Wednesday, January 14, 2015

How is linguistic imperialism affecting my country?

Well as you know, I am from India and when people meet me they ask if I am from America or at times, where did I learn how to speak English. I always answer them by saying it from the schools I have been to and from cartoons I watched when I was a little kid; cartoons like Ed, Edd and Eddy, Powerpuff girls, Dexter's Laboratory etc.

The English language, for many years, has been taking advantage of the fact that there is no actual national language in India. My country is hugely diverse with 1.2 billion people and 700 languages to deal with and this very vast diversity has given the English language the opportunity to seep through the cracks of time. In fact, almost 250 languages has become extinct in 40 years time not to mention the massive change or transfer into a western outlook; I know this because I have studied in India for 7 years and all my subjects, except for my mother tongue was taught in English.

 A major impact of the vast variety of languages is the lack of a common language that everyone can communicate with. The lack of this language is the core reason for the emergence of English in India not to mention the influences of the British colonization of India. There is a positive and negative impact of this situation: The positive being that Indians now have a medium through which they can communicate on a national scale but the negative being that cultural values and languages are becoming increasingly moribund or endangered because the influence of this imperial language has encouraged people in India to forget their values to better accommodate this devastating change  happening right under our noses, both explicitly and implicitly.

The English language has definitely affected education in India as  far as the medium through which subjects are taught and it has reached to the extent that it is considered a very great thing to get good grades in English, which I think is a wrong mentality as by learning English you are forgetting your mother toungue, your culture and eventually through time, the history of a once great civilization.

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