Re: New pronunciation of Bangalore

Michael Farris wrote:
Aidan Kehoe napisal(a):

Sure, but no European country has to deal with 216 languages spoken by
10,000 or more.

No, but there's no rational reason that the various state languages
(which average the number of speakers of major European Union)
languages couldn't be used for just about everything within the states.

No rational reason, but for reasons other than rational, the Central
(i.e., Federal) government didn't allow* Tamilnadu to establish
universities with Tamil as the medium of instruction. Tamilnadu isn't
even allowed to require all schools in Tamilnadu to teach Tamil. I have
a cousin who has learnt only English and French in school.

* http://www.geocities.com/TamilTribune/99/0903.html

Engineering Education in Tamil

Many students in Tamil Nadu find it difficult to study engineering with
English as medium of instruction. It would be easier to study the basic
concepts and procedures at the undergraduate level in Tamil.
(Experience in technologically advanced nations like Germany, France,
Russia, Japan and China where engineering education is in one's mother
tongue proves the point.) With this in mind, the state government of
Tamil Nadu developed a curriculum and books for undergraduate
engineering education in Tamil. Many highly qualified engineers and
professors participated in this effort over several years; many of them
volunteered their time, for the love of Tamil. An expert panel reviewed
the curriculum, books and availability of lecturers and professors, and
certified that a student studying engineering in Tamil in one of the
approved colleges and passing the examinations would be as good an
engineer as one studying in English. Arrangements were made to offer
engineering undergraduate courses in Tamil in a few selected colleges.
Announcements were made that students may apply to study in either
English medium or Tamil medium. It was totally optional; no one was
forced to study in Tamil. Only those who want to study in Tamil would
be admitted to the Tamil-medium courses. Hundreds of students applied
for the English medium and hundreds applied for the Tamil medium. (The
Tamil medium students would have to take some English courses and prove
their proficiency in English.) All was set to go. Then something
happened on the way to Tamil medium engineering education in Tamil Nadu
.... The Indian government blocked it.

Indian Roadblock

All new engineering programs need approval from the All India Council
on Engineering (AICE) created by the Indian government. It refused to
approve the Tamil medium engineering program in 1997 and approval is
still pending (as of July 2002). There is nothing Tamil Nadu can do
about it.

What was the reason for disapproval? Is it that the curriculum does not
meet the requirements for an engineering degree? No. AICE did not say
that, because the curriculum was meticulously developed by a committee
of well-qualified engineers and professors to meet the standards set
forth for English medium engineering programs. Then, what is wrong with
the Tamil-medium program? Is it that these students will lack
sufficient knowledge of English to understand reports and documents
prepared in English? No. That was not the reason given either because
the Tamil-medium program requires that the students pass English
examinations to demonstrate adequate proficiency in English. Then why
did the AICE disapprove the program? AICE says that it wants to wait
until other states also develop engineering programs in their mother
languages. Why should Tamil Nadu wait until similar programs are
developed in other languages? Hindian dominated Indian government
imposes Hindi everywhere. Are they waiting until the other languages
also catch up? Then why this step motherly treatment for Tamil?

Off topic but not so much maybe, one of my language learning regrets is
(so far) never becoming very fluent in an Indian language. I did a
couple of years of home study of Hindi but the handbook was awful
(based on Sanskrit grammar which makes only minimal sense in Hindi).
Being more interested in dravidian (I liked southern indian music and
food better than northern) I later spent some time on Tamil but the
degree of diglossia there is deeply depressing for an outsider. I'd
like to try Malayalam someday (partly because of the reputed relatively
close match of colloquial and formal forms) and was hoping there'd be
more beginners info on the net.

Let me know when this someday arrives and I'll see what learning
materials I can dig up.

Kannada, language of Bangalore (and Karnataka state) seems interesting
culturally to me as it's the original language of one of my favorite
Indian movies (the Forest) and my favorite Indian novel (Samskara).

-michael farris

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Tamil language
    ... Does it make English a useless language. ... please I didn't say that Tamil is useless. ... Now, as you correctly point out, the alphabet of many languages only ...
    (soc.culture.tamil)
  • Re: OT Indian Linguistics Re: Question for Vinay
    ... > get by reasonably well in Kannada, English, Marathi, Hindi and Tamil. ... > he'd have too many problems, given it's the national language and all. ...
    (rec.sport.cricket)
  • Re: Phonetic contrast between lenis unvoiced and lenis voiced?
    ... Kuiper's time) about degree of voicing in Tamil such as whether to ... "should" Brahui be (in English)? ... I remember that he said that is a formal pronunciation ... rendering the formal pronunciation by the cognoscenti that be. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Nostratic
    ... > look the same in a dozen of unrelated languages. ... > Latin, Saami, Hungarian, Tamil. ... > bats and jumbo jets, so jumbo jets and bats have feathers ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Roots of English language
    ... > The English and Spanish words go back to a Latin word. ... > cognate, the English and Spanish words are not cognates. ... > In Tamil, some proportion of borrowings from Sanskrit are classified ... "temperature" does not seem to go back to a PIE root. ...
    (sci.lang)