Why Indian languages less preferred by American students!

English is or has become an Indian language and so it the lingua franca of India and the world, so why would people -read American students take pains to learn any other Indian language.

Now this trend is changing. Max muller institute of India is offering Sanskrit and other Indian languages for many foreign students.Talikng in the native Language of any country, will promote the relationships. Obama said ' Namaste', when he was in India.

rambabu wrote:

Now this trend is changing. Max muller institute of India is offering Sanskrit and other Indian languages for many foreign students.Talikng in the native Language of any country, will promote the relationships. Obama said ' Namaste', when he was in India.

 

Learning the ancient or dead languages like Sanskrit, Hebrew  or Latin by very small minority is an altogether different matter. The issue is learning modern languages for communication or business needs. The report is that american students give more prominence to Arabic and Chinese.  They don't prefer Hindi and other Indian languages so much. The obvious cause is that they already know English which is widely used in India. So no need to learn the native Indian languages. 

 

The number of students opting for Indian languages may be low, but there are enough number of Americans who sincerely wish to study Indian languages, with Sanskrit topping the list.

Kalyani Nandurkar wrote:

The number of students opting for Indian languages may be low, but there are enough number of Americans who sincerely wish to study Indian languages, with Sanskrit topping the list.

 

There are students for every language but the point is that Indian languages are less preferred. The obvious reason is that English is as good as any other Indian language and serves all purposes.  . 

 

Kalyani Nandurkar wrote:

The number of students opting for Indian languages may be low, but there are enough number of Americans who sincerely wish to study Indian languages, with Sanskrit topping the list.

 

There are students for every language but the point is that Indian languages are less preferred. The obvious reason is that English is as good as any other Indian language and serves all purposes.  .

 

It is clear here that the interest of Americans in studying foreign languages is not purely academic or scholarly, and hence use of English in India is not an influencing or discouraging factor. The reason for them studying Arabic or other Asian languages is purely economic and strategical!

Gulshan Kumar Ajmani wrote:

Kalyani Nandurkar wrote:

The number of students opting for Indian languages may be low, but there are enough number of Americans who sincerely wish to study Indian languages, with Sanskrit topping the list.

 

There are students for every language but the point is that Indian languages are less preferred. The obvious reason is that English is as good as any other Indian language and serves all purposes.  . 

 

Sir, now the situation is changing. In many universities in America, oriental languages are taught and the response is quite good.

University of Texas is offering under the head of Oriental languages all the languages of Asia, especially Sanskrit and all the important languages of India.

 

 

Kalyani Nandurkar wrote:

Kalyani Nandurkar wrote:

The number of students opting for Indian languages may be low, but there are enough number of Americans who sincerely wish to study Indian languages, with Sanskrit topping the list.

 

There are students for every language but the point is that Indian languages are less preferred. The obvious reason is that English is as good as any other Indian language and serves all purposes.  .

 

It is clear here that the interest of Americans in studying foreign languages is not purely academic or scholarly, and hence use of English in India is not an influencing or discouraging factor. The reason for them studying Arabic or other Asian languages is purely economic and strategical!

 

I agree. The purely academic interest for pursuit of knowledge is languages is negligible and found only in scholars- especially for ancient languages not in vogue. The languages are preferred for professional and financial purposes more. There is need for translators and interpreters for various languages. The Americans need translators in Chinese and Arabic.  They do not need such professionals so much for Indian languages as India is very much part of English speaking world. 

The ever increasing number of Chinese people learning English will soon out number all English speaking people in the world. Maybe that is the reason Americans are trying to beat Chinese at their own game. 

Microsoft prefers Indian IT experts, because they are better in multi language skills including English. Chinese are not preferred in this regard.

suni51 wrote:

The ever increasing number of Chinese people learning English will soon out number all English speaking people in the world. Maybe that is the reason Americans are trying to beat Chinese at their own game. 

 

Chinese are now eager to learn English. Yet for the time being, they are not so conversant in English. That is why Americans need to learn Chinese   I don't think there is any game in this. If it were so, they would try to beat Indians also in the game. 

 

Language bridges the gap between the people. I don't see any wrong in learning a language of another country.

Gulshan Kumar Ajmani wrote:

suni51 wrote:

The ever increasing number of Chinese people learning English will soon out number all English speaking people in the world. Maybe that is the reason Americans are trying to beat Chinese at their own game. 

 

Chinese are now eager to learn English. Yet for the time being, they are not so conversant in English. That is why Americans need to learn Chinese   I don't think there is any game in this. If it were so, they would try to beat Indians also in the game. 

 

No sir, Indians are no way in competition with Americans like Chinese are beating Americans in all fields.

 

 

suni51 wrote:

The ever increasing number of Chinese people learning English will soon out number all English speaking people in the world. Maybe that is the reason Americans are trying to beat Chinese at their own game. 

 

This response seems to have raised a valid point. I agree this could be a major reason why American students are opting to learn Chinese. Americans don't wish to lag behind in any respect.

 

There is indeed a positive correlation between the political and economic muscle of a particular language-speaking country and its popularity. Centuries back when India was Muslim dominance of Persian and Arabic languages was a phenomenon. It goes to the colonising genius of the English that primarily accounts for development of English language as the veritable lingual franca of the world. Even UK's stunted and truncated status as a political and economic entity has not prevented English from being dominant as an international language because one of her former colonies has risen to the dizzy heights of a super power. As for Americans growing interest in mastering Chinese I shall only repeat what the former prez once famously said:"It's all economics,stupid!".

Please read 'when India was under Muslim rule'.

There is indeed a positive correlation between the political and economic muscle of a particular language-speaking country and its popularity. Centuries back when India was Muslim dominance of Persian and Arabic languages was a phenomenon. It goes to the colonising genius of the English that primarily accounts for development of English language as the veritable lingual franca of the world. Even UK's stunted and truncated status as a political and economic entity has not prevented English from being dominant as an international language because one of her former colonies has risen to the dizzy heights of a super power. As for Americans growing interest in mastering Chinese I shall only repeat what the former prez once famously said:"It's all economics,stupid!".

 

Totally totally true!!! Tomorrow, if Pakistanis start ruling the economics world, Americans would start learning their language very quickly! After all, its economics! LOL

And now to the conclusion of the poster's point why Americans are not learning Indian languages?

Who the hack is interested in learning the languages which are not being given importance by Indians themselves. Give respect to your own languages before expecting others to do the same.

True, true, true......I am sure you must have met several Indians who go abroad only for a few months and come back with an attitude towards their mother tongue, be it Hindi, Marathi or Telugu or whatever, and hear them speak their own language with foreign accent! he he he

@Kalyani I am reminded of an anecdote involving great Tagore. Once a young upstart bumped into him breaking out in his inimitably horrible English much to the amusement and chagrin of Tagore who was constrained to remark : "Old boy, you have forgotten your own language in learning another which too hasn't been learned properly what is going to happen to you ,god help you!!