Hindi

18 May 2008 - 6:52pm — mcadambi

[In response to this comment]

Mr Agarwal,

At the outset i wish to clarify that i do not have any personal animosity towards you or the armed forces.

W.r.t Army land in the prime CBD - this is what is the bone of contention. Such prime land could be better used for economic purposes than sitting idlly, for which the army has no use.

Hindi IS NOT the NATIONAL LANGUAGE. It was never meant to be and it will never be. I am only thankfully to Thiru C N Annadurai for putting a end to hindi hegemony. I shudder to think if India had embraced Hindi - the whole country would have become another Bihar.

Secondly, since when did articulating the right for Kannada and Karnataka become parochialism? For your own safety, i wish you keep your criticism of Kannada and Karnataka low. Doesn't it ever occur to you that we kannadigas have given our legitimate lands for enjoyment??? It is only due to our big heartedness and accomodativeness have people like Sir M Vishveshwariah (of Telugu origin) have settled down and contributed to our Kannada nation.

Why shouldn't Kannadigas fight for their legitimate rights? And why is Article 16-18 of the Constitution not applicable to the Army?

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Well, Hindi too is no better

silkboard - 31 May 2008 - 1:07am

In the picture you posted, except for the bit for toilet ('shauchalaya'), Hindi too is all transliteration. See drop off/pick up. But the thing about Hindi is that it has no real 'owner' that will feel offended and take up the 'cause' :)

Hindi no good either

santsub - 31 May 2008 - 1:10am

SB even parking is not hindi its transliteration - BIAL needs consultants from Kannada and Hindi depts to get the words right :)

At least can we go and correct them to get Kannada right >>>??

hindi

tsubba - 31 May 2008 - 1:18am

i think we need to lay off bial's back as far as language is concerned. they have done above par on kannada. their website even has a namaskara. trust a european to understand call of the locals. check hial,mial,dial etc.. they got boorNaas to show for local. every single board i have seen at bial has kannada script, perhaps the words are english but the script is kannada. and lets face it, nobody ever says naan sauchalaya hogbeku. paaykhaane, ucche huyyakke/kakkas/sandas/mukha toLoyoke hogbeku perhaps. but nobody says sauchalaya. but bathroom hogbeku is pretty common. if bathroom works. use bathroom. what is the big deal? atleast the script is in kannada. like all airports in the country, they need to implement hindi mandatorily. MoCA has special awards for hindi implementation at airports. if a few texts here and few there earns them brownie points with MoCA then we should not begrudge them. also, more importantly remember we are a part of a union in which devanagari script and sanskrit words are the defacto sources of vocabulary. as long as kannada is there we should be ok. lets face it nobody will ever read either the hindi or the kannada boards. its mostly psychological operations. but i can appreciate the value in that.

Hindi Prachar Sabha?

tango08 - 31 May 2008 - 1:40am

TS

BIAL is a public-private partnership and is a profit making enterprise. It is not a charity project of the Hindi prachar sabha, is it? So what's wrong in expecting BIAL to demonstrate cultural sensitivity to the people of the land where they will make their profits from? Ok, there might be so called "regulations" designed to impose Hindi, but can't they ensure basic compliance by having Hindi signage in a smaller font while giving primacy to English and Kannada? What is the point in going overdrive?

P.S: I saw signage that were exclusively in Hindi/English not only in the BIAL territory, but also on NH7 at some distance from the trumpet interchange.

Hindi Signages

narayan82 - 31 May 2008 - 7:51am

Having worked on signage development for a few airports in India (except Bengaluru), I can comfortably say that Hindi is there only because of Regulations! Regulations by the govt. say the Hindi and the Local language MUST be present. Research on the othe r hand says that something like 1.2% of the users read the Hindi Signage, and less then 1% read the local language. Interestingly, those who cant read English, prefer to ask than read the hindi/local language sign! I feel,if you want to showcase your language and local culture, dont use Signage as a Medium. Let signage be more practical and serve the purpose. Local language/culture can be promoted in many ways. The busses could carry interesting graphics on it (instead of a fish like plane smiling!!) The Cabs can carry a small booklet on the local culture - something for the pax to read on the journey. Such methods would allow for a better entrance into the user's mind than blare it on him where he doesnt wish to see it.

Narayan Gopalan
User Interaction Designer
Bangalore

Mktg Local Culture - Great Ideas

Naveen - 31 May 2008 - 9:08am

Very Good Suggestions, Narayan.

I also beleive zealots have been going overboard over trivial issues - there are better & more 'cultured' ways of promoting one's culture.

BIAL buses could welcome passengers with a heritage mural mounted within the bus near the entrance, say a small model of Vidhana Soudha or a bust of Nadaprabhu KG, or a Basava & other heritage picture displays within the bus (Each bus can be different - if there is agreement, you cud include this in future interaction with BMTC & corporates cud finance this).

Cabs could carry a booklet about the local culture. This is already being done at some places. At Rome, when one takes a taxi tour of the city, the travel co. keeps a lot of material within the taxi for the tourists, incldg such booklets, maps & other info, & I had thought that it was a great service.

Developing Material

narayan82 - 31 May 2008 - 9:26am

I would be interested in developing such material. If maybe we can get through to the KSTDC to publish such material, then they can hand it out free to the Cabs and the Busses.

Narayan Gopalan
User Interaction Designer
Bangalore

Just Lay off BIAL!

Vinay - 11 Nov 2008 - 11:18pm

Its a rather old thread that I am reviving, but I think now, after BIAL has completed a fair amount of time operating, we can judge better. Having traveled to and through BIAL a few times now, I can assure you that several locals have been employed there, quite a lot of them from Devanahalli/Chikkajala and surrounding villages. Creating awareness for the Kannada cause is one thing, but there are too many Zealots and Fanatics here. We have Kannada in the airport, and as tarlesubba rightly pointed out, the impact is psychological, and agreed, it is important. But all this nitpicking on font sizes, 'literal transliteration', etc. is crap. A large percentage of this is 'perceived injustice'. Get out of this mindset. And mcadambi, what's with the 'safety' stuff in your first comment? That's supposed to be a threat or friendly advice??

I am quite frankly suprised

blrpraj - 2 Jan 2009 - 2:56am

I am quite frankly suprised by the animosity in some of the comments in this thread, especially considering that almost all the folks in this forum are most likely well educated and well travelled folks. There is no necessity of being pro Kannada or anti Kannada OR pro local/anti local etc. I think the language aspect as far as the armed services go does not even merit a discussion if we think logically. We need an efficient fighting force that can interact&communicate AND be deployable in any location Nationally or Internationally at short notice. It becomes only logical that the members of the armed forces be proficient in 1 or 2 of the languages having the widest reach. Would we rather have a competition on which should be the language used in the armed forces (Kannada/Bengali/Gujarati/Marathi etc.) or would we rather concentrate on building a better fighting force more modernized with better equipment? I would settle for the latter. And regarding BIAL, the statement that English&Hindi are receiving prominence is simply not true. First of all let's be thankful that there are decent signs. Secondly, from the photo in http://praja.in/bangalore..., the graphics are more prominent(which is the way to go). The 3 languages (Hindi,English & Kannada) are equally prominent. I wish these signs are adopted as a standard accross all airports in India to provide a consistent user experience. The only difference is that the regional language of the respective state would replace Kannada in those signs. End result would be signs that serve the purpose (effective means of communication to the airport users) & there would be no controversy.

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