3 items at the rajeev2004 blog from some time back that touched on language.
Can't believe it took Indians this long to work out that what was so long touted as India's great "advantage" over many another Asian country - our supposed proficiency in English (which in the Indian case was definitely metamorphosing into the deadly monolingualism of a moreover *alien* language) - was actually our death knell. [Gee, ya didn't need a crystal ball to work that out, if you just had your eyes open to the obvious erosion going on in plain sight.] Meanwhile in Asian countries, they are becoming excellent at English and other European and Asian languages, without killing their own for it (i.e. without loss of their own identity).
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com
1.
But it's too late to complain. Why whine now? A hundred years from now, give or take, the anglicised progressives are going to lament the loss of their languages and threaten to "rediscover" them, as can only happen to dead languages and to a dead people.
2. The bold bit in the final line is what's so telling.
"Paraloka matha" church. <- Notice how samskritam becomes totally acceptable to the seemingly anti-Samskritam tamizh "dravoodian" and "dalit" movements when it is inculturated upon by christianism. This just further exposes dravoodianism and "dalit" movements as no more than christianism in disguise, trying to dismantle Hindu religion alone.
Christianism - even in TN - has no issue with samskritam. It is very much open to inculturation on it. Christianism's real objection is that *Hindus* should know Samskritam and that Tamizh Hindus should recognise it as their own. Their intention is to break Hindu identity and temporal and spatial continuity (i.e. Hindus relation to their Hinduness through time and space).
Christianism eagerly erodes the tamizh language in TN too, attempting to replace it with inglish, all while propagating tamizh as christianism's language in TN and SL.
Just an aside: A silly christian Indian woman from TN who works here could be seen "collecting" kollam designs (I think they call kollam "rangoli" in Hindi, is it?) She clearly imagines these are some "vanilla"-tamizh or "Indian" culture, except they are specifically *Hindoo* being deeply Hindoo religious in nature. <- Something which the dimwitted christian convert sheep in India won't realise, of course. Nor would they want to: they need to encroach on "culture" because christianism has none to give them, and the last thing they want is to admit to realising that everything of value that is advertised as "Indian" or even local (say "tamizh") "culture" is actually Hindoo religion.
3. rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2012/09/gurcharan-das-do-we-value-scholarship.html
Two things:
a. Didn't NS Rajarum get all hysterical when lecturing Hindus that they should give up scholarship in their own religion (including language and history, since Hindu religion is tied intimately to both)? I suppose it's possible that eventually Rajarum will u-turn and bow to Pollock's assessment and change his tune, since a supposedly "greater mind"* has declared it is so.
* Pollock is foreign and of some sort of European origin I presume, so Rajarum is likely to respect Pollock far more than he would any Hindus advocating the retention of native Hindoo scholarship. After all, Rajarum has a massive self-loathing issue going on. I'm not saying Rajarum doesn't demonstrate an ego the size of an oceanic mountain - considering he lectures Hindoos as a class apart from him and that he himself can do no wrong, therefore - he only hates *Hindu* identity. And since his ancestors were Hindu, I use the word "self" in "self-loathing" to describe his issue. He hates his inherited Hindu identity in him and hates its continuity in others who do not suffer from his affliction and who would therefore not capitulate to his assessment thereof.
b. Pollock's gloating is hollow:
- It's not merely premature: contrary to his own wishes and consonant with Rajarum's fears, Hindoo scholarship is Still Alive and Still Kicking. [By which I mean only *Hindoo* scholarship and not wannabe-Hindoo scholarship (there's a major difference).]
- It is unfounded:
When Hindus extinct themselves by extincting their knowledge of their languages in themselves (language is connected to identity and recollection, understanding and perception of our collective identity; I'm not going to argue this point. I think I'd already done that long ago on this or an Skt thread)
When Hindus extinct themselves by extincting their knowledge of their languages in themselves - extincting themselves as Hindoos in the process - the extinction will NOT make aliens the "experts" on any Hindoo matters (language or history) "by default". No. It merely extincts all such knowledge for all of the planet for all time.
It's akin to how we don't, can't and won't "become Hellenes" by reading Hellenistic works and understanding them. We're not Hellenes and we never had their perception. Our understanding of them will always be - at its best - second hand. It's how Hindus are the only ones who can be expert Hindus.
Anyway, Pollock's ill-judged but over-eager mis-assessment of the situation remind me of a portion of the lyrics to a sort of love song I was rather attached to when I was a teen (aka a *long* time ago). The original lyrics were a bunch of words tied together to make them rhyme and sound pretty and profound - lyricist Gore preferred form to substance (so do I: I prefer sound/music to the meaning of the words; it's just the way I am. Although I'd like words to make sense too, that is a secondary wish and need not be satisfied). Anyway, the relevant part of the lyrics has suddenly gained some meaning in the context of Pollock - and indology in general, and so too of all alien dabbling in Hindoo religion, its language and its texts. I quote from memory below (but I think I remember the lyrics to the song very well, for predictable reasons) - and a shout to all the DM fans out there:
Dabbling in other people's stuff will Never An Expert Make. Aliens will forever - at most and at best - be dabblers, dabbling in Others' Stuff.
