VYAKARAN: South Asian Languages and Linguistics Net
Editors: Tej K. Bhatia, Syracuse University, New York
John Peterson, University of Osnabrueck, Germany
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<DIV>India and English spellings. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>For quick reference purpose, I took above short title</DIV>
<DIV>for this message.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>It is based on a front page banner news given by </DIV>
<DIV>Times of India, Pune edition </DIV>
<DIV>(<A href="http://www.timesofindia.com">www.timesofindia.com</A>) dated
Thursday Oct 6, </DIV>
<DIV>2005. I presume it must have appeared in other </DIV>
<DIV>nationwise editions. I give only a few points in</DIV>
<DIV>the news. Refer website for details.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Title given by Times of India is long. </DIV>
<DIV>I state the keywords in the title.--</DIV>
<DIV> 'teror' of 'speling erors'</DIV>
<DIV>Reporter -- Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey, Kolkata</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Is horor an error ? No more, if you are a Central</DIV>
<DIV>Board of Secondary Education student. Starting this </DIV>
<DIV>year, the CBSE board has decided to get lenient about </DIV>
<DIV>spelling mistakes and will soon issue a set of </DIV>
<DIV>guidelines to examiners on areas where they should </DIV>
<DIV>ignore bad spellings.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>So, while an examinee will be penalised for spelling</DIV>
<DIV>errors in essays, letters or specific English language</DIV>
<DIV>tests, if he writes horror as 'horor' in a literature exam</DIV>
<DIV>or his comprehension passage has a couple of crooked</DIV>
<DIV>spellings, marks will not be slashed. The same applies</DIV>
<DIV>to science subjects and other social sciences.</DIV>
<DIV>...........</DIV>
<DIV>.....</DIV>
<DIV>Pavnesh Kumar, CBSE controller of Examinations</DIV>
<DIV>told ... " In history, we'll try to find out if a child is aware</DIV>
<DIV>of a certain event, if he understands an issue. A</DIV>
<DIV>history exam shouldn't be treated on par with a </DIV>
<DIV>spelling test. "</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Kumar says today's children are "extremely weak" in</DIV>
<DIV>spellings and blames the "change in mode of teaching</DIV>
<DIV>at schools" for this. Spelling and dictation classes are </DIV>
<DIV>passe, and the focus is on developing communication skills. </DIV>
<DIV>"It is therefore wrong to penalise kids for spelling</DIV>
<DIV>goof-ups if they have the right answers", he says.</DIV>
<DIV>"Too much usage of computers is also causing this".</DIV>
<DIV>......</DIV>
<DIV>......</DIV>
<DIV>.....</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>(News ends, now my comments)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Here I recall that ESL (English Second Language)</DIV>
<DIV>people already outnumber EFL (English First Language)</DIV>
<DIV>people, and the difference is widening day by day.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I also recall that India is world's largest user of</DIV>
<DIV>English language, next to USA and UK.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>I further recall that Prof David Crystal (noted </DIV>
<DIV>Linguist) visited Pune in October 2004. At a talk, </DIV>
<DIV>arranged by British Library, he observed that the </DIV>
<DIV>future of English language depends, to a large extent, </DIV>
<DIV>on how it develops in India.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Game of cricket originated in England and only</DIV>
<DIV>players in that country were architects of various</DIV>
<DIV>rules of the game. In last over 50 years, the game</DIV>
<DIV>bacame International, and only an International</DIV>
<DIV>committee now has authority to revise the rules. </DIV>
<DIV>Same thing now applies to English language.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>Article "Sister languages" in my website suggests</DIV>
<DIV>changing English spellings within Indian languages.</DIV>
<DIV>For example use (v) as (w-win). But that need not</DIV>
<DIV>apply to the world wide English spelling reforms.</DIV>
<DIV>After all, German takes (v) equal to (f) in English.</DIV>
<DIV>Let all languages follow their own course. A</DIV>
<DIV>uniform world script is ideal but not practical.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>You may circulate.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV>-- Madhukar N Gogate (Pune India)<BR>Email <A
href="mailto:mngogate@vsnl.com">mngogate@vsnl.com</A><BR><A
href="http://www.mngogate.com">www.mngogate.com</A> (updated Oct 1,
2005)</DIV>
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