Wednesday 3 March 2021

The Delusional Greatness of English

 


English medium education is designed to make us illiterates in our land.



If English were outlawed in this country, and each state focussed only on their language for all transactions, overnight the field levelling would start.


A language defines a world view. Any language, any vocabulary.

Why do many people who speak English fluently assume they are smarter ...🤔
They don't know it's just another language, among ten thousands ?
 

Comments

  • Paranthaman Sriramulu
    yes, they equate knowledge with language proficiency. Forgetting knowledge can acquired via different languages, even without speaking...
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      Paranthaman Sriramulu so pretty dumb they are, isn't it. To make such meaningless conclusions.
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  • Pratap Ramamurthy
    adhya bahu janaaha samskrutham patanthi.
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  • Manohar Kamath
    Well many reasons but they are treated with awe even today. Also as stated earlier here, we access most higher education in english.
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  • Monika Sethuraman
    It's not just another language. Ppl toil day and night to master it to get employment or even understand the text book. It's a skill acquired . One can be proud of such accomplishment. Than merely being proud of being born into a particular group.
    • Aparna Krishnan
      Monika Sethuraman it's a greater skill that another language 🤔
      And those who are born into upper class families where English is the default. And who did not need to slave for it. They are less 'proud' 🤔 ?
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    • Monika Sethuraman
      Aparna Krishnan
       yes there is that class and clan who flaunts it as a status quo . But not me.. I toil for it.. A dozen Indians stuck at Wuhan airport couldn't fill the medical form.. I helped them filling form. They said " this why I should have gone to school " ... learning english is will only help us in some way or the other.
    • Aparna Krishnan
      Monika Sethuraman the question asked is different.
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    • Monika Sethuraman
      Aparna Krishnan
       but I made a point .. related to why they perceive themselves smart
  • Meenakshi Negi
    Maybe it’s a psychological idea inserted by social conditioning which has not met its match through questioning validity.
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  • Manan Bindal
    जब नाश मनुज पर छाता है
    पहले विवेक मर जाता है
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  • Vipin Sharma
    The language spoken by the most powerful country in the world is respected worldwide, but in India, it is mainly due to the British rule, the language of the rulers relegated the languages of the natives to a second grade.
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  • Komakkambedu Himakiran
    It's a huge enabler, economically and socially, so they flaunt it.
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      Komakkambedu Himakiran
       and that it is such, and other languages are not, is what needs to be challenged, and corrected ?
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    • Komakkambedu Himakiran
      Yes. That's why it's very important to decentralise the economy. It enables local knowledge systems, practices, trade and that's done best in local languages.
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    • Komakkambedu Himakiran
      The vitality of Tamil in terms of being able to compete and stand up to Hindi or English is because of the local economy factor. Unfortunately we are losing ground there too with this globalised economy.
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  • Vidya Subramanian
    The best part is the copy of accent as well!!!
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    • Manohar Kamath
      Vidya Subramanian
       yes. Among English speakers there is a social ranking based on accent and vocabulary.... In some social circles th accent matters more than the content.
      My neighbor's 6 yr old daughter speaks with an American accent (she has never visited the US) and the whole housing society is so in awe and admiration... Every kid wants her brand of English.
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      Manohar Kamath
       I doubt if the elite of any country is more enslaved and dumb that ours !
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  • Mark Johnston
    Perhaps learning the language subtly alters the mind in ways that encourage such silly delusions 😉
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  • Sivapriya Krishnan
    Yes. The vestiges of the Raj! Its a world disorder! 😄😄
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  • Rama Murthy
    I wish some one talks to them back in French 🙂
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  • Nitesh Kothari
    Aparna Ji, I always don't know how get on to english conversation while speaking then again realise and try to come to Hindi.
    How can I refrain myself from english?
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    • Nitesh Kothari
      I mean I always tend to speak in english so how can I refrain myself from speaking in English?
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      Nitesh Kothari
       our schooling has destroyed us. The way back is not easy.
      Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy, writes in The Dance of Shiva,
      “It is hard to realize, how completely the continuity of Indian life has been severed. A single generation of English education suffices to break the threads of tradition and to create a nondescript and superficial being deprived of all roots—a sort of intellectual pariah who does not belong to the East or the West.”



