On Friday 02 May 2008 7:45:01 am Jim Grisanzio wrote: > I'm interested in the China/India dynamic in community building, and I > wonder how that changes in the coming years as China embraces more > English. I find the communications issues in China improving but still > challenging, whereas in India, of course, English is already pervasive
Interesting question. For years - for many decades, Indians have been surprised by Chinese speaking to them in fluent Hindi. Someone wrote about it in the press recently - a Chinese immigration officer welcoming a tourist in Hindi. But the opposite is not happening to a very great extent - i.e. Indians learning Chinese. India has a love-hate relationship with English. Many Indians blame the language for a lot of things and positively hate the man who is accused of pushing English into India on a large scale - Thomas Babington Macaulay. But India's relationship with English is like an "Ajit joke" - Ajit being a standard villainous character in Hindi movies with a weird sense of humor. Ajit asks that someone be "Thrown in liquid oxygen" on the grounds that "The liquid will not allow him to live, but the Oxygen will not allow him to die" and the man will hand somewhere between the living and the dead. India cannot do without English, but the baggage that English brings with it is hated by many Indians. Language and culture are deeply interrelated and Indians often develop a kind of hybrid English(or American)-Indian culture as a result of education in English and an Indian language. But just like India is grabbing and bending staid old cricket with IPL - india will grab and bend English for itself. shiv
