'Majority people' want to be multilingual, should be given fair chance: Pawan Kalyan
The actor-politician claimed that "political leaders should widen their minds and broaden their horizon".
"Majority of the people think they want to be multilinguistic (multilingual). Let us give them a fair chance and a fair opportunity," Kalyan told PTI Videos.
Stating that English has become his language of thought, the Janasena founder expressed sadness that he could not find the same in Hindi or Kannada or Marathi.
"My mother tongue is not Hindi. My mother tongue is not English. Sometimes I feel sad that my thinking language has become English or Telugu. Telugu is a natural way to think, but I could adopt English as a thinking language," he said.
Backing his linguistic campaign, the Deputy Chief Minister said, "There is nothing wrong in a world where we are interacting with multiculturalism as multilingual skills are needed".
Further, he highlighted that political leaders should think of the 'oncoming generations' (future generations) and make some space for them, hinting at multilingualism.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
31 minutes ago
- Time of India
Bengali must on shop signboards & hoardings, says mayor
1 2 Kolkata: City mayor Firhad Hakim on Friday said signboards and hoardings of all commercial establishments, including shops and restaurants, must be written in Bengali, along with other languages. After a "Talk to the Mayor" session, Hakim was asked about some commercial establishments that were continuing with their hoardings in English, Hindi and even Assamese, but not in Bengali. Hakim instructed civic officials to look into the matter and ensure that everyone followed the norm. Last year, Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) mandated the use of Bengali language on all commercial signboards, including hoardings, alongside other languages. A deadline of Feb 21, 2025, was set for implementation of the rule. You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata Meanwhile, the entire proceedings of the corporation were conducted in Bengali on Friday as CM Mamata Banerjee called for another 'Bhasha Andolan' on the Bengali language row. However, KMC ward 49 councillor Monalisa Banerjee placed her questions in English on water supply glitch. Chairperson Mala Roy, who was presiding over the day's proceedings, asked Hakim to reply in Bengali. Monalisa raised civic issues like water pipeline leakage, water supply disruptions and shortage of labourers. Later, the mayor said: "Though the councillor raised her questions in English, I answered in Bengali, my mother tongue."Status: Not Approved
United News of India
an hour ago
- United News of India
Will act tough against language-based violence, says CM Fadnavis
Mumbai, July 25 (UNI) Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has warned that violence in the name of language will not be tolerated. "One can take pride in the Marathi language, but assaulting others for not knowing or speaking Marathi will not be accepted. Legal action will be taken against such offenders," he stated. Fadnavis was speaking at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi during the foundation stone laying ceremony of a new Centre for Strategic and Defence Studies named after Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and the inauguration of the Kusumagraj Chair for Marathi language studies last evening. Highlighting the significance of Marathi, Fadnavis said it is an ancient language. "It was due to our request that Prime Minister Narendra Modi granted it the status of a classical language. Pride in Marathi is natural and justified, but violence in its name will not be tolerated. Those indulging in such actions will face strict legal consequences", he said. He emphasized Marathi's contribution to the country, especially in the field of theatre. "If any language has kept Indian theatre alive across the nation, it is Marathi", he said. Fadnavis added that research and academic study of the language is vital and the Kusumagraj Chair at JNU will work towards that objective. Fadnavis also stressed the importance of respecting all Indian languages. "Every citizen must take pride in their mother tongue. However, respecting other Indian languages is also our responsibility. We easily accept English but often neglect our native languages, which is not right," he said. UNI SP PRS
New Indian Express
2 hours ago
- New Indian Express
Death of the dictionary
Samuel Johnson, the dictionarist Creative Commons Opinions Death of the dictionary The written word is no longer the most efficient way to store knowledge. Thanks to a glut of enabling software and hardware mankind is turning back to its earliest mode of encoding culture: audiovisual media. Dictionarist Dr Johnson would've tutted at how we treat language today Pratik Kanjilal The Gutenberg revolution appears to be waning as the written word, the defining mark of civilisation—whether on Babylonian stelae or in racy detective novels—recedes in the face of the ever-compelling power of images and voice. The written word is shaking off the grip of regimentation, which had tightened over the centuries since printing caught on in Europe and later, dictionaries formalised language. Young people no longer read