WHY ARE INDIANS SO FLUENT IN ENGLISH?

Nancy wrote:

<< When it comes to learning english, indians from india are always ahead of other asian countries. They learn so quickly and are so confident when speaking english. >>

Guest wrote:

<< love that comment! indians from India, as if it would be any other way. Indians comes from India, Red indians comes from america. Hope that sorted out the confusion. >>

In the UK, the simple term "Indians" refers to people from India because of the nation's long association with India. In the US, "Indians" has meant, for a very long time, the people who lived here since before the Europeans arrive. Even though the current PC term is "Native Americans," many people -- including many Native Americans -- still use the term "Indians". We don't say "Red Indians" here. We usually say, if there's a need to clarify, Indians from India.

Hope that sorted out the confusion.

It happens the same in Spanish with the word "indio". The PC way to say it would be "amerindio" or "indígena".

The only reason that Native Americans are called Indians is because Columbus got his berrings a bit wrong.

There realy is only one type of Indian and that is the one in India.
Portuguese dosen't share the problem that English has because the name for a Natvie American is Indio and a Indian is Indiano.

Even though Portugal had old colonies in South America (Brazil) and in India (Goa and Demão and at one time most of costal India including Sri Lanka) there never was this confusion.

So the only person to blame is Columbus for always insisting on having reached India by sea when the first european to do so after the Roman era was Vasco de Gama.

The name indian is based on the countries name (India) not on long association.

There are 15 main national languages in India. Only one of them is an offical language, too : Hindi. There is only a second official language : English.

Every official document in India is written in English only.

My wife is Indian, and all the young people belonging to my Indian family speak English. Not perfectly, but it is most of the time suitable for the everyday speach.

My daughters are bilingual and speak both French and Tamil. When they speak Tamil, I am always surprise to see that they are using many English words instead of Tamil ones (Fan, current, light, wait, school, phone, road, book, pen, channel, ....).

I have more than the mere impression that English comes naturally to Indians. I have never noticed a rejection of English by Indians, as it is the case in many other parts of the world.

Cheers.

>>I have more than the mere impression that English comes naturally to Indians. I have never noticed a rejection of English by Indians, as it is the case in many other parts of the world.<<

The reason is that English is more neutral with respect to internal social matters within India itself than languages native to India due to its being removed from India overall. For example, in many cases, English may be preferable over Hindi in the Dravidian-speaking South, for such kinds of reasons.

<< Nancy Wed Jul 26, 2006 5:00 pm GMT
<<There are many, many languages in India. Perhaps it's useful as a lingua franca?>>

So indians speak mainly in english among themselves? Is that really true?

Guest Wed Jul 26, 2006 5:35 pm GMT
is that what i said? >>



I meant "is it a FACT that indians speak mainly in english among themselves?"

our languages are soft to utter so for we can speak speedy and this practics we often impose on learning others languages.

Indian well not speak only english but are very intelligent to learn and pick up news things in short period . indians r peacefully peole and love humanity - love india and my country of residence Norway


i hate spam

Kenyans speak English better than most ethnic groups too. In fact I encourage those of you whom love to travel to visit Kenya. It is a beautiful country with no civil strife and nearly everyone you encounter will speak English to a certain degree.