The loss when we gain English


One of my biggest losses personally has been my English medium education. And a schooling in Delhi. Which has rendered me more fluent in written English, than in wriiten Telugu or Tamil. Both of which I read and write more slowly.
Language structures thinking itself. And it has creates worldviews that anchor or alienate. From the soil.
Many years spent in an interior Telugu village has to some extent overcome the damages. And yet they are real.
... to recover at least equal fluency in written Tamil and Telugu as in English has stayed the wish. Work in progress.
... the case for universal vernacular medium learning till middle school at least has many points. Apart from making the playing ground more level for the poorer and richer child. It is to do with Roots itself.
Sanjay Maharishi, Kongara Gangadhara Rao and 23 others
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Comments

  • Sanjay Maharishi
    Same here with Hindi and Marathi both of which are languages I got from parents. English medium schools all through including four years in Mauritius it has been an effort to get back to the languages. While my Marathi reading is terrible, speaking is ok. Hindi reading has improved a lot over the years. But you're right, we think in a particular language and that itself will change when language changes.
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Do those English speaking denizens who look down on fellow citizens who are not fluent in English realize how deeply and shamefully colonized their own minds are.
How though the British left, these elite citizens continue to be their willing minions.

Comments

  • Rama Subramanian
    The language continues to be a barrier. The real destruction is when you ask the question to college students, "when is the last time you read a book in this mother tongue". I did recently and found that except 4 in a class of 35, all others don't read anything in their mother tongue. Of course, i am talking of engineering students...
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  • Anjali Nair
    Grew up in Assam, but my grandparents sent us monthly comic in Malayalm to ensure we dont forget the language. I didnt, because i was taught to respect my mother tongue and to appreciate the rich literature available to me. Here in the gulf region, my … 
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  • Anjali Nair
    Picked up telegu during our stay in Andhra.... even today I regret that I never learnt to read or write....Telegu. It all boils down to what you think is imortant for your child.... and what is important for that situation.... being multilingual is an advantage, but today I believe the focus is on just one language....
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  • Marimuthu Kandasamy
    Still all ppls in rural tamilnadu have as engineering graduates like me who complete with arrears not well good in english and in tamil also
    Only by keep
    typing in tamil fb whats app hace remmbers...😑
    தமிழ் வாழ்க
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    Yes, I have also seem that. By making local children study in english they lose both and come out totally useless. Pity.

Dinesh Kothari "Gulami ki prakriya ke tin mahatvpurn astra - Language, school and dress."
There are three weapons of enslaveing - language, schooling and dress.
Speaking English, schooling in English, giving up the saree and the dhoti/pyjama-kurta - and though the white man left, but we have stayed colonized.
And we the educates also look down on our own culture and mores and language, and thereby on our people.


Dhandapani Murugesan Your posts are itself being in English 😊
Aparna Krishnan I am one of the EnglishEducatedIndians myself. But I have seen the alienation that that modern education has caused from fellow Indians.
Komakkambedu Himakiran Just like Gandhi used English to articulate with the Brits, we have to use English with the English minded crowd to slowly wean them away and bring them to understand the real India!
Dhandapani Murugesan But I share my thoughts in Tamil ; English is of course important to connect globally;
Aparna Krishnan Komakkambedu Himakiran Anugula Gandhi was not so successful there actually. Read Nehru's views on villages !
Aparna Krishnan Dhandapani Murugesan yes, it is most important to communicate in the local languages. The English crowd only needs second sttention.
Komakkambedu Himakiran I post in both Tamil & English! Wish I could drop English totally, but then I wouldn't be able to connect with others outside my world.
More than using the language, it's the thinking in the language which is dangerous!
Komakkambedu Himakiran Gandhi could take on the Brits, but not their clones in India!
Aparna Krishnan There is a snobbery to English. By using it itself we strengthen that snob value. Its a double edged tool. es, having most of your posts bi lingual is a very intelligent choice.



