Hindi goes as well

[danohu]

What I didn't mention in the last post - because I didn't believe it - was that Sanskrit isn't the only course going. Cambridge is also closing the