Lurker Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 Our laws after all were written based on English Common Law. Considering it was British who ruled India and made these laws to rule over Indians, it is indeed "heart-warming" to see modern day Indians resort to "Our laws were based on English Common laws". Any surprises on why these laws, or the English language, have not effectively been thrown out of an Indepedent nation 60 years into existence?? I think it is an effective way. When you have to communicate everything in a certain foreign language, you are likely to learn it faster. Of course you will have difficulties in communicating, but you will learn out of necessity. It is hardly an effective way. Nobody forces an Indian student to discuss Maths/Physics 24*7 but we are still pretty darn good at it. In fact Indians would be much better in Maths say than English. The only thing speaking English does is create a divide very early on. No surprises then to see kids demean each other simply because one of them may not be conversant in English. And no surprises to see Malayalam nurses getting disciminated in their own nation for speaking in their Mother language. xx
cochise Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 Geee...you really pick up on cheap angles eh? The Brits...the Brits.....you are obviously cognisant of the Brits and what they are to be blamed for..... Mofos. Yet, aren't you a mofo too?
DomainK Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 Considering it was British who ruled India and made these laws to rule over Indians, it is indeed "heart-warming" to see modern day Indians resort to "Our laws were based on English Common laws". Any surprises on why these laws, or the English language, have not effectively been thrown out of an Indepedent nation 60 years into existence?? It is hardly an effective way. Nobody forces an Indian student to discuss Maths/Physics 24*7 but we are still pretty darn good at it. In fact Indians would be much better in Maths say than English. The only thing speaking English does is create a divide very early on. No surprises then to see kids demean each other simply because one of them may not be conversant in English. And no surprises to see Malayalam nurses getting disciminated in their own nation for speaking in their Mother language. xx For that, blame the fact that English is the primary language in a country where its nobody's mother tongue. For that, blame the fact that schools teach English, parents want their children to learn English and students want to learn English. For that blame the fast that English has become an indispensable part of every Indian's day-to-day life (whether literate or illiterate). But the method of teaching is not responsible for that. It is a fact that an Indian student has to learn good English to make a decent living in India. Does not matter how smart or learned you are, if you are not good at English, you will not succeed much in life. So the schools have to make sure that they teach good English. Its not their fault. And to your 24*7 point: we don't do maths all the time in our life. But we use English all the time. Its a language- a mode of communication. And in our country, we use that language all the time. My mother tongue is Oriya and I don't get to speak that too often in a day. But I use English to communicate with my friends, colleagues and clients. And I am thankful to the teachers who taught me the language in my school days. I don't use maths all day however. I can't even remember Limit and integration and differentiation. And there is no better way to learn a language than to use it all the time.
cochise Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 Some say that Vellupillai Pirapaharan was a mallu....what say you?
Lurker Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 For that' date=' blame the fact that English is the primary language in a country where its nobody's mother tongue. For that, blame the fact that schools teach English, parents want their children to learn English and students want to learn English. [b']For that blame the fast that English has become an indispensable part of every Indian's day-to-day life (whether literate or illiterate). But the method of teaching is not responsible for that. It is a fact that an Indian student has to learn good English to make a decent living in India. Does not matter how smart or learned you are, if you are not good at English, you will not succeed much in life. So the schools have to make sure that they teach good English. Its not their fault. Isnt there a contradiction right there? How can you argue that English has become an indispensable part of modern India and then take away teaching component out of it?? Considering English is nobody's mother tongue (your words) how does it work out that this language is understood by people without it being taught to them?? Do you see the contradiction in your own view point? And to your 24*7 point: we don't do maths all the time in our life. But we use English all the time. Its a language- a mode of communication. And in our country, we use that language all the time. My mother tongue is Oriya and I don't get to speak that too often in a day. But I use English to communicate with my friends, colleagues and clients. And I am thankful to the teachers who taught me the language in my school days. I don't use maths all day however. I can't even remember Limit and integration and differentiation. No we dont. Thats hyperbole of highest order. An Indian working in USA doesnt use English all the time, unless of course he speaks with an American. An Indian working in India would use English only while emailing overseas etc etc. If you are telling me that an average Indian on the streets is speaking English to another Indian thats plain wrong. I would hate to rake that whole language discussion all over again but I would be very interested if you could show me any study that puts English speaking populace at anything more than 10-15%, if that! xxx
cochise Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 Lurks, You really come across as trivial playing at the edges. Care to engage a real argument?