So even in the worst case scenario where Hindoos extinct (such as by death of their Hindoo identity, their heathenism), Hindoos still win. And Pollock et al's haughty gloating remains empty. For all time.
Because, all of this - this being a living religion to Hindoos, demonstrated as a living religion by Hindoos - lives and dies with the Hindoos.
Oh, and by the way, Pollock should rather be concerning himself about the very real impending extinction of languages (and identities) of various European languages of ancient antecedents. I work in a field where lots of professors come to lecture us about the near-extinction (and attempt at retention/preservation) of their own ancestral European languages, also faced with the unrelenting march of English and the English-language mind-set. Their histories - which also fell into the hands of English-speakers- were very much rewritten by the English also.
Further, several major European languages have already quit the race to keep themselves as leading-edge languages, also in favour of yielding to English, and that means they're just some time away from a form of extinction too.
Can't believe it took Indians this long to work out that what was so long touted as India's great "advantage" over many another Asian country - our supposed proficiency in English (which in the Indian case was definitely metamorphosing into the deadly monolingualism of a moreover *alien* language) - was actually our death knell. [Gee, ya didn't need a crystal ball to work that out, if you just had your eyes open to the obvious erosion going on in plain sight.] Meanwhile in Asian countries, they are becoming excellent at English and other European and Asian languages, without killing their own for it (i.e. without loss of their own identity).
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com
1.
Quote:Friday, October 05, 2012
Putting An End To The Macaulay Chapter
It is the equation of "English" and "Modernity" that must be broken. In this context, India would do well by taking a leaf out of the books of China and Japan who have developed all the trappings of modernity ââ¬â heavy industry, a dynamic economy and improved standards of living ââ¬â without embracing the English language as the pre-eminent mode of instruction in the modern subjects. It is no paradox that those non-Western peoples who have fared best out of the encounter with modernity are precisely those who have kept English at bay. As Altaf observes, ââ¬Ålearning a language and learning in a language are two very different things.ââ¬Â
CRI: Standing Upon the Ruins of the Macaulite Project: India, The English Language and the Need for a Native Idiom of Intellectual Discourse
[color="#FF0000"]Something to ponder: For some, the great thing about retail FDI is that it opens it up for our English educated class (MBAs, 'retail experts') ... in a sector currently dominated by native speakers[/color]
Posted by Inferno at 10/05/2012 08:11:00 PM No comments: Links to this post
Labels: colonialism, Macaulay
But it's too late to complain. Why whine now? A hundred years from now, give or take, the anglicised progressives are going to lament the loss of their languages and threaten to "rediscover" them, as can only happen to dead languages and to a dead people.
2. The bold bit in the final line is what's so telling.
Quote:no surprise! they only need them *before* they convert | Church discriminates against dalit priests
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Radha Rajan
Date: Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 9:37 PM
Subject: Church discriminates against dalit priests
To:
http://www.ucanindia.in/news/dalit-chris...9277/daily
The protesters questioned the motive for suspending six dalit priests.
Posted on October 8, 2012, 8:30 AM
File photo of dalit Christians protesting
Rameswaram: Dalit Christians reportedly indulged in violence over non-inclusion of priests from their community in the silver jubilee celebrations of a church in Tamil Nadu.
They blocked some 200 priests and nuns in a procession to the Oriyur Punitha Arulanandhar Church in Tiruvadanai near Rameswaram, said parish priest Fr. Susai Manickam.
The protesters questioned the motive for suspending the six Dalit priests.
They also said that they would not allow celebrations unless the priests were included in special prayers.
Police said the protesters indulged in violence, broke festoons and street lights.
Church officials decided to suspend the celebrations to hold talks with the dalits as tension prevailed in the ares and negotiations with them failed.
Meanwhile people in seven coastal hamlets in Rameswaram hoisted black flags in support of dalit Christians and demanded that they be allowed to participate in the rituals.
They also hoisted black flags at the [color="#FF0000"]Paraloka matha church[/color] in the island in protest, police said.
Posted by nizhal yoddha at 10/08/2012 11:05:00 AM No comments: Links to this post
Reactions:
"Paraloka matha" church. <- Notice how samskritam becomes totally acceptable to the seemingly anti-Samskritam tamizh "dravoodian" and "dalit" movements when it is inculturated upon by christianism. This just further exposes dravoodianism and "dalit" movements as no more than christianism in disguise, trying to dismantle Hindu religion alone.
Christianism - even in TN - has no issue with samskritam. It is very much open to inculturation on it. Christianism's real objection is that *Hindus* should know Samskritam and that Tamizh Hindus should recognise it as their own. Their intention is to break Hindu identity and temporal and spatial continuity (i.e. Hindus relation to their Hinduness through time and space).
Christianism eagerly erodes the tamizh language in TN too, attempting to replace it with inglish, all while propagating tamizh as christianism's language in TN and SL.
