Metaglossia: The Translation World

It's official: 'Double patronage' for Hindi yet it languishes
By DINESH C SHARMA
PUBLISHED: 21:46 GMT, 27 September 2012 | UPDATED: 21:46 GMT, 27 September 2012
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It may sound absurd but it is true - two ministries of the Indian government have been tasked with exactly the same mandate and are dutifully pumping in almost the same level of funding over the past half a century.
The task in question is promotion of Hindi as official language of the central government and the two ministries involved are the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) and the ministry of home affairs (MHA).
Both the ministries have an extensive web of directorates, subordinate offices, translation bureaus and training institutes spread across several cities in the country doing exactly the same thing in parallel.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2209638/Work-overlap-Two-ministries-promoting-Hindi-languishes.html#ixzz27tardl5q
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Johannesburg: The 9th World Hindi Conference will begin here on Saturday, seeking to promote and widen the reach of Hindi, the world's second most spoken language.

The three-day event will be held at the Sandton Convention Centre.

In view of Mahatma Gandhi's historic association with South Africa, the main venue has been named as 'Gandhigram' for the event.

The conference will see the participation of about 700 non-native Hindi speaking scholars and delegates.

The event will be inaugurated by Indian Minister of State of External Affairs Preneet Kaur and a South African minister.

The theme of the conference this year will be "Identity of Language and Globalisation of Hindi".

The conference would also have nine academic sessions on subjects such as Mahatma Gandhi's linguistic vision; Hindi and modern technology; role of Indian epics in propagation of Hindi; contribution of foreign scholars in dissemination of Hindi; Mass media and Hindi, etc.

Why is Hindi not at the United Nations?
Submitted by admin4 on 21 September 2012 - 10:49am
Articles India News International
By Madhuker Upadhyay, IANS,

Ahead of the ninth World Hindi Convention in Johannesburg, South Africa (Sep 22-24), it defies logic why Hindi, a language spoken by over half a billion people, or every 10th person on the planet, should feel threatened and require state protection to breath normally.

A popular language has its own ways of dealing with challenges and changing times. It can never be stunted. Languages have their own set of tools. With everything around it changing, it also grows by adding new words and phrases and by altering grammar when needed.

Though not opposed to celebrating a language, I feel that organising Hindi Days or Weeks signals as if the language is on its death bed.

In fact, it is quite the opposite. People know the strength of their language and are proud of it. For them, it expresses emotions and moves lives and markets. It does many more things beyond mere communication.

Whether or not Hindi becomes one of the official languages at the UN is a different issue, inconsequential to its growth. If the state feels the language may add to national image, allowing India to play a bigger role globally, it should take up the cudgels.

Unfortunately, this has not happened despite eight World Hindi Conventions over the last 30 years.

According to rough calculations by the external affairs ministry, an investment of over Rs.100 crore is required to install Hindi at the UN as its sixth official language. The figure was given out at the time of the Suriname Hindi conference.

But that is probably the easier part. For Hindi to be there at the UN it needs support of a desired number of General Assembly members and no opposition from the Big 5.

The Johannesburg convention will pass resolutions and probably forget the issue for four years.

The core issue, however, is the growth of Hindi at home. It definitely has wide reach but, sadly, does not show much sign of life in thought and content.