Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!vasudev From: vasudev@decvax.UUCP (Vasudev Bhandarkar) Newsgroups: net.kids,net.nlang Subject: Re: Re: Teaching children to be bilingual Message-ID: <90@decvax.UUCP> Date: Tue, 23-Oct-84 18:15:52 EDT Article-I.D.: decvax.90 Posted: Tue Oct 23 18:15:52 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 24-Oct-84 08:17:55 EDT References: <1505@ucla-cs.ARPA> <858@ihuxb.UUCP> <1170@eosp1.UUCP> <186@scc.UUCP>, <5370@brl-tgr.ARPA> Organization: DEC UNIX Engineering Group Lines: 45 While we're on the subject of bilingual children... I must tell you something about kids in Indian cities....like myself. Well, my father was from the Karnataka state, where the language (yes language, not dialect) was Kannada, my mother was from Maharashtra, where the language was Marathi, and they sent me to an English-medium school where the medium of instruction was English (it was generally believed in the big Indian cities that if you dont know English, you're not educated!). That was not all. The Indian government has declared Hindi to be the national language, which means that regardless of what school you go to, the second language taught in the school is Hindi. Now, if you think that's complicated, wait till you hear this: My mother-tongue, the language both my parents speak (otherwise they couldn't get married!!) is Konkani!!!!! So by the time I was six, I could fluently speak four languages, (In India they don't discuss politics, economics, law, etc when they're six years old...gimme a break (-: ) Kids in the big Indian cities (Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay, Madras) routinely learn at least three languages by the time they're in grade school, particularly if they study in English-medium schools. States in India were formed on a linguistic basis, every state has its own language (all languages Sanskrit-bsd) own script, own literature, own culture!! There are twenty states, and twenty "officially recognised" languages. When I graduated from high-school, I had had six years of education in French at the Alliance Franciase de Bombay. From the multi-lingual fingers of, decvax!vasudev Where did I learn to speak English without an accent, you ask? Hollywood, of course! Seen lotsa movies, yeah!