Have you ever experienced hatred from others for speaking English ?

Well this an interesting thread. My experiences have been quite different - My first name is not an common Indian Name. Its an English sounding name. And no I am not Christian. I was convent educated. Add to that I come from a state our beloved MNS like to beat up on. I can speak fluent Hindi .
So it is quite common for me to meet people who change into "Broken-English" mode. Even if I try to dissuade them, they have to drop some gems (read: their version of English) in between the conversation. Never been belittled for speaking English (maybe my name made it all good to speak in English? )

Still when I try to correct people (something like "I cant able to do this work") , people snap back "haan tu toh convent se pada hain"
 
Same here. Studied in a Christian school (though this does not reflect my religious views in anyway). Speaking English was second nature to me. Even I've gotten these 'convent mein padha hai kya?' sort of comments quite a bit. Perhaps, you have not experienced anti-English sentiments because you've interacted mostly with urbane people. (?)
 
OinkBoink said:
Same here. Studied in a Christian school (though this does not reflect my religious views in anyway). Speaking English was second nature to me. Even I've gotten these 'convent mein padha hai kya?' sort of comments quite a bit. Perhaps, you have not experienced anti-English sentiments because you've interacted mostly with urbane people. (?)
Click to expand...
No man. As I said "[FONT=Verdana, Segoe UI, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Add to that I come from a state our beloved MNS like to beat up on" ie Bihar so never had the experience of interacting with the urban crowd. Just that my first name is - Smith (strange isnt? :) ) Not many people in my state can even pronounce it , its Aasmith to them. Still never had to face any enmity cause I can speak perfectly rural style Hindi too (including the expletives) if required. It was the other way around, instead of people feeling insecure due to my English speaking they felt insecure of my name. Everyone used to go into English mode even if I spoke in Hindi. They thought an impression was required to be made.[/FONT]
 
Forgive my ignorance. I had no idea what MNS was. Did Google it though. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (?) . Although I always knew who the Thackerays were.
 
There is a divide and that is always the reason for enmity or ill feelings.

The government still runs schools which are Hindi(add your local language here) medium. In such schools nearly all subjects including Science/Vigyan, Maths/Ganit and even English is taught in Hindi. I know this for a fact coz I had many friends in college who had studied in Hindi medium schools till 12th. So even though they were brilliant they could never score as good marks as we, those fluent in English could.
One of my friends was from Bihar and I used to give him English tuitions in college so that he could write proper meaningful sentences. So even though he understood the concept better than most he had to remember all the answers so he could pass. He failed many exams in the first 2 years of his engineering but eventually made it out in 4 years.
Had I not met someone like him I wouldn't have understood why some people hate others who speak English. But I don't blame them. He could always understand the concepts better than me and many others but was always in awe of us because we were better at English.
There was a diffraction experiment in our first year Physics Lab course and this guy always nailed it when doing the practical, sometimes even better than the teachers or lab staff. Even then he nearly failed the external Viva because he always used to forget the word diffraction as he only knew what it was said in Hindi.
Funny thing is I feel in awe of him because today he knows what diffraction is and also what it is called in Hindi.

This was one guy who soldiered through but not everyone has such a strong will and patience and they tend to show outbursts which some of you experienced as acts of bullying.

So like I said all this is because of the divide. Steps should be taken to either increase the importance of Hindi/local languages or to abolish Hindi/local language medium schools and start teaching English from the word go and not from 5th or 6th standard.
 
Forcing us to study in Hindi/regional languages may make life pretty difficult for a lot of us as we're not used to it. Abolishing Hindi/regional language instruction would be overkill. Increased emphasis of English in non-English schools has already been tried out in many states and has faced a lot of opposition. And at the end of the day, people have the right to study in whatever language they choose to.

Also, you know what? The Indian govt. has done a good job of funding the IITs to create video lectures on engineering subjects. I mean thorough videos that go from the basics to higher levels in a detailed manner. Also, Khan Academy and stuff do the same thing. Start from the fundamentals and go all the way up.

I think the Indian govt./some organisation should take up the endeavour to create a series of videos on every Indian language for speakers of every other (or as many as possible) language. For example, an English speaker can try to learn fluent Hindi or a Tamil speaker can try to learn fluent English. These videos again, should be organised, start from the fundamentals, explain the nuances of a language and make their way up.

Agreed, it's not as good as learning a language by living in an environment where the language is often used. But, it still has some pretty good merits I think.
 
I didn't mean that they should force you or anybody to study in local language or English.
But then there should be equal opportunity for everyone. If they can teach in Hindi till 12th don't you think those guys have the right to get higher education in Hindi as well.
If I remember correctly you can even give the IIT entrance exam in Hindi, but then what. Do you think they actually have a chance at succeeding when the course will be taught in English. The system is wrong and they have a right to be angry at such a system but that anger gets taken out on English speaking folk.
 
sharktale1212 said:
Still when I try to correct people (something like "I cant able to do this work") , people snap back "haan tu toh convent se pada hain"
Click to expand...