To know and quote western philosophers, to hum western music, to be more fluent in English than in our languages.
To consider there as more advanced.
To to expose the utter hollowness of a colonized mind.


Rama Subramanian Because quoting Marx was considered fashionable globally and indian intellectuals wanted to be globally aligned; to know Dharampal is like knowing indian farmer in his language, the validity is very local, and, local is not fashionable.


One English educated gentleman wanted to verify my antecedents because I have Sanskrit quotes on my page.


Rama Subramanian I have 2 students just now from a reputed institution up north undergoing masters programme in 'development', doing internship with us. Like we always do, we had given them a week to observe our training programmes and activities and then to make a presentation on what they felt they could do. Full of confidence of their knowledge from academia and processes they have learnt. in a 10 minute presentation, they not only summarized our institute, what it stood for, what were our weaknesses and strengths, etc., but, also gave a proposal for 'developing' a village as part of their internship with several tools and methods thrown in. at the end of which, i asked them what was their mother tongue, they both said, "hindi".
So, i requested them to please make the same presentation in hindi with the same slides. it took them 25 minutes and they struggled through the presentation as several terms they had so confidently used didn't have any local equivalent, So, 'sustainability' became 'self-reliance' in translation and several other terms used those terms that were culturally more local in nature. at the end of this presentation, the students confessed that they felt less confident and even guilty at some point as they could not explain 'development' related issues in their own mother tongue. i suggested to them that wherever there was a conflict between not finding the 'correct' word in hindi, whatever term in hindi is there shold precede over that of english. i also suggested to them that they should try to replace as many terms in english as possible without using it literally.
A day later, they presented the same to us in hindi completely and their presentation had changed completely! it had less of 'tools' and 'methods' and more of 'local knowledge', 'tradition' and 'culture' factors integrated. They both agreed that it now looked to them a lot more 'bottom up' and what they had presented earlier looked 'top down'.
This for me is the power of local languages.
Every language in its local form evokes the spirit of the locality, tamil is for tamilnadu, similarly for other places. while english has served us well for commercial purposes, it cannot serve us for cultural purposes. and nothing wrong in learning more indian languages.
Kannan Thandapani Best way to make the big consultants to go out of business. Shallow tools and jargons always get exposed when they get translated into the language of the common man.




(from a thread on
Komakkambedu Himakiran
's wall on questioning Hindi imposition)
Komakkambedu Himakiran Local sensitivities
Radhika Rammohan Local touchiness IMO
Komakkambedu Himakiran Touchiness? Cmon now, in no country will emphasising on the language be considered touchiness!
Of people who have the most tolerant attitude in the entire subcontinent? Of people who have a few thousand years of international trade experience?
Radhika Rammohan somehow felt like an overreaction to me.
Aparna Krishnan Claiming local identities, through all the details of local languages, local culture, local clothing, local gods is what will restore a sadly denuded local confidence and pride. This holds in general.
Aparna Krishnan Hima. I only wish English was challenged as strongly as Hindi is !!
Like · Reply · 42 mins
Komakkambedu Himakiran English feeds us while we feed Hindi, literally.
Radhika Rammohan Indeed. To me it seems that culture and language is getting eroded *way* more by sheer globalization -- ways off food, mindless consumption patterns which basically translates to western cultural dominance.
Komakkambedu Himakiran Again isn't that more due to the policies of Delhi parties which decide to put us into the WTO, decide what education we should get, decide what content is allowed in the media. The same people impose Hindi as they want homogenization of the people into one big market. That's why except for Tamilnadu other states don't get advertising in their languages from these "national" brands.
Aparna Krishnan "That's why except for Tamilnadu other states don't get advertising in their languages from these "national" brands." - means ?
Aparna Krishnan yes, English feeds. And it also feeds a sense of inferiority. That is a larger perspective we need to keep in mind.
Komakkambedu Himakiran These companies just use Hindi or English in other states, but here they have to use Tamil. We are a powerful market because we adopted English for economic reasons and not Hindi. Essentially it's an alliance of sorts to combat Hindi domination.
Komakkambedu Himakiran If we really are concerned about local languages, we should be dismantling Hindi which is actually an artificial construct. There are close to 23 languages that Hindi has subdued and make into its dialects!
Like · Reply · 2 · 28 mins
Aparna Krishnan still english is beyond just a functional language. Along with the benefits it confers, it extracts its pound of flesh. Many countries have built themselves without English fluency, and without bowing to that language. Thats where we need to get. More and more local language power, sans Hindi, sans English.
Like · Reply · 25 mins
Komakkambedu Himakiran For us to promote local language education, the threat from CBSE schools needs to be quelled first. Education was moved to concurrent list by Indira Gandhi during emergency. BJP will criticize Indira for the excesses of the emergency but I dare them to undo those excesses. They won't as it suits them to have more power in Delhi.
Aparna Krishnan yes.
Raja Duraisamy Komakkambedu Himakiran I am shocked to see , people asking to challenge English? English feeds us , we cannot live without English in this global village? HINDI? Who needs it ? HINDI is simply an RSS agenda and nothing else, This is common when ever the HINDI party BJP comes to power .
Aparna Krishnan Raja, English is a language of the colonizer, and has vast baggage attached. At one stroke it makes every telugu-speaking person, oriya-speaking person, kannada-speaking person feel inferior to the english-fluent person. And also the power of the english fluent person if far far greater than that of the telugu fluent person in every way. This is what we need to question and overturn. Today if English feeds us, we need to pay homage to it, I agree. And yet we need to work toward spaces where a Telugu speaking person has the same opportunities as an English fluent person. that is my only submission. i also teach my village children English today because 'it will feed them'.





