1 October 2007

National Language and Malayalam



A quick post... but might be long!

Karthik was here during the weekend. It was great. I am again filled with lot of energy. Real positive energy. As he says, it's true that the chances to pick negative energy is very large here in Europe. I guess that I have been taking up lot of negative energy lately. Anyway it was always unnoticed. Now since I am aware of it, it wont happen anymore.

A lot of my questions were answered. Or I realized that some questions are not to be asked ;). More about that later.

Now to the topic. As a matter of fact, Hindi is NOT the national language of India - as every (north)Indian says. [hey, no grudge against anyone here... just wanted to write the fact]. Hindi is the official language of the central/union government. It is one of the national languages of India - just like Tamil/Malayalam/Kashmiri/Punjabi etc.

Have a look at THIS_PAGE of a government website. Specifically read the 1959 and 1963 developments in the event list.

And incidentally, Tamil is declared as the classical language (See 2004) - actually it deserves the honor.

A little about Malayalam too - I used to profess that Malayalam is a very easy language to learn(ONLY from grammar point of view) - because of the lack of gender-cases and also because of the absence of conjugation depending on gender/respect etc. (There is actually conjugation based on respect, but not that important)

But, I am changing my opinion here. Malayalam could turn out to be the horror of horrors to a language student - just by the way we connect words together - two things called Samaasam and Sandhi - could turn out to be the most complicated stuff ever to learn.

Readers who can read Malayalam might want to have a look at THIS_LINK. The author explains a lot of Malayalam grammar - with the support of Sanskrit scriptures and the history of words too. A treasure among Malayalam websites.

Thanks for reading till here.

Signing off, Sands.

~

4 comments:

Hailstone said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hailstone said...

Chetta,
Bhodhodayam vallathum undaayo?? Undaayenkil, ennu, eppol, evidevachu??
Ph.D-kaarkkellam idakkidakku ingane undavuo? :)

--Priyakutty.

Alex Mathew said...

yes... quite true. I have to argue with people to convince them Hindi is just one of the national languages of India.

About Malayalam, I find its grammar really tough. In fact I am writing Malayalam grammar as a hobby.

Unknown said...

congratulatins
sindhu