English Speakers Across India

I was intrigued by the article in The Times of India that stated that according to recently released data from the census conducted in India in 2001, India had over 86 million people who listed English as their second language and nearly 39 million who listed it as their third language.

I set out to verify these claims and found the necessary data on the official Census of India website. I wasn't expecting anything else apart from some fun crunching through the numbers and a verification of the numbers stated in the article. I was able to confirm that India had over 125 million language speakers in 2001. The Wikipedia article on the English language now reflects this data.

The interesting result of this analysis was the following graph:

Click graph to enlarge

I want to draw attention to two groups of languages:
Group A: Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati
Group B: Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya

English speakers whose primary language was one of those from Group A mainly identified English as a tertiary language while those whose primary language was one the Group B languages mainly identified English as their secondary language. The reason for this is not immediately apparent but becomes clearer when you dig through the census data.

The reason Group A users identified English as their tertiary language is that the overwhelming bulk of them identified Hindi as their secondary language.

The results are not surprising because the North-South divide over the adoption of Hindi has been the cause of countless debates but I had no idea that Bengali and Oriya would fall into the same group as Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada.

Maybe not surprising but interesting nonetheless.

Science

From the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, April 17, 1969, regarding the justification for funding the then unbuilt Fermilab:

Senator John Pastore: Is there anything connected with the hopes of this accelerator that in any way involves the security of the country?

Robert Wilson: No sir, I don't believe so.

Pastore: Nothing at all?

Wilson: Nothing at all.

Pastore: It has no value in that respect?

Wilson: It has only to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture. It has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things we really venerate in our country and are patriotic about. It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending.

Avatar Day

James Cameron, the director of Terminator 2, is coming out with a new movie for the first time in a decade. The movie, Avatar, is about a human soldier's brain being "downloaded" into the body of an alien species on that species' native planet.

The story is supposed to be about how the human realizes that humans are the bad guys and are exploiting that planet for resources. The human in his 'Avatar' body then joins the fight against humans to protect the planet.

There was a promotional screening of about 20 minutes of the movie yesterday to which I was lucky enough to get a free ticket to. Although the story seems interesting the thing that really blew me away was the spectacular 3D imagery that the movie has. The CGI and live-action is blended so seamlessly that I can honestly say that I have never seen anything like this before.

The contrast, in viewing the 20 minute screening and then a theatrical trailer of Avatar on a normal screen, was astounding.

I must say that the promoters of the movie have succeeded in their mission of generating enthusiasm for the movie in me. This post is my way of promoting the movie further; as good word of mouth was no doubt the hope of 'Avatar Day'.

Decades long war

I recently saw a couple of videos on PBS called the "Children of Taliban" and "A Letter from Karachi". The videos touch upon many aspects of the current situation in Pakistan; radicalization of Swat, military operations in Bajaur, IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camps in Peshawar, views of the Pakistani soldiers and most importantly they talk about the recruitment of children by the Taliban for fighting.

Hearing a kid talk about wanting to become suicide bomber (Fidaayeen) and being inspired by suicide bombers younger than him is disturbing. Also disturbing is hearing a Taliban child recruiter talk about how children as young as 5 years of age are being recruited.

This last bit of information is the most shocking for me. Apart from the moral depravity of using children to blow up people, it is the age at which they have been radicalized that is important to bear in mind. If a child is radicalized at such an age, I doubt he can be un-radicalized easily later on. I wonder how kids from the Nazi "Hitler Youth" organization were un-radicalized.

However, comparisons between the Nazis and the Taliban can go only so far. The Taliban haven't yet become as big as a threat as Nazi Germany. The Nazis didn't fight a guerrilla war, while the Taliban have repeatedly shown that they are willing and capable of doing just that. Moreover, I don't see entire countries mobilizing to deal with the Taliban, not even Pakistan. This leaves the Pakistan army no chance at a quick and lasting victory over the Taliban.

The longer it takes for the Pakistan army to emerge victorious the longer the Taliban have to radicalize children. What will happen to these children even if the Taliban are ultimately defeated. Will these children suddenly start going to school and become productive members of the society? Or will they be ostracized and become criminals? Or will they just brush off the defeat and start new insurgencies when they are older?

To me, it looks like the Pakistan army is set for a decades long war.

Who should Pakistan listen to?

The Pakistani government doesn't always tell the truth and misleads other times. The history taught in the schools of Pakistan is heavily distorted and the news media doesn't offer a truthful view of what's going on.

I have been worried about the deteriorating condition of this neighboring country and I have scoured YouTube, news websites and forums for voices of sanity rising from the chaos.

Here are a few Pakistanis who talk straight. They are not necessarily friends of India but they don't make excuses for the conditions prevailing in their country. These are the men that the people of Pakistan should be listening to.

1) Ahmed Rashid - Author of "Descent into Chaos" and "Taliban"
2) Hasan Nisar - Journalist
3) Tariq Ali - Journalist and Writer
4) Javed Chaudhry - Host of the TV show Kal Tak
5) Mohammed Hanif - Journalist and author of the book "A Case of Exploding Mangoes". Head of BBC's Urdu service.
6) Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy - Eminent nuclear physicist

The one person whose theories the Pakistanis would do well to avoid is Zaid Hamid.

What's in a name?

I had an interesting conversation with my friend, Manish, the other day. It was all about his name and how he preferred to write it in the Devanagari script and how he pronounced it.

The correct spelling in the Devanagari script for his name is मनीष (IPA: /mǝniːʂ/) but he prefers to write it as मनीश (IPA: /mǝniːʃ/) for aesthetic reasons. The difference between just one letter though changes his name from having a meaning to making it meaningless.

मनीष comes from the Sanskrit word मनीषिन् (IPA: /mǝniːʂin/) which means a wise man. मनीश on the other hand has no intrinsic meaning. It is mistakenly believed to be portmanteau of मन (heart, mind) and ईश (God).

My friend's problems arise from him wanting to have a meaningful name and at the same time writing and pronouncing it differently. I haven't mentioned his last name so I think I am safe from the dire consequences promised to me if I ever stooped so low as to reveal this secret of his.

As for me, I will continue to pronounce his name using the voiceless retroflex fricative instead of the voiceless postalveolar fricative.

p.s. 100 extra points for whoever got throught this article without clicking on any of the links.