Sowmyaa, this is a sensitive, though a thoroughly valid point.
Sree, our forum admin, is from South and grew up in Chennai and stays in Bangalore (or is it vice versa...forgive me Sree if I got it wrong... 😳 ) but not only she speaks great Hindi, but actually loves the language.
Unfortunately, there are very few like her who, if they grew up in South, know Hindi. I have so many friends here who are from South and they don't know anything of Hindi which is very sad. One of the ladies in fact does not know any language except Tamil ( she knows a smattering of English). Another lady, who is from Maharashtra also knows a smatterng of English but is fluent in Hindi. When these two meet, the lady from Maharashtra lapses into Hindi and the Tamil lady is constantly being put off as a result of which the others get sandwiched, always having to translate to the Tamil lady, that too in English in which her knowledge is painfully limited and she hasn't made much efforts to learn that either inspite of being in US for more than five years now...) which is just so bugging, mainly becasue rest in the group can at least understand Hindi or English.....
I have seen this mentality in North East as well, where folks from certain parts of Bengal or the hilly regions like Meghalaya, Manipur or Sikkim (barring the guides) don't want to speak Hindi at all. When I was very small, I remember one of my Uncle making fun of a new recruit in his office who did not know Bengali and his rediculous braggings of how they were trying to force him to learn Bengali by not responding to him when he spoke Hindi.......I was incensed.
I can understand if it's a rural area where people do not have the exposure. But in large sprawling cosmo cities, I tend to beleive it's an ego issue more than anything else. They view Hindi as a northern language and making it a common language is for them consenting to northern superiority...... 🤢
These are just my views,please feel free to disagree and correct me. If I have hurt anyone, I apologise in advance.
Edited by Minnie - 18 years ago
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