappearing. Linguist K David Harrison argues that we still have much to learn from vanishing languages.
My journey as a scientist exploring the world's vanishing languages has taken me from the Siberian forests to the Bolivian Altiplano, from a McDonald's in Michigan to a trailer park in Utah. In all these places I've listened to last speakers - dignified elders - who hold in their minds a significant portion of humanity's intellectual wealth.
Though it belongs solely to them and has inestimable value to their people, they do not hoard it. In fact they are often eager to share it. What can we learn from these languages before they go extinct? And why should we lift a finger to help rescue them.
As the last speakers converse, they spin individual strands in a vast web of knowledge, a noosphere of possibilities. They tell how their ancestors calculated accurately the passing of seasons without clocks or calendars. How humans adapted to hostile environments, from the Arctic to Amazonia.
Full report here BBC
My journey as a scientist exploring the world's vanishing languages has taken me from the Siberian forests to the Bolivian Altiplano, from a McDonald's in Michigan to a trailer park in Utah. In all these places I've listened to last speakers - dignified elders - who hold in their minds a significant portion of humanity's intellectual wealth.
Though it belongs solely to them and has inestimable value to their people, they do not hoard it. In fact they are often eager to share it. What can we learn from these languages before they go extinct? And why should we lift a finger to help rescue them.
As the last speakers converse, they spin individual strands in a vast web of knowledge, a noosphere of possibilities. They tell how their ancestors calculated accurately the passing of seasons without clocks or calendars. How humans adapted to hostile environments, from the Arctic to Amazonia.
Full report here BBC
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