“According to Census of India of 2001, India has 122 major languages and 1599 other languages. However, figures from other sources vary, primarily due to differences in definition of the terms “language” and “dialect”. The 2001 Census recorded 30 languages which were spoken by more than a million native speakers and 122 which were spoken by more than 10,000 people.”
~ Wikipedia.
You can imagine what a task it will be for a travelling salesman if he had to cover the entire country or even some parts of it.
And that was my problem. My mother tongue is Tamil. We spoke it at home and my siblings and I still speak it among ourselves. Our children however are more comfortable speaking and communicating in English, and in my case, now, in my home, we use English and Hindi besides the occasional Marathi. Within our extended family, there are Marathi, Konkani, kannada and Urdu speakers, with a branch that has English as its mother tongue as well. Thanks to an education system designed by the English during our colonial times, all of us can communicate with each other with ease in English.
Due to compulsions of my career in sales, I had to perforce learn to speak Hindustani/Urdu, Malayalam, Telugu, Marathi and Gujarathi and though now I am not fluent due to non use, can still follow conversations in all these languages besides being able to read and write in Tamil, Hindi, Marathi and English. I was able to build bridges that have stood the test of time and can reach out to people all over our country even now, despite retiring from active service the last fifteen years.
Wouldn’t you like to be in my shoes?
I suggested this topic for the weekly LBC blog posts. You can see what the other writers of the LBC have to say in their respective blogs. Maria, Pravin, Ashok and Shackman.
Your situation is very different than mine – we essentially only speak English although anyone wishing to connect with our large Hispanic population should learn Spanoish. In 7th and 8th grade we were taught Spanish. I dropped it upon entering high school and took Grman.
My situation is not unique in India, particularly in the cities and larger towns where cross pollination as it were, is a constant process due to employment, trade and overacrching all, the cinema. Bollywood as our Mumbai movie industry is called has taken Hindustani/Hindi/Urdu to the rest of the country and all schools in India teach English besides the local languages.
Wow! Loved this post
Thank you Jayant, for the comment as well as the very pleasant surprise of commenting here rather than on facebook!
Wow! I’m impressed but love being in my own shoes. Wouldn’t trade with anyone.
Cheerful Monk recently posted..What Do You Got?
That was a rhetorical question Monk, but thanks.
I am green with envy. Which has me wondering if being in someone else’s shoes has the same sense when translated literally into all those languages. We were just discussing a German manager’s consternation at the English expression, “to pay someone a visit”. Do each of these languages have unique expressions?
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Yes, all local languages have different idioms and adages and some of them are very difficult to translate into other languages and still make sense. The local context matters.
I have a good ear for accents. but that’s as far as it goes. I love other languages!
I took a year of spanish in high school because that’s all the school offered.
I’m amazed at how many words I can still understand. but I could never speak it.
too many years and non~use have passed.
my mother spoke french. she tried to teach me but as a teenager I would have none of it.
and she didn’t force me. I now regret it of course. just as she said I would! I have taught myself a few words with vocal internet lessons. but nothing seriously.
I have great admiration for people like you. . . fluent in other languages.
but like monk… I’m still glad to me me! 🙂
tammy j recently posted..moving on old bean
I quote from my post – “Due to compulsions of my career in sales, I had to perforce learn to speak ……..”. The majority of Indians speak two languages at best and the second is likely to be English. The migrant Indian however has to learn other languages to survive!
Impressive! Great post. I do wish I knew more languages. I find it intimidating at times when traveling to only know English.
Thank you. In all fairness, I had to learn. I am sure that you will too if you had to.
Given what is known about language acquisition, I think one of the shortcomings of our U.S. educational system is that a language other than just English isn’t introduced to students pre-puberty in our public school system. Multi-language speakers are fortunate. Your brain’s neurological functions are greatly enhanced by your varied language skills. You might benefit even further if you stimulated some of those dormant languages.
I studied French in college many years ago, but not using it these years since, I would likely not be able to communicate. I later began Spanish studies when I lived in the midwest area of our country, but stopped the class when I began dating the instructor. I wish I had continued studying since these fifty years later I’m living where so many native Spanish speakers reside. I encountered many different languages in my health care work so made an effort to work with family members/others, even a hospital phone translation system on one occasion, for basic needed words, phrases, short sentences — verbal and written as needed — various Chinese, Russian, Hindi and numerous other languages, but my use was so limited as to be quite temporary. All that said, unfortunately for me, I basically speak only English, but continue to be a strong proponent for learning multi-languages.
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Many of my English and American friends will agree with you. English having acquired global language status, other countries are ensuring that their children learn English besides the local languages and this does give them an advantage.
interesting post and of course comments…
with so many migrants in my own country – it is difficult to understand if the groups of people in the bus, are on the same page with their language or not. I think many dialects as well, along with “sayings” that of course wouldn’t necessarily translate over easily to another language, let alone English.
Apparently our official languages are: English, Maori and Sign (deaf) language
My neighbours next door/unit – are from the Phillipines. According to last tenant the people directly across the fence from my living room also from Phillipines (they screech a lot), at the end of driveway a young couple of Asian descent – on the other side of grapevine/fence – a young couple possibly Polynesian… (other n/a although the people with the very high grass and rubbish have a huge vocab of bad words)
Your neighbourhood sounds very much like mine is. In fact, most Urban Indian neighbourhoods will have multi lingual textures to them as people from different parts of the country and overseas as well live in blocks of flats mostly. With globalisation and internal mobility this is but natural.