Fred, You make good points, frank examples, and are talking of India, Comet is talking perhaps outside of India, unless the English has also helped him in the interiors of India or even say at Masjid, Mumbai. Buts as you put it you have been to Finland and Germany, but at least in Finland you must have been forced to speak some English, unless you have been quietly studying Finnish. Yksi kieli ei koskaan riitä.
Perhaps if people run a Mafco stand and only speak in English it may work. No need to even school the children then. Could get difficult if people come running up, see the BEST bus coming up the road and yell their orders, Ek brayilar (hindi), ek broylor (Konknni), eka broilar (marathi), ek brailare (punjabi), and others may concoct the rest. I would have been roaming in the Sahyadris for days and perhaps barely made it out, being exhausted, if I had been able to speak in Marathi with a kindly woman who at first was totally startled at seeing me, and practically ran (ti dhavat suttli). She was startled in a different way, when she realized that I was somehow beginning to speak in her dialect, as the conversation progressed. Next year my crash course in calligraphy will be entirely in Japanese and one-on-one with a prof at Chuo Daigaku. I may as well stick my thumb somewhere if I cannot keep up. All my English vocabulary will gain not even gain me a bowl of sticky rice. Basically what I am saying is that Comets reality must be different. Perhaps he chose it to b such, or it transpired in the way it appears in his statement. One more thing as the French put it, Language is learnt at the pillow. But our pillows used to have embroidery in Inglis. II Sweet dreams mhane II My Dad—the boy always, the man, the funny man, who studied up to std 4, was proud that he could read Marathi and Hindi in Devnagiri. Bus signs for sure. At JJ that memory, resurrected itself after I got pathetic marks in Hindi in the SSC. Its all a matter of time, what you do with it and the places you wish to go, in your mind, into the hearts of others and of course physical places. So to each his own. venantius 30 > From: Frederick [FN] Noronha * ???????? ???????? > <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Goanet] Goanet Reader: The price of language > chauvinism:English education in Goa (Nisser Dias) > > Viva la difference! > > 2009/8/11 AF <[email protected]> > > > VIVA Goa! I speak NO Portuguese, I speak no HINDI, nor Marathi..French > > through SSC > > was for the birds; I undertand a little of Konkannim..., but I have gone > > places > > speaking English.!! > > > I understand very little Portuguese. I can manage barely passable Hindi. > Despite having studied Marathi for just three years in school, I manage to > read the headlines in the local newspapers when needed. French was all > about > verbs, and wouldn't follow anything if spoken by a native. > > I try to understand various dialects of Konkani/Concanim/Konkannim, but > struggle with my daughter's six standard texts. > > And, I've not gone places speaking English, but have been staying home > (mostly) since returning here at the age of two! FN > > PS: Btw, I also found out that English is as good as Latin, Greek or > Sanskrit (almost) when one visits Germany or parts of Thailand and even > Finland! So where does that leave us? > -- > FN +91-9822122436 P +91-832-2409490 > Konkani adages http://konkani-adages.notlong.com/ > Medieval Goa http://medieval-goa.notlong.com/ > > > ------------------------------ >
