Monday, January 12, 2009

Learn or Leave

The number of times I used the public transport in Bangalore is almost negligible. The first reason I can say for not commuting by buses is that I do not travel long distances. The second reason is that the name boards are written only in the local language. I can manage Kannada in the spoken level but I am totally unaware of the scripts. At the same time being in Bangalore I cannot object that the name boards should not be in the local language. But to make it more people friendly the boards can be put up in English also, as they do in other cities. People from different states have settled here. So for everyone to learn the local language is quite impossible. Particularly, for those who are in a transferable job.

I am neither against kannada nor a fanatic of my own mother-tongue. I understand the sentiments of people who are paranoid about their language. But the language will not be enhanced just by penalizing the shop keepers, if the name boards are not in the local language.
If such things continue, undoubtedly the new rule will be - ‘Learn kannada or Leave Karnataka’
.

3 comments:

Visalakshi said...

Pune is not far off, in fact, the people there extend it further by not answering for questions asked in English. You need to know at least broken hindi.

Amit said...

namaste,
though an old post, i came across your blog/s (samskrit likhamaha & this one) today.
the division of states on langauge basis destroyed the language learning capabilities of indian people especially our own langauges (kannada, tamil, telugu ....)
few decades ago there were people (more i should say)who knew many languages (not to live out foreign lang..)
we learn foreign languages not only speaking but also to read & write.
I see that it is an opportunity to learn a new language , ofcourse one may think it is unnecessary especially for people who get transferred every now & then.
Hope karnataka wont be place which would say learn kannada or learn karnataka.
by the way samskritam likhaami is excellent.
i wanted to share one more thing, if we can make people learn samskrit (ofcourse it will take many many years, and immense effort) then there will be no fight of langauges . Local language + samskrit superb combination. isnt it?

:-)
dhanyavaad
Amit

santosh said...

Dear blogger,
Some body had said that karnataka is like Kamadenu.. it has given everything to every body..kannadigas are very friendly with all people ( Tamilians, mallus, northis) ..we told to learn Kannada, its an beatiful language,, its for your confortness...not for us.

Santosh