I can totally understand what you are saying. I, myself, was quite pedantic about this stuff and sort of a "Grammar Nazi". But the root of the matter is that no one likes being corrected. No one, period. They may tell you thanks and that they appreciate it, but NO ONE likes it.

I have restricted to correcting only my immediate family and 3 of my friends - making a total of 6 people. This provides a kind of release for me and I know that they will be truthful and tell me to STFU if they are irritated. Nothing is hidden here. :p

A small example. I corrected one of my colleagues over in Canada. Very sweet guy and he was pulling my leg, but it proves what I said above

Colleague [06:39]: Ah, the day we are all off over here in Canada. Rememberance Day. Hope I spelled that correctly, it look odd.

Me [06:39]: extra e :)

Me [06:39]: Remembrance

Colleague [06:39]: thought so, about the e

Me [06:40]: sorry, I am very bad with this.. can't help but correct people :(

Colleague [06:40]: sometimes the fingers lie to me

Me [06:40]: it happens more often when typing

even the correct spellings look weird to me sometimes

I have to look it up

Colleague [06:40]: and then you over think it, and anything looks wrong

Me [06:40]: haha

Colleague [06:41]: I'll accept your corrections, I know I can't offer you the same service.

Me [06:42]: lol

It's kind of my quirk I guess

though I have reduced a lot now

the term on the internet for this is "Grammar Nazi"

Colleague [06:42]: you'll make someone a good mother one day... at the dinner table
Click to expand...

:(


sharktale1212 said:
^"aye convent mein pad kar aaya hain kya" :p jking.
Click to expand...
^Hence proved :p
 
rdst_1 said:
I didn't mean that they should force you or anybody to study in local language or English.
But then there should be equal opportunity for everyone. If they can teach in Hindi till 12th don't you think those guys have the right to get higher education in Hindi as well.
If I remember correctly you can even give the IIT entrance exam in Hindi, but then what. Do you think they actually have a chance at succeeding when the course will be taught in English.
Click to expand...

Yes, yes. I wasn't accusing you of forcing languages on people. I was just making a point. Also, you're right, they do have a right to have a higher education in Hindi. But setting up higher educational institutions in national/regional languages would be a tremendous task. It's not like we have one or two languages here. I think you can imagine the complications.

rdst_1 said:
The system is wrong and they have a right to be angry at such a system but that anger gets taken out on English speaking folk.
Click to expand...

Precisely.


BTW, both my grandfather (maternal) and father studied in Telugu medium schools till 12th. My grandfather did his B.Com and M. Com in the 50s and 60s. My father holds M.B.B.S, M.S, M.Ch (and also an incomplete M.D. which he left mid-way because he found that his passion lay in surgery) degrees.

My grandfather speaks pretty good English (although it's a little accented relative to ours). My father's English is still a little poor/average at best, but he has a working knowledge of the language that is sufficient for him to do whatever he needs to. He still has some anti-English bias though.

I studied in a hostel for a year with students who were mostly from Telugu medium schools (but what they were learning here was in English).

These people pick up the language fairly quickly and in some cases even outperform English medium educated folk. All you need is an open mind and a willingness to learn.

- - - Updated - - -

I remember I was once talking to one of my dad's colleagues, who is an anaesthesiologist, about why a lot of rural/small town folk tend to tease English speakers. He got really defensive (he's from a small town too) and started telling me about how the best doctors in my city were all from villages/towns. I didn't mean to imply that people who come from small towns have any less potential than us at all ! But you can see the mentality.
 
Hindi is not the official language of India.

Let me state what the Constitution says "The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script."

Neither the Constitution of India nor Indian law specifies a national language, a position supported by a High Court ruling.However, languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian constitution are sometimes referred to, without legal standing, as the national languages of India

-- Wikipedia

Languages of India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Correct me if I am wrong.
 
Okay. I know that Hindi isn't the national language of India. But every time people state what the constitution says, I can't help but get the thought that at the end of the day, the constitution is a set of ideas, stated by people, written on a piece of paper. It isn't like one of the infallible laws of nature. It can have stuff that's objectively right and stuff that's wrong.
 
Just pointing that out as many Hindi speakers think that if someone from other part of country does not know Hindi than he is wrong.

Its something very common that I have experienced.
 
xtremevicky said:
Just pointing that out as many Hindi speakers think that if someone from other part of country does not know Hindi than he is wrong.

Its something very common that I have experienced.
Click to expand...

Yes, I agree with you. I (being a north Indian Hindi speaker myself) have seen this arrogance several times on the part of *some* Hindi speakers. They keep telling South Indians that Hindi is the national language and that they should know it. That's just ridiculous.
 
Back
Top