nothing has changed after all these years

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i was out on a walk with my pooch and my daughter this afternoon. i met an elderly indian couple who were obviously visiting their son/daughter. turns out they were from s.lamberdar's home state. they stopped us and wanted to talk to us. we did, and they kept conversing with us in hindi and i stubbornly stuck to english. at the end, the older gentleman asked my daughter, "beti you don't speak hindi?". my daughter perked up and replied, "no but i do speak tamil". crestfallen, mr. sanjan (not his real name), said, "oh you must ask your father to teach you hindi". my young daughter wholly unaware of the language politics remarked, "dad that guy is weird. why isn't he impressed that i speak a language besides my native tongue?"

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i was out on a walk with my pooch and my daughter this afternoon. i met an elderly indian couple who were obviously visiting their son/daughter. turns out they were from s.lamberdar's home state. they stopped us and wanted to talk to us. we did, and they kept conversing with us in hindi and i stubbornly stuck to english. at the end, the older gentleman asked my daughter, "beti you don't speak hindi?". my daughter perked up and replied, "no but i do speak tamil". crestfallen, mr. sanjan (not his real name), said, "oh you must ask your father to teach you hindi". my young daughter wholly unaware of the language politics remarked, "dad that guy is weird. why isn't he impressed that i speak a language besides my native tongue?"

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i was out on a walk with my pooch and my daughter this afternoon. i met an elderly indian couple who were obviously visiting their son/daughter. turns out they were from s.lamberdar's home state. they stopped us and wanted to talk to us. we did, and they kept conversing with us in hindi and i stubbornly stuck to english. at the end, the older gentleman asked my daughter, "beti you don't speak hindi?". my daughter perked up and replied, "no but i do speak tamil". crestfallen, mr. sanjan (not his real name), said, "oh you must ask your father to teach you hindi". my young daughter wholly unaware of the language politics remarked, "dad that guy is weird. why isn't he impressed that i speak a language besides my native tongue?"

rawemotions wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i was out on a walk with my pooch and my daughter this afternoon. i met an elderly indian couple who were obviously visiting their son/daughter. turns out they were from s.lamberdar's home state. they stopped us and wanted to talk to us. we did, and they kept conversing with us in hindi and i stubbornly stuck to english. at the end, the older gentleman asked my daughter, "beti you don't speak hindi?". my daughter perked up and replied, "no but i do speak tamil". crestfallen, mr. sanjan (not his real name), said, "oh you must ask your father to teach you hindi". my young daughter wholly unaware of the language politics remarked, "dad that guy is weird. why isn't he impressed that i speak a language besides my native tongue?"

Am confused. I thought Tamil is your native tongue. Does your daughter have a different native language ?

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i was out on a walk with my pooch and my daughter this afternoon. i met an elderly indian couple who were obviously visiting their son/daughter. turns out they were from s.lamberdar's home state. they stopped us and wanted to talk to us. we did, and they kept conversing with us in hindi and i stubbornly stuck to english. at the end, the older gentleman asked my daughter, "beti you don't speak hindi?". my daughter perked up and replied, "no but i do speak tamil". crestfallen, mr. sanjan (not his real name), said, "oh you must ask your father to teach you hindi". my young daughter wholly unaware of the language politics remarked, "dad that guy is weird. why isn't he impressed that i speak a language besides my native tongue?"

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i was out on a walk with my pooch and my daughter this afternoon. i met an elderly indian couple who were obviously visiting their son/daughter. turns out they were from s.lamberdar's home state. they stopped us and wanted to talk to us. we did, and they kept conversing with us in hindi and i stubbornly stuck to english. at the end, the older gentleman asked my daughter, "beti you don't speak hindi?". my daughter perked up and replied, "no but i do speak tamil". crestfallen, mr. sanjan (not his real name), said, "oh you must ask your father to teach you hindi". my young daughter wholly unaware of the language politics remarked, "dad that guy is weird. why isn't he impressed that i speak a language besides my native tongue?"

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i was out on a walk with my pooch and my daughter this afternoon. i met an elderly indian couple who were obviously visiting their son/daughter. turns out they were from s.lamberdar's home state. they stopped us and wanted to talk to us. we did, and they kept conversing with us in hindi and i stubbornly stuck to english. at the end, the older gentleman asked my daughter, "beti you don't speak hindi?". my daughter perked up and replied, "no but i do speak tamil". crestfallen, mr. sanjan (not his real name), said, "oh you must ask your father to teach you hindi". my young daughter wholly unaware of the language politics remarked, "dad that guy is weird. why isn't he impressed that i speak a language besides my native tongue?"

b_A wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i was out on a walk with my pooch and my daughter this afternoon. i met an elderly indian couple who were obviously visiting their son/daughter. turns out they were from s.lamberdar's home state. they stopped us and wanted to talk to us. we did, and they kept conversing with us in hindi and i stubbornly stuck to english. at the end, the older gentleman asked my daughter, "beti you don't speak hindi?". my daughter perked up and replied, "no but i do speak tamil". crestfallen, mr. sanjan (not his real name), said, "oh you must ask your father to teach you hindi". my young daughter wholly unaware of the language politics remarked, "dad that guy is weird. why isn't he impressed that i speak a language besides my native tongue?"

So were you conversing with him in hindi ? How did he know that you know hindi if you stubbornly stuck to English?

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:

b_A wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i was out on a walk with my pooch and my daughter this afternoon. i met an elderly indian couple who were obviously visiting their son/daughter. turns out they were from s.lamberdar's home state. they stopped us and wanted to talk to us. we did, and they kept conversing with us in hindi and i stubbornly stuck to english. at the end, the older gentleman asked my daughter, "beti you don't speak hindi?". my daughter perked up and replied, "no but i do speak tamil". crestfallen, mr. sanjan (not his real name), said, "oh you must ask your father to teach you hindi". my young daughter wholly unaware of the language politics remarked, "dad that guy is weird. why isn't he impressed that i speak a language besides my native tongue?"

So were you conversing with him in hindi ? How did he know that you know hindi if you stubbornly stuck to English?

he was addressing me in hindi and i was replying back in english.

Rashmun wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i was out on a walk with my pooch and my daughter this afternoon. i met an elderly indian couple who were obviously visiting their son/daughter. turns out they were from s.lamberdar's home state. they stopped us and wanted to talk to us. we did, and they kept conversing with us in hindi and i stubbornly stuck to english. at the end, the older gentleman asked my daughter, "beti you don't speak hindi?". my daughter perked up and replied, "no but i do speak tamil". crestfallen, mr. sanjan (not his real name), said, "oh you must ask your father to teach you hindi". my young daughter wholly unaware of the language politics remarked, "dad that guy is weird. why isn't he impressed that i speak a language besides my native tongue?"

I had two interesting somewhat related experiences. Once there was a conversation between the cleaning guy, myself, and two other people at my workplace. The cleaning guy is Nepali and the other two people were Maharashtrian and Pakistani. We were using hindi to converse with each other even though when I talk individually with the Marathi or Pakistani it is in English ( but when talking individually with the Nepali guy the conversation is in Hindi).
Then there is a Kashmiri Muslim guy at my workplace who always talks to me in Hindi. Once he, a Pakistani ( not the one mentioned earlier, this is a second Pakistani) and a Hyderabadi Hindu were together with me and the conversation was again in Hindi.

I recall a Nepali person in Vellore telling me that he is unhappy about how some Tamils pretend not to know hindi even when they know the language. His point was he should be allowed to communicate in Hindi with a Tamilian who knows hindi. since his first language is Nepali , which the Tamil does not know , the allegation of bias and linguistic chauvinism should not apply to someone like him.