Re: OT Indian Linguistics Re: Question for Vinay


shariq_tariq@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> vdeolalikar@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> > 4 is actually not that impressive. As one of the posters pointed out,
> > if you belong to a linguistic group that is residing in another state
> > (like we are marathi residing in Gujarat), it is the norm to speak 4
> > fluently.
>
> Well 4 is certainly impressive for most people but amongst Indians as I
> said it seems to be a common occurence, especially those from the
> South. For example my father in law can read/write/speak Hindi, Urdu,
> Telugu and English. Okay spoken Hindi/Urdu is the same but the reading
> and writing aspect is different
>
> I am surprised that despite being a proud Barodian that you are, you
> don't speak the language. Do you know if Irfan is fluent in Gujrati?

Yes, he is totally fluent. My case is different because I never lived
in Baroda. I only visited every year, but never lived. And each time I
visited, it was too short to really learn Gujarati.



I
> know of a couple of Gujrati Muslims from India who told me that while
> growing up they spoke only Urdu at home and whatever Gujrati they
> learnt was outside home. Those who hung around fellow Muslims did not
> get to learn the language although they managed to get by with the
> level of Gujrati that you managed.

I must say I am mildly surprised to hear this - reason is that I live
next to a large muslim colony and market in Baroda. The shopowners in
the market are all bohris whose mother tongue is Gujarati (actually
they don't speak hindi very well). In the colony, they speak Gujarati
or hindi at home, but all are fluent in Gujarati. My take is the people
you spoke to are not bohris - they are probably memons? Memon culture
is a little different. Bohras and memons are quite different in almost
every way.


>
> Growing up in Middle East I still regret not learning Arabic as well as
> I would have liked. We were a bunch of friends who hung around each
> other so much that we never interacted with Arabs. Some of my friends
> who stayed back and started interacting with Arabs picked up the
> language within 6 months. My father picked up the language quite
> quickly and was fluent in it within 5 years of being exposed to it.

Yes, actually I forgot - my Dad was fluent in arabic - absolutely
fluent. He took an intensive arabic class when he went to Kuwait and
was totally fluent ever since I can remember. Prolly took him about 2
years to become fluent. So he was fluent in not 4, but 5 languages.
Totally forgot arabic. I was like you - did not learn it as well as I
could because of hanging out in the Indian - Pakistani community all
the time.

> Like you I was exposed to French - a language my dad wanted me to pick
> up - I ended up being quite fluent in reading and writing the language
> but I never could speak it well.

My french was horrible. Actually I got my lowest marks in my french
secondary school finals (56/100) and I just disliked the whole
experience. I really know almost zero french inspite of 2 years of
learning it. Although I must add that this was self learning, since I
moved schools at the start of my 10th grade, and my new school did not
have french as an option (only Hindi and Sanskrit), so I learnt what I
could on my own, but did a horrible job. In contrast, I took german out
of genuine interest at a evening college here in the bay area, and the
teacher was excellent (a german lady), and I learnt more german in
those 3 months than french in 2 years. It was just a mental thing - I
did not want to learn french, but I had to take it, so I shut off my
mind from it. WIth german I really wanted to learn, and so I did. And
this was after being at work all day and being pretty tired by the time
I got to the community college at 7pm (class was 7-9pm).

Vinay

.

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