Okay, now a few more words on Hinglish. We talk about Spanglish at home but watch five minutes of Indian TV and you worry that Hindi is dying out. Last night we watched Dance, India, Dance and half of the phrases and sentences where English. And not just 'good', 'thank you', etc. "Dazzling performance, nice use of space, I hope to see you again..." Craziness. In the middle of a sentence you hear "not success only for me..."
I also saw a few minutes of Survivor - India and Master Chef - India.
It’s quite the problem for a lot of cultures these days. India however is way ahead on preserving Hindi given that they actually have a number of native speakers and a film industry of their own. A lot of smaller countries don’t really have those kinds of cultural assets and consequently end up steam rolled by the west. Ironically, I think social media will result in greater preservation of local languages. Children will grow up texting in local/creole languages and watching videos produced by their peers. As a side note did you ever encounter any French words during your Indian excursion? I digress, I really enjoyed linguistic anthropology.
ReplyDeleteIt’s also interesting to note that Hindi and English are both members in the Indo European language family. In the mid-19th century British linguists became absolutely obsessed with finding a common root. I don’t think they ever really found one, but there certainly were enough words in common to send them into fits looking for it.
They are also catering to American and British expatriates
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