"David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*)" wrote in message
...
William Black wrote:

"David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*)" wrote in message
...
William Black wrote:

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*) writes:

Fair enough- but India still has over 3 times as many people
speaking
Hindi as a native language than the number speaking English as a
secondary one.

Not so. There are far more than one billion speakers of English in
the
world.

And about two thirds of them are in India...

Where are you getting that figure?

It was in the Times of India some time ago.

It sounds like an extraordinary exaggeration to me.

But as I said, the level of English spoken is rather mixed.

However every child who has been to some sort of school in India has
learned
some English.

It's the major official language, and a lot more popular than Hindi in
school for older kids.

I spent a couple of months in Delhi when I was a teenager, and did a lot
of school visits there, as a sort of cultural 'ambassador.' Almost
anyone I had any dealings with in Delhi spoke fluent English- and
certainly the kids in schools did- though it was a potent mix of Hindi
and English on the whole. However, if you're saying that nearly 700
million people in India speak English, then I think that's severely
exaggerated. Unless "hello" and "goodbye" counts as speaking English.
Maybe the situation has changed since I was there, but just in terms of
encountering people in shops (outside tourist areas), servants, scooter
drivers and the like- hardly any spoke any kind of English.

I've spent a lot of time there in the past couple of years.

Just about everyone I met under about thirty in Bombay spoke some English,
including kids working in cheap restaurants, who are, as you're probably
aware, just in from the villages and making their way for the first time.

In Goa everyone I met, without exception, spoke some English.

'Up country' in the villages of Maharashtra just about everyone I spoke to,
except older women, spoke some English.

All the railway servants spoke some English, all our drivers, private hire
and taxi and auto-rickshaw, spoke some and someone in every shop I went
into spoke some English.

Which is a nuisance because everyone wants to practice their English and so
I didn't get much chance at all to practice my Hindi or Marathi.

Good English is seen as a way to a decent job and so prosperity.

The only person who I met who spoke no English at all and had no-one in his
shop who could and was some sort of businessman was my wife's dressmaker.

I don't go to touristy areas, I live in an area of Bombay city that is well
off any tourist track, to the extent that another European is noticeable and
is commented on. When I travel I don't use the terribly touristy means of
getting about and when I go 'up country' it's to places where tourists
certainly don't go, I was the first European seen in one village since the
British went home...

I expected good English to be spoken in Fort and Crawford Market, they're
big international shopping areas full of ex-pats and foreigners, I didn't
expect it to be spoken in rural India by people who work on the land...

--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.