Lurker Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 Lurks' date='You really come across as trivial playing at the edges.Care to engage a real argument?[/quote'] I dont take bait from people who dabble in semantics. If you want my attention spent some time articulating your ideas rather than a line here and there.
DomainK Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 C'mon Lurk, you understand very well the points I make. Let me make them objective for you. 1. English is inevitable in Schooling in India. Schools have to teach it. 2. The method of teaching has to be the most effective. 3. A language is best learned by using it more and more.
cochise Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 I dont take bait from people who dabble in semantics. If you want my attention spent some time articulating your ideas rather than a line here and there. Oh...do not be so uppity Lurks...it's me, your nemesis...dismissal does not hold mate...try again. What would you have me articulate? How snobbish you are? No. Lurkz...really...what do you know? You come across as so superior...but what actually do you know to justify such a superior tone?
Macj Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 Considering it was British who ruled India and made these laws to rule over Indians' date=' it is indeed "heart-warming" to see modern day Indians resort to "Our laws were based on English Common laws". Any surprises on why these laws, or the English language, have not effectively been thrown out of an Indepedent nation 60 years into existence?? [/quote'] Our laws are based on English Common Law but a lot of the ancient Laws of Manu are incorporated into it making it an amalgam. It works. If the medium of instruction is English students should speak English, they are free to speak any language once they leave the school or parents can admit their students to native language schools and then pay tuition fees to get them on par with Anglophone students later on. Thats their choice. It is hardly an effective way. Nobody forces an Indian student to discuss Maths/Physics 24*7 but we are still pretty darn good at it. In fact Indians would be much better in Maths say than English. The only thing speaking English does is create a divide very early on. No surprises then to see kids demean each other simply because one of them may not be conversant in English. And no surprises to see Malayalam nurses getting disciminated in their own nation for speaking in their Mother language. xx There is a reason why technical education is in English, students unable to speak English are at an enormous disadvantage in the job market, this handicap also creates a wedge that some politicians exploit and garnish in the form of reservations. BTW technical education in Denmark and the Scandinavian countries is ALSO in English.
cochise Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 Thalaiver, What do you make of the exctinction event? The Tigers of course. Thalavar means leader in Tamil, does it not?
Macj Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 Thalaiver, What do you make of the exctinction event? The Tigers of course. Thalavar means leader in Tamil, does it not? Im overjoyed that he is dead , in anycase im not SL Tamil , my concern is for India and Indians.
cochise Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 I am getting old. I have seen the tigers fight since I was a teenager. Why did I know it would aways come to this? Maybe I am dreaming. But maybe....I understaod, that a cult...a suicidal cult...those that choose suicide are not brave my friend, they are the defeated...would one day be wiped out. Yet...yet....yet...some of my best friends are Sri Lankan Tamils....how must they feel? They pinned their hopes on this demon, Pirapahran...and now they are defeated. What to say to them thalavar?
Macj Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 I am getting old. I have seen the tigers fight since I was a teenager. Why did I know it would aways come to this? Maybe I am dreaming. But maybe....I understaod, that a cult...a suicidal cult...those that choose suicide are not brave my friend, they are the defeated...would one day be wiped out. Yet...yet....yet...some of my best friends are Sri Lankan Tamils....how must they feel? They pinned their hopes on this demon, Pirapahran...and now they are defeated. What to say to them thalavar? I too grew up with a lot of SL Tamils or to be specific Jaffna Tamils when i was in Chennai for education or the Tamil speaking SL Muslims who came to Bangalore to study. The problem is that Prabhakaran recruited his foot soldiers from the East and got his financing from the diaspora who are mostly from the North. In other words he got the Northern Tamils to fund a war for which the Eastern Tamils were paying in blood for. Look the Ceylon Tamils were discriminated against no doubt, but let it be known that Prabhakaran was no saviour.He forced 11 and 12 year olds into battle. Ever notice that hes the fattest LTTE member you'll have ever seen?Why do you think? His days were numbered when he killed Rajiv Gandhi and his outfit was doomed when 9/11 happened, there was no way he could defeat the SL Army it was a war of attrition.Ironically it was Gandhi who almost got him Eelam. Back to the SL Tamils,ive always felt they feel India owes them, Tamils in TN owe them something. We owe them NOTHING, we may be the mother country but this is the modern epoch and they make their own destiny. To your question - what you can tell your friends is that they should support many of the moderate Tamil parties that will rise from the terror that was the LTTE and forge a new future. Big brother will always be around to make sure the Sinhalese play nice.
