On Hindi and its friends

I say that I speak English and that I'm learning Hindi. Both of those are, of course, true. Which English I speak and which Hindi I'm learning, however, is a bit more complicated. While in the states, for example, I was in a Hindi class in which the vocabulary skewed slightly Urdu (which is itself very similar to Hindi for everyday use). We would pronounce singular and plural third person pronouns (यह, ये; वह, वे) the same: as “yay” and “voh”. I had a little bit of difficulty when I arrived in India and my Hindi professor (who is also fluent in Sanskrit) insisted that I say the words as written, as that is the proper way to say them. (Indians like to refer to doing things “properly” or “nicely” when I would probably say “correctly”. Indian English isn't American Standard English, I suppose.) I also found later, when visiting my family in Varanasi, that some of the words I was familiar with from my Hindi classes were not the normal words. Of course, my paternal grandparents both have been Bhojpuri-speakers, so that's even another set of vocabulary, even if the basic grammar is the same. To make things even more complicated, I made a friend with one of the guys who works for the university whose English is better than my Hindi and whose Hindi is better than my Marathi who uses “आप" with “हो". (In standard Hindi you would say “आप हैं" instead.) This is probably what is called “Bombay Hindi”.

As I explained in an earlier post, there was a big debate back sixty years ago (though it went on for several decades) on what the language of the federal government should be. Part of the compromise solution was the decision to require all schools to educate children in Hindi, English, and a regional language. That sounded like such a great plan, until I found out a couple days ago while reading an article about the state of the Muslim Community. Apparently, in areas where the dominant language is Hindi among Hindus and Urdu among Muslims, such as much of North India including Uttar Pradesh, offer Sanskrit (which is spoken natively by only a couple thousand people) rather than Urdu courses. This means not only are many Muslim residents deprived of education in their mother tongue, but that many are instead being taught the language of Hindu scripture! And on top of this, of course, majority Muslim areas are often denied infrastructural access to good schools, and in those schools there are very few Muslim teachers and those teachers often face discrimination. There are Madrasas, which primarily teach religious education in Urdu, but only 4% of Muslim school-age children go to those and in any case that's not exactly a substitute for state-run secular education.

Basically, what I'm saying is that these small differences in language aren't just cool aspects of linguistic diversity, but also have political meanings. The lack of Urdu-medium schools and Urdu-language classes is a form of discrimination against Indian Muslims, a deliberate attempt to erase and stigmatize their distinct cultural heritage. It's a reminder that despite India's striving for equality and diversity, sometimes communities get pushed down by something as basic as linguistic discrimination.

Some things only make sense after English-medium education. Some things still don't.
(That's Rachel, Genevieve, and Sarah.)

Interactive question time! In the US, there is no policy for maintenance of linguistic diversity like in India. Should there be? Should schools be required to provide primary education in common minority languages like Spanish, Mandarin, and Tagalog? What about minority dialects like African American Vernacular English or Appalachian English?  If you're not from the USA, does your country act to preserve linguistic heritages? Do you agree with that policy?