Post 8 (HH) has a lot of food for thought. I agree with much of what is said.
There's obviously lots of things in there I didn't even think about. Especially the various dialects of local languages, which is the mother tongue each learns from their parents and grandparents. I do very much like to hear the different Tamils when I travel to diffferent parts of the state or visit acquaintances even. <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
But then I also like to hear the classical Sentamizh, which was recognised as the Tamil of poetry and prose. You know, the language artists' Tamil and long seen as 'the proper Tamil' of the state. I would like that to still be studied too, if Tamil people won't learn it, then who will?
So it's somewhat of a dilemma.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->As for local languages- they are best handled by teaching children at home (after all these are mother tongues) rather than forcing it in the exam curriculum. Alternatively it could be taught in schools more as a language speaking and communication module for practical rather than examination purposes.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is very good. It is in fact how Dutch is taught in Dutch high schools. Lots of the children spoke in their own interesting village dialects and some purposefully went into highly colloquial Dutch when mocking something.
French, English and German classes taught the standardised version of these languages. But Dutch class was all about reading Dutch poetry, prose, discussions, giving presentations on topics. Only written works and presentations required standard Dutch, other than that, they didn't enforce any particular way of speaking it. But there were exams: on the books, poetry, ideas we had to read about.
German as taught in German schools did include somewhat more of the standard form of the language.
I think the Dutch model actually solves the dilemma of the first paragraph (this post): Sentamizh can then be learnt automatically by students when they read novels and poetry in (or for) Tamil class.
But I don't rightly understand (or if I do, don't entirely agree with the following) though:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Finally it may also make sense for at least the Indo-Iranian and Dravidian languages of India having a common script based on Nagari or Brahmi. I strongly believe that Tibeto-Burman and Austro-Asiatic languages of India should also be accomodated within this script, but this would need more study.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I like the scripts we have and the fact that we have many, which is another proof of ancientry (for example, Europe only has 3).
But for those languages for which there is no script (either because they never had one or because it went extinct) it's good to adopt say Devanagari script or whatever local one covers the sounds. Tulu is a good example. They could write their local histories down in the Tulu language by choosing whatever language's alphabet is best suited to the sounds of their alphabet.
There's obviously lots of things in there I didn't even think about. Especially the various dialects of local languages, which is the mother tongue each learns from their parents and grandparents. I do very much like to hear the different Tamils when I travel to diffferent parts of the state or visit acquaintances even. <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> But then I also like to hear the classical Sentamizh, which was recognised as the Tamil of poetry and prose. You know, the language artists' Tamil and long seen as 'the proper Tamil' of the state. I would like that to still be studied too, if Tamil people won't learn it, then who will?
So it's somewhat of a dilemma.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->As for local languages- they are best handled by teaching children at home (after all these are mother tongues) rather than forcing it in the exam curriculum. Alternatively it could be taught in schools more as a language speaking and communication module for practical rather than examination purposes.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is very good. It is in fact how Dutch is taught in Dutch high schools. Lots of the children spoke in their own interesting village dialects and some purposefully went into highly colloquial Dutch when mocking something.
French, English and German classes taught the standardised version of these languages. But Dutch class was all about reading Dutch poetry, prose, discussions, giving presentations on topics. Only written works and presentations required standard Dutch, other than that, they didn't enforce any particular way of speaking it. But there were exams: on the books, poetry, ideas we had to read about.
German as taught in German schools did include somewhat more of the standard form of the language.
I think the Dutch model actually solves the dilemma of the first paragraph (this post): Sentamizh can then be learnt automatically by students when they read novels and poetry in (or for) Tamil class.
But I don't rightly understand (or if I do, don't entirely agree with the following) though:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Finally it may also make sense for at least the Indo-Iranian and Dravidian languages of India having a common script based on Nagari or Brahmi. I strongly believe that Tibeto-Burman and Austro-Asiatic languages of India should also be accomodated within this script, but this would need more study.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I like the scripts we have and the fact that we have many, which is another proof of ancientry (for example, Europe only has 3).
But for those languages for which there is no script (either because they never had one or because it went extinct) it's good to adopt say Devanagari script or whatever local one covers the sounds. Tulu is a good example. They could write their local histories down in the Tulu language by choosing whatever language's alphabet is best suited to the sounds of their alphabet.