Just an aside: A silly christian Indian woman from TN who works here could be seen "collecting" kollam designs (I think they call kollam "rangoli" in Hindi, is it?) She clearly imagines these are some "vanilla"-tamizh or "Indian" culture, except they are specifically *Hindoo* being deeply Hindoo religious in nature. <- Something which the dimwitted christian convert sheep in India won't realise, of course. Nor would they want to: they need to encroach on "culture" because christianism has none to give them, and the last thing they want is to admit to realising that everything of value that is advertised as "Indian" or even local (say "tamizh") "culture" is actually Hindoo religion.
3. rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2012/09/gurcharan-das-do-we-value-scholarship.html
Quote:gurcharan das: Do we value scholarship?
Gurcharan Dasââ¬â¢s column in todayââ¬â¢s Times of India quotes professor Pollock of Columbia University to suggest that ââ¬ÅIndia is about to become the only major world culture whose literary patrimony, and indeed history, are in the hands of scholars outside the country.ââ¬Â
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com...nheritance
Two things:
a. Didn't NS Rajarum get all hysterical when lecturing Hindus that they should give up scholarship in their own religion (including language and history, since Hindu religion is tied intimately to both)? I suppose it's possible that eventually Rajarum will u-turn and bow to Pollock's assessment and change his tune, since a supposedly "greater mind"* has declared it is so.
* Pollock is foreign and of some sort of European origin I presume, so Rajarum is likely to respect Pollock far more than he would any Hindus advocating the retention of native Hindoo scholarship. After all, Rajarum has a massive self-loathing issue going on. I'm not saying Rajarum doesn't demonstrate an ego the size of an oceanic mountain - considering he lectures Hindoos as a class apart from him and that he himself can do no wrong, therefore - he only hates *Hindu* identity. And since his ancestors were Hindu, I use the word "self" in "self-loathing" to describe his issue. He hates his inherited Hindu identity in him and hates its continuity in others who do not suffer from his affliction and who would therefore not capitulate to his assessment thereof.
b. Pollock's gloating is hollow:
- It's not merely premature: contrary to his own wishes and consonant with Rajarum's fears, Hindoo scholarship is Still Alive and Still Kicking. [By which I mean only *Hindoo* scholarship and not wannabe-Hindoo scholarship (there's a major difference).]
- It is unfounded:
When Hindus extinct themselves by extincting their knowledge of their languages in themselves (language is connected to identity and recollection, understanding and perception of our collective identity; I'm not going to argue this point. I think I'd already done that long ago on this or an Skt thread)
When Hindus extinct themselves by extincting their knowledge of their languages in themselves - extincting themselves as Hindoos in the process - the extinction will NOT make aliens the "experts" on any Hindoo matters (language or history) "by default". No. It merely extincts all such knowledge for all of the planet for all time.
It's akin to how we don't, can't and won't "become Hellenes" by reading Hellenistic works and understanding them. We're not Hellenes and we never had their perception. Our understanding of them will always be - at its best - second hand. It's how Hindus are the only ones who can be expert Hindus.
Anyway, Pollock's ill-judged but over-eager mis-assessment of the situation remind me of a portion of the lyrics to a sort of love song I was rather attached to when I was a teen (aka a *long* time ago). The original lyrics were a bunch of words tied together to make them rhyme and sound pretty and profound - lyricist Gore preferred form to substance (so do I: I prefer sound/music to the meaning of the words; it's just the way I am. Although I'd like words to make sense too, that is a secondary wish and need not be satisfied). Anyway, the relevant part of the lyrics has suddenly gained some meaning in the context of Pollock - and indology in general, and so too of all alien dabbling in Hindoo religion, its language and its texts. I quote from memory below (but I think I remember the lyrics to the song very well, for predictable reasons) - and a shout to all the DM fans out there:
Quote:All the clerks and the tailors(Emphasis mine.)
The [color="#0000FF"]sharks[/color] and the sailors
Are good at their trades but...
[color="#0000FF"]They'll *always* be failures[/color]
Dabbling in other people's stuff will Never An Expert Make. Aliens will forever - at most and at best - be dabblers, dabbling in Others' Stuff.
So even in the worst case scenario where Hindoos extinct (such as by death of their Hindoo identity, their heathenism), Hindoos still win. And Pollock et al's haughty gloating remains empty. For all time.
Because, all of this - this being a living religion to Hindoos, demonstrated as a living religion by Hindoos - lives and dies with the Hindoos.
Oh, and by the way, Pollock should rather be concerning himself about the very real impending extinction of languages (and identities) of various European languages of ancient antecedents. I work in a field where lots of professors come to lecture us about the near-extinction (and attempt at retention/preservation) of their own ancestral European languages, also faced with the unrelenting march of English and the English-language mind-set. Their histories - which also fell into the hands of English-speakers- were very much rewritten by the English also.
Further, several major European languages have already quit the race to keep themselves as leading-edge languages, also in favour of yielding to English, and that means they're just some time away from a form of extinction too.