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I wonder how many of my friends have actually grown beyond admiring those who speak the most fluent English, and fluently quote English authors. Even if their fluency and reading in Tamil or Telugu or Hindi is poor.
We are often more enslaved than we care to face.

4 Comments

  • Balasubramanian Ananthanarayan
    This realization does not come in until one is in their 20's. The peer pressure in the schools is just English, may be a little Hindi. It was said of the Russian aristocrats that they had to speak excellent French, good English, bad German and no Russian in order to be considered an aristocrat. In other words, we in India are like that only...
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    Many stay 20 in their 50s also.
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  • Mark Johnston
    A storytelling friend was a Scottish Gypsy Traveller. His mother tongues were Scottish Gaelic, Doric (the North East variant of the Scots language) and Travellers Cant (a largely private language used by travellers when they do not wish to be understood). He wrote some of his stories down in books using the languages he grew up with. A review of his book by a Professor of English said it was not bad for someone of such limited language!
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    So its the same sorry tale everywhere ...
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    • Priya Jain
      Did you know that the British had wiped out Gaelic language in Ireland (besides their culture of music, dance, storytelling and religion). There are now serious attempts to revive the language and there are also areas now (villages) where Gaelic is taught and spoken. No signs in English in these Gaeltalk areas.
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  • Mark Johnston
    For decades the stories and the language were shared at folk festivals and storytelling festivals and recorded for posterity. His wider family were the carriers of many hundreds of years of songs, stories, tunes and ballads. As the modern world has taken away their seasonal farm work, plastic has ended the market for willow baskets and wooden clothes pegs, mass production stopped their work repairing pots and pans or sharpening knives and a cultural cringe stopped the market for charms and fortune telling. Most travellers have had to accept settled urban lives so the recording of their culture has preserved much of what would be lost now.
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    Again the same story ... in a generation the protected oral wisdom of ages is getting lost. 'Documentation' is the new word by which NGOs raise funds !
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  • Mark Johnston
    Stanley was a friend and now that he has died and much of his culture and tradition have been lost it is a small personal comfort that I can share some of his language and stories with generations of my family to come through what I remember him saying and the books he authored. Not that that is any compensation for the loss of a culture and way of living.
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  • Where do gypsies come from? - Times of India
    TIMESOFINDIA.INDIATIMES.COM
    Where do gypsies come from? - Times of India
    Where do gypsies come from? - Times of India
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  • Pooja Kumar
    Thank you for sharing this Aparna!! I saw this on the internet sometime ago and have been searching for this!
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