Language--a bridge or a divider by Nilangshu123

It has always baffled as to why a national language like HINDI does not provide the uniformity that a language is supposed to do. The language has different connotations for male and female references and that has always prompted me to tag it as a sexist language. After all why should a language have different words to describe a situation for a male and a female!!!! 

A language is supposed to be a bridge and weave out all differences--be it religion, sex, caste, etc. And when one is speaking it, he/she should be more concerned about conveying and communicating and not about which word to use inorder to convey it in a "sexistly" correct manner. If we are to look at a few languages around the world and in India, we notice this uniform approach very glaringly. The most spoken language in the world is Mandarin Chinese and second spoken is English. Do they have this gender difference? No. Within India, other regional languages like the south indian ones or Bengali, Assamese, Oriya also do not possess this odd characteristic as pronouncedly as it can be seen in Hindi. 

So why couldnt Hindi be like them? And why did it have to be so sexist and a gender-differentiating one? Is it because there existed some staunch sexists when the translations happened or is it because the translators wanted to be different? These questions however go unanswered and unpondered, as people have learned to be gender-cautious while speaking in Hindi.

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Comments

ChrissieJo

08 September 2009

Embrace your culture and language. Value the diversity you have in your language too. 

Sometimes, the reference to a woman in certain situations accords then the due respect and so too to a man. Who says the English language does not have it's own way of addressing man / woman separately in situations? Even the tone and manner of of speaking may vary, when referring to a situation involving certain gender and the message the tone of speaking or accompanying facial expresssions or body language gives are even more important than spoken words.

I Don't know much about Mandarin so I can't comment.

Everything does not have to be politically correct. Nothing is perfect so chill.........