Saudi Arabia bans English language

[samv]

We Indians don't feel ashamed of our mother tongue and don't kill our mother tongue for sake of a national language. Look in Pakistan, a Punjabi always considers his mother tongue Punjabi language inferior to Urdu language.

Don't you think that the Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali languages in India take a secondary role to Hindi? It's a different matter with the South Indian languages I think.

This one serious problem i noticed when attempting to write wiki articles in Hindi, many Hindi words did not have an english equivalent , like for example the word "missile". there are 2 problems with this:

1. Our languages are not catching up and slowing becoming obsolete
2. Our next generation of kids too will learn science in english, in other words they may see english as medium for learning or developing.

This is very true of not only India, but most South Asian countries. It is a shame that Hindi is not adopting because it does have the capability to be a very well known language spoken by hundreds of millions of people and be the lingua franca of South Asia. I wonder whether the long history of colonialism in the region is one of the reasons for this. It is quite impressive how with China, everything is in Chinese.

 

[Mosamania]

In my opinion the government took on an extremely huge number of steps to teach English to the population. From schools to universities to English lanuage centers that is became everywhere and the entire young generation is almost losing its grab on Arabic language. Meaning they went overboard.

As I said me right now sitting with my friends 3/4 of our talking with each other is in English. We had a talk about it and found out that we really can't help it the words just come out like that. So maybe this will ease the crisis.

 

[Developereo]

Just a personal reflection - I think Pakistanis have preserved and use Urdu quite well in comparison to many other countries. At least from what I've seen. Even the English educated seem to be very fluent in Urdu despite not being able to read the script.

All ex-colonial countries suffer from this problem. I don't know that Pakistan is better or worse than other, similar, countries.

This one serious problem i noticed when attempting to write wiki articles in Hindi, many Hindi words did not have an english equivalent , like for example the word "missile". there are 2 problems with this:

1. Our languages are not catching up and slowing becoming obsolete
2. Our next generation of kids too will learn science in english, in other words they may see english as medium for learning or developing.

I agree there is a problem with cutting edge scientific terms, but older concepts should have been internalized by now. The problem is that the Urdu words are not used even when they exist, e.g. Air Force instead of Fazaiyya.

 

[3Idiots]

Don't you think that the Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali languages in India take a secondary role to Hindi? It's a different matter with the South Indian languages I think.



This is very true of not only India, but most South Asian countries. It is a shame that Hindi is not adopting because it does have the capability to be a very well known language spoken by hundreds of millions of people and be the lingua franca of South Asia. I wonder whether the long history of colonialism in the region is one of the reasons for this. It is quite impressive how with China, everything is in Chinese.

Not really true ... chinese are actually getting themselves into a non-standard "gauge" problem.

And moving to the standard gauge is going to have higher costs .... the later they decide to move.

Anyway, it's their problem ... let them live with it.

 

[harpoon]

Don't you think that the Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali languages in India take a secondary role to Hindi? It's a different matter with the South Indian languages I think.

In all states you can either learn in English Medium or the Local language medium in school after that in college the medium of instruction becomes English.

This is very true of not only India, but most South Asian countries. It is a shame that Hindi is not adopting because it does have the capability to be a very well known language spoken by hundreds of millions of people and be the lingua franca of South Asia. I wonder whether the long history of colonialism in the region is one of the reasons for this. It is quite impressive how with China, everything is in Chinese.

AFAIK, same is for Tamil. For example in Malayalam there is no word for 'Bomb', but there is in Tamil.

 

[Kambojaric]

Just a personal reflection - I think Pakistanis have preserved and use Urdu quite well in comparison to many other countries. At least from what I've seen. Even the English educated seem to be very fluent in Urdu despite not being able to read the script.

This is true but very often the urban elite frown upon anybody speaking Urdu and even more so on anybody speaking Punjabi. This kind of mentality is very sad and a legacy of the colonial era. Though this Saudi law goes too far IMO, nevertheless they are trying to preserve their language and culture which should be appreciated.

 

[Developereo]

In my opinion the government took on an extremely huge number of steps to teach English to the population. From schools to universities to English lanuage centers that is became everywhere and the entire young generation is almost losing its grab on Arabic language. Meaning they went overboard.

As I said me right now sitting with my friends 3/4 of our talking with each other is in English. We had a talk about it and found out that we really can't help it the words just come out like that. So maybe this will ease the crisis.

Fluency in English is essential since it is the lingua franca but, as you noted, the danger is to go overboard. Even European countries struggle with this onslaught of English. Some fight it by limiting English language media channels in the country.

 

[bindaas]

Don't you think that the Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali languages in India take a secondary role to Hindi? It's a different matter with the South Indian languages I think.

All these languages has primary status in their respective states. In 1956 states were organized according to languages and all states were given right to have their own official languages and all these languages have primary status in their states as a language of administration, communication. Hindi is used when it comes to communicating with federal government in Delhi or inter-state communication.

 

[Kyusuibu Honbu]

This is very true of not only India, but most South Asian countries. It is a shame that Hindi is not adopting because it does have the capability to be a very well known language spoken by hundreds of millions of people and be the lingua franca of South Asia.

Problems here are:
1.Hindi is mother tongue of only 441 million Indians
2.Nobody compromises on their mother tongue, forcing people to do so in nation like India is bad idea.


Still Hindi is well understood thanks to bollywood.

I think Sanskrit has a better chance than Hindi, since its the base language for almost all Indian languages except Tamil and Manipuri and other tribal language.

I wonder whether the long history of colonialism in the region is one of the reasons for this. It is quite impressive how with China, everything is in Chinese.

Well, largely Mandarin is spoken by 770 million Chinese , with variations in dialect. They seem to have a mild problem with Cantonese speakers, but not too serious.

 

[Mosamania]

This is not banning English language in it's entriety. It just bans using English in government dealings that is all.

 

[DRaisinHerald]

The government in Saudi Arabia has decreed that the English language is to be banned by all government and private agencies. They must now use only Arabic, the language of the Quran.

Lol, whoever wrote this article forgot to mention it's also their mother tongue

 

[The HBS Guy]

Is Arabic culture so weak that it will yield to a mere foreign language?

 

[Banu Umayyah]

I heard they want to introduce English as a compulsory language for primary school!!
That's just retarded. Then again, our entire education system is retarded.

 

[harpoon]

In my opinion the government took on an extremely huge number of steps to teach English to the population. From schools to universities to English lanuage centers that is became everywhere and the entire young generation is almost losing its grab on Arabic language. Meaning they went overboard.

I think thats a unique problem. We in India learn English from kindergarden and yet no one is complaining about the death of Hindi/Malayalam/Gujurati etc. Anyways I don't understand how such a huge language like Arabic can die.

As I said me right now sitting with my friends 3/4 of our talking with each other is in English. We had a talk about it and found out that we really can't help it the words just come out like that. So maybe this will ease the crisis.

Thats bcs you use English in your daily life a lot more than Arabic. I remember one friend telling me how to recognize professionals from amateurs in cookery shows. The amateurs will introduce the ingredients in local language while professionals will use English for the same, as English is the language of instruction in Hotel Management Institutes.

 

[Developereo]

I heard they want to introduce English as a compulsory language for primary school!!
That's just retarded. Then again, our entire education system is retarded.

That's actually good, since English is the dominant global language. Children can easily learn three languages and keep them separate. The important thing is to make sure they don't stop using Arabic.