My footprints in India (8)

Using English as the medium of instruction in universities makes India (and Hong Kong too) part of the international network of academic communication (and leave mainland China and Taiwan in a disadvantaged position). The Indian medical journals are published in English, so as that of Pakistan and many other Commonwealth countries as well as some non-Commonwealth countries, e.g. Saudi Arabia and the Scandinavian countries. Thus their data and discoveries can be widely disseminated internationally, while that of the Chinese are left dusty on the shelves.

There are two more reasons why the Indians use English in universities and in the professions. One is the colonial legacy of the British Raj. The other is the fact that south Indians are in general less willing to use Hindi as a medium of communication. The promotion of Hindi by the Central government as the sole official language of the Republic in the 1950s and 60s was considered by some south Indian contemporaries as an expression of Hindi chauvinism of the Hindi-speaking north (Chandra, Mukherjee et al. 2000).

Written on 27^th July, 2005.

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Figure 1: Gujarat University Library

圖一: 古吉拉特大學圖書館

雪泥鴻爪在天竺(八)

以英語作為大學的教學語言讓印度(以及香港)成為國際學術交流網絡的一部份(而中國大陸和台灣的情況則較不利)。印度的醫學雜誌是用英語來出版的，一如巴基斯坦及其他英聯邦國家，以及一些非英聯邦國家，如沙烏地阿拉伯及斯堪地那維亞國家。因此他們的資料和發現可以在國際上廣泛流傳，而中國的呢，則在書架上封塵。

另有兩個原因為什麼印度人在大學及各專業裡用英語。其一這是英國殖民地時代的遺產。其二是南印度人普遍來說比較不太願意以印地語作為交流的媒介。在一九五零及六零年代，印度中央政府之推廣印地語作為共和國的唯一官方語言，被當時好些南印度人視為是說印地語的北方人的印地語沙文主義的表現(Chandra, Mukherjee et al. 2000)。

原著為英文，在2005年8月7日翻譯成中文

回目錄

Reference:

Chandra, B., M. Mukherjee, et al. (2000). India after Independence 1947-2000. New Delhi, Penguin Books.