India originally intended to phase out English as an official language. In its constitution, written in 1950, it states that English would be phased out as a national language in 1965 in favor of Hindi. The Official Language Act of 1963 allowed English to continue to be used at least for a time.
When in 1964 proposals were made at the national government to begin phasing out English, there were riots. States whose official languages did not include Hindi, in particular those states whose Dravidian languages were unrelated to Hindi, did not want to be forced to switch. The Official Language Act was amended in 1967 so that English would be replaced only with the consent of every single State where Hindi was not an official language. That has not happened. Today, all national government laws and statutes, and all works of the Indian Supreme Court, are published in English.
Pretty good for a language indigenous to a medium sized island in the north Atlantic.
Now if they could just speak it without so much accent, so when we call the service numbers we could understand them!
ReplyDeleteI am so glad to be being een thees country...
ReplyDeletevan Loon's _Geography_ (mid 1930s) described the UK as a "small island off the Dutch coast, whichis responsible for a quarter of the world's happiness."
ReplyDeleteI think I read somewhere that English is now the dominant language on the Earth (I think it used to be French, when I was a boy), and as a result, it has become the REQUIRED language for all international air traffic.
ReplyDeleteand you just gotta know that eats at a Frenchman's craw something terrible. I used to just love listening to French ATC trying to issue instructions to my A/C(Lubbock TX.). the accents conflicted so badly i was picturing the controller beating his head on his console as my AC kept asking for repeats and clarifications. what fun that was. not prejudicial towards the French people, just their bureaucrats. the most arrogant and close minded public "servants" in the Universe. "you cannot do that as it has never been done before!"
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