INDIA: The language problem

From India, Tilak Kasturi says: "I agree with Cameron Sawyer's argument against bilingualism if we live in a society where 100% of the citizens are not immigrants or the immigrant population is negligible. However, if the society is fragmented with multiple cultures, languages, religions, etc, bi-lingual/cultural education becomes a necessity. One should consider the census numbers to understand the need for bilingual education. For example, Hispanic/Latino population is 12%(and growing steadily) of total US Population and hence makes good case for bilingual education. Bi-Lingual education can bring more good than harm to our future generations.The good can be in terms of positive impacts on our economy, and society. Another example is India. Indians at a minimum are fluent in 2-3 languages (reading, writing and speaking) and were taught 3 languages from 1st grade. India has over 13+ officially recognized regional languages with over 25+ dialects. English is the Official Language and Hindi is the National Language".

RH: India is a special case. If there are 14 languages and 25 dialects, communication must often be very difficult. English serves as the common language. The constitution now recognizes 14 languages out of about 200 .These are divided into four principal groups, of which the Aryan and Dravidian are the most important. Here again we have a country divided into north (Hindi) and south (Dravidian). The Southerners do not wish to speak Hindi, which derives from Sanskrit (no longer spoken). National legislation is in English. I am told that the standard of spoken English is declining. Real fluency in two or three languages is very difficult to achieve. The multitude of languages in India is a general impediment, and is one reason why China is progressing more rapidly than India. This would seem to disprove the claim that that multilingualism can have "positive impacts on the economy".

Ronald Hilton - 11/30/02