editorials to learn hieratic language. Instead, they are at ease with creoles, pidgins, slang and memes. But ironically, high feelings persist about language as a political and cultural marker of identity, purity and authenticity. Notable exception: at the press conference after signing the India-UK free trade agreement, a struggling Hindi translator was told to feel free to use English words. Meanwhile, Maharashtra is upset about the three-language formula. Governor C P Radhakrishnan has weighed in on the problem of 'linguistic hatred', and recalled seeing a north Indian man in his home state of Tamil Nadu being beaten up for not knowing Tamil. Language politics in Tamil Nadu, an element of the Self-Respect Movement, was a bulwark against the Union government's promotion of Hindi, which sought to flatten cultural diversity and make the states politically accessible to Delhi. Many states in the east, west and south didn't enjoy being pushed around, and Tamil Nadu made it an enduring political issue. But it is rare for someone from the state to admit that linguistic assertion has an unpleasant side. An extreme example: the Second World War was triggered by Hitler's determination to connect German-speaking populations in East Prussia and Austria with the German nation—'Ein volk, ein Reich, ein sprache', to rip off a Nazi slogan concerning the Führer. That was over 80 years ago. In the mean time, the world has globalised at a speed not seen since classical times. This could have been an era of bridge languages like Urdu. Instead, machines, the internet and their users are beating down the formalisms of language, and what was unthinkable is now doable. When Kemal Ataturk switched Turkish from the Arabic-based Ottoman script to the Roman alphabet in 1928, it was a radical act. The measure, intended to bring Turkey closer to the West, was denounced by critics as a 'cultural rupture', as older texts became inaccessible to younger people. Perhaps it worked only because 6 percent of Muslims were literate at the time. But ever since Usenet launched group communications over the internet, before most languages had digital fonts, phonetic communications in the Roman alphabet have been commonplace. And now, AI-powered translation is the norm. When Tony Blair's Britain asserted multiculturalism in the late 1990s, the road sign of Bangladeshi-intense Brick Lane in London was rewritten in two languages, English and Bangla. When Monica Ali's novel Brick Lane became a bestseller, it felt like borders were dissolving. Decades later, in the US, which has become multicultural without quite preparing for it, machine translation is creating weirdness. Public institutions like hospitals and transport have signs in multiple languages including Hindi and Bangla, but what they say sounds inhuman. Naturally, because this language is machine-made. Across borders, there is concern that young people do not read these days; but let's focus on what they do read. YouTube loyalists read closed captions generated by a machine. These are frequently incorrect, but it doesn't bother anyone because the world's language purists have either given up the ghost or the struggle. The dictionary is just another book and books are archival legacy media. If Samuel Johnson were around, the dictionarist who said that language is the dress of thought would have dismissed us as ragtags, with bobtails barely concealing our modesty in scanty hashtags. Why is this happening? Information storage and retrieval began with visual and auditory media—cave paintings, dance performances, oral epics and songs. But why are they regaining salience? Because the written word was the most efficient storage medium for about five millenniums, from the clay tablet libraries of Babylon to Dewey Decimal via the Gutenberg press. But over the last three decades, magnetic and optical data storage has scaled up so rapidly that the contents of a refrigerator-sized magnetic tape bank of the 1970s now fit on a microSD card. With AI, it is normal for data processing to use as much power as small towns. The written word is no longer essential for storage, and the human race is again embracing the audiovisual media with which it had begun to encode culture millenniums ago. Ironically, it's a step back—there is now room enough for all the misbegotten utterances that the race can dream up. In a strange case in bilingual Belgium, an attendant in a train running through Dutch-speaking territory greeted a passenger in French and faced proceedings right away. The proceedings have just ended, and the harassed attendant has turned language activist—he is selling coffee mugs bearing greetings in both languages to promote linguistic amity. The resurgence of audiovisual media at the expense of text is starkly visible in politics. From West Bengal to Washington, visual media personalities are prominent in legislatures, and few of their most important associates can be accused of learning, or even literacy. Win some, lose some, say the Americans, who are postmodern—in the sense that they have never respected linguistic formalisms very much. Pratik Kanjilal | SPEAKEASY | Senior Fellow, Henry J Leir Institute of Migration and Human Security, The Fletcher School, Tufts University (Views are personal) (Tweets @pratik_k)
