Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version nyu B notes v1.5 12/10/84; site csd2.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!csd2!agrawal
From: agrawal@csd2.UUCP (Mukul Babu Agrawal)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.india
Subject: Re: The language problem in india, and Esperanto as a possible aid
Message-ID: <4380012@csd2.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-May-85 18:03:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: csd2.4380012
Posted: Wed May 29 18:03:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Jun-85 10:46:01 EDT
References: <1573@druxv.UUCP>
Organization: New York University
Lines: 47

>/* csd2:net.nlang.india / neal@druxv.UUCP (Neal D. McBurnett) /  6:11 pm  May 18, 1985 */
>How could it be applied to the language problems in India?  As I
>understand it, English currently functions as the de facto interlanguage
>in India, and I'm would assume that the readers of this net group have
>already "bought in" to that approach to some extent, but surely it causes
>problems!  English simply is not well suited (in a technical sense) to
>the task (too idiosyncratic, not phonetic (a reading knowledge does not
>imply a listening knowledge, to say nothing of a speaking knowledge),
>too many synonyms, politically charged, etc.)
>Esperanto is well developed, easy to learn (1 year of Esperanto == 5 years
>of Spanish, e.g.), provides a good basis to aid in learning other
>languages, currently has a new book coming out each week, and 100
>regular periodocals.  It is politically neutral, and has somewhere
>around 1,000,000 speakers.  It is also a lot of fun: students are
>encouraged by the lack of exceptions and idioms, and can see worthwhile
>progress in weeks instead of months.   For example, 100,000 people are now
>studying Esperanto in China for these and other reasons.
>
>Any comments?
>-Neal McBurnett, ihnp4!druny!neal, 303-538-4852

	I donot think Esparanto is well suited in the Indian Context. The
most important reason why it is useful in the English speaking countries
is perhaps that the Latin script is not phnetic. Neither is Chinese.
	On the other hand , All Indian languages are totally phonetic
and most have a very well developed grammer. Furthermore the words in Esparanto
have their roots in essentially the European languages such as Latin. Thus
while it is not too difficult for a person already knowing some latin based
language to learn Esparanto, it would be extremely difficult for a person
from India.
	The main reason why India does not have a uniform language is
political. e.g. Hindi, which is spoken by almost 40% of the country's
population has its drawback in that it is seen as a supremacy of the north
Indians ( Mostly Aryans) over the South Indians ( Dravidians ). The Tamil
riots are a testimony to that.
	Yet another reason is the presence of numerous dialects of the same
language. but this cannot be avoided in any language and Esparanto does
not suffer from this problem simply because it is too new. It is obvious
that as ( and if ) different communities learn Esparanto they will devlop
dialects suitable for there own culture .
	Any language is an extremely dynamic entity and it has been seen that
new idioms and words get added to any language with time. All these things
are bound to happen to Esp. as time progresses.


				Mukul Agrawal
				agrawal@csd2.arpa