Back home knowing one language is plenty. English will allow you to communicate with everybody without an issue. For the majority of people in Britain their mother tongue is English, in India it's not so simple. There are 22 official languages and over 1600 minor languages and dialects spoken in India. I thought that because the official language of Karnataka (the state we're living in) is Kannada, that we would just be able to learn Kannada and it would be fine. No. That's not fine. In Bangalore, it is very common for people to speak four or more languages. Even children. Shobitha's nephew, Ryan, who is five, can speak five languages. People here and constantly asking us what language we speak in Scotland and they can never quite understand it when we tell them that we only speak English. "But what other languages are there?" "Only English" "But what is your regional language?" "English..." "But what about the other regions?" "Emm.. English" "What about in the countryside?" "English" "What about the towns?" "ENGLISH" "......." "WE ONLY SPEAK ENGLISH"
The national language of India is Hindi, in Bangalore the official language is Kannada. But most people don't even speak either of those as their first language even though they are fluent in them both. People here also speak, Malayalam, Tamil and Telegu. So you can understand why we're struggling. We have to guess what language people are speaking from a list of five. Which all sound remarkably similar. And also look very similar as well.
Here is the sentence, My name is Niamh, written down in all of those five languages. Try and guess which one's which.
मेरा नाम Niamh है
ನನ್ನ ಹೆಸರು Niamh ಹೊಂದಿದೆ
என் பெயர் Niamh ஆகிறது
నా పేరు Niamh ఉంది
There are only four because Google Translate does not have Malayalam. So these are either Kannada, Tamil, Telugu or Hindi.
I didn't want the answers to be just below so that's why there's the massive gap. Not because I just forgot to write stuff. So the first one was Hindi, then Kannada, Tamil, then Telugu.
Google Translate also doesn't speak Indian languages or I would have put the links here. But I think that's the one downfall of it..
We were told that it would be good to learn some Hindi because it's the national language. Which was fine, I would love to learn some Hindi, it sounds like a really useful language here. Then we were told we should learn Kannada because that's the language that most people in Bangalore speak so we'll be able to talk to all of them. Great, that would be good to be able to talk to people in our new home city, but is two languages not a bit much? Apparently not it is "okay" because "everyone speaks those." Then we were told to learn some Telugu. What!? No, three languages? I can barely speak my own mother tongue, English, never mind three others which I just can't seem to wrap my tongue around.
The national language of India is Hindi, in Bangalore the official language is Kannada. But most people don't even speak either of those as their first language even though they are fluent in them both. People here also speak, Malayalam, Tamil and Telegu. So you can understand why we're struggling. We have to guess what language people are speaking from a list of five. Which all sound remarkably similar. And also look very similar as well.
Here is the sentence, My name is Niamh, written down in all of those five languages. Try and guess which one's which.
मेरा नाम Niamh है
ನನ್ನ ಹೆಸರು Niamh ಹೊಂದಿದೆ
என் பெயர் Niamh ஆகிறது
నా పేరు Niamh ఉంది
There are only four because Google Translate does not have Malayalam. So these are either Kannada, Tamil, Telugu or Hindi.
I didn't want the answers to be just below so that's why there's the massive gap. Not because I just forgot to write stuff. So the first one was Hindi, then Kannada, Tamil, then Telugu.
Google Translate also doesn't speak Indian languages or I would have put the links here. But I think that's the one downfall of it..
We were told that it would be good to learn some Hindi because it's the national language. Which was fine, I would love to learn some Hindi, it sounds like a really useful language here. Then we were told we should learn Kannada because that's the language that most people in Bangalore speak so we'll be able to talk to all of them. Great, that would be good to be able to talk to people in our new home city, but is two languages not a bit much? Apparently not it is "okay" because "everyone speaks those." Then we were told to learn some Telugu. What!? No, three languages? I can barely speak my own mother tongue, English, never mind three others which I just can't seem to wrap my tongue around.
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