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September 21, 2013

Comments

"Today, that diglossia is gone." Really?

The analogy with English is interesting. And it will be interesting to see where English in India is in five and ten years. It will be interesting to see where English is in the rest of the world in five or ten years.

Thanks for posting.

Yeah, there's no diglossia with Sanskrit in the South (or anywhere), anymore; there's no longer any social class or context in which people actually converse (or even write for a readership) in Sanskrit. (Sanskrit is apparently a deader language in India than it is even in Chicago today!)

But there's surely a diglossia with English. As you say, it will be interesting to see how this develops. I would say that even in the past 10 years, I can see a marked penetration of English deeper into Indian contexts. Even many of the same people who already spoke English 10 years ago, seem much more comfortable and fluent in it today, and it also appears that far more people are speaking it in ever broader social settings. It looks like it would take some major shifts in geopolitical/economic realities to stop or even slow down this trend in India.

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