cochise Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 F**** big brother...he has been soft... Anyway...I know mostly Jaffna Tamils...they are heartbroken mate....Pirapaharan was their hero...Pottu Amman who might still be alive second...Soosai third... And always I told them....they were demon spawn. They were killing the next generation of Tamils in Sri Lanka! They were a personality cult...."Suryathevan"....what nonsense! The tigers devolved the Sri Lankan Tamils, who were always high minded, down to barbarity..... What a scourge! And how quickly their poison folded. It reminds of the difference...between suicide....and fearlessness.
cochise Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 http://www.aftab1.com/2009/05/velupillai-prabhakaran-dead-body.html If you look carefully, he must have been shot from the back. Those are explosive exit bullet wonds on his head. Actually, I have seen the first photo takn of him on the ground. It's like someone put a saw through the right side of his head. My amateur opinion. Captured camp assasination with a high calibre machine gun well aimed from behind.
Lurker Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 1. English is inevitable in Schooling in India. Schools have to teach it. 2. The method of teaching has to be the most effective. 3. A language is best learned by using it more and more. 1) It takes me back to the whole language discussion. Without sounding as being repeatitive I see a big diffrentiation between a language taught "to learn" and a language around which the whole academics(and modern day society if you will) is being built. 2) Teaching needs to start and end in the particular class. There is no reason to carry it over to the next subject, or as has been the suggestion of many to include it during rest periods or recess. Thats not teaching, that plain lunacy in my opinion. 3) If that were indeed the Holy Grail then an average American's English would be better than an English educated Indian. Turns out it is the other way around right from written to spoken english. Like everything in life it is not the quantity but the quality that matters. xxx
fineleg Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 cochise - can you take that discussion to a separate thread? this is about English vs native language at work/school etc.
Lurker Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 Our laws are based on English Common Law but a lot of the ancient Laws of Manu are incorporated into it making it an amalgam. It works. It also borrows extensively from Muslim rule. Most of modern day Indian Judicial system, specially in Northern India, still works on Urdu mode. Pick out any Hindi movie and if there is a court scene there would most likely be the following dialogue Tajiraat-e-Hind dafa 302 ke tahat ye adalat mujrim ko sajaa-e-maut deti hai. You will never, or atleast very infrequently, see the judge clammering the above sentence in English. Many of the laws, specially land related, are based on what was started by Muslim rulers. So I dont quite see the English angle. If anything the system may have borrowed heavily from English, but the implementation (which is were language comes in) is very much Indian. If the medium of instruction is English students should speak English, they are free to speak any language once they leave the school or parents can admit their students to native language schools and then pay tuition fees to get them on par with Anglophone students later on. And how many other countries do exhibit this kind of nonsense? Much as I try to see your viewpoint(genuine as it may be) I am completely at a loss to see why this is a non-issue in countries like Russia, China, Brazil, Japan etc etc. The ONLY country of a decent size and magnitude that suffers from this is India! This whole conversation takes me to Arvind Adiga's book White Tigers and how he comes strongly against Lord Hanuman. I wont delve deeper into the subject since it obviously will move the goalposts away but I would like to say there is a sense of subservience (spelling) from which many Indians suffer and thats why English scores bownie points, I am yet to meet a man who prefers English because of linguistic qualities and prefers it because Chaucer was better than Bankim Chand. There is a reason why technical education is in English, students unable to speak English are at an enormous disadvantage in the job market, this handicap also creates a wedge that some politicians exploit and garnish in the form of reservations. That is true ONLY for Private sector mind you. Bulk of Public sectors, and I am talking of ISROs, NIIs, DRDO etc etc, runs on the shoulders of those who are poor in English. In fact this is one of the reasons why the "best" talents of India take a hike and move aboard so no I dont have a lot of sympathy for this whole argument of jobs. I am much rather in support of IASs/DRDOs etc that are running this country. xxx
coffee_rules Posted May 27, 2009 Posted May 27, 2009 An Indian working in USA doesnt use English all the time, unless of course he speaks with an American. An Indian working in India would use English only while emailing overseas etc etc. If you are telling me that an average Indian on the streets is speaking English to another Indian thats plain wrong. I would hate to rake that whole language discussion all over again but I would be very interested if you could show me any study that puts English speaking populace at anything more than 10-15%, if that! xxx I speak my mother tongue with somebody who knows it, if not, I will try to use a mix of Hindi and English with others from India. But if somebody doesn't know Hindi or my mother tongue, I am glad that he and I know English so that we can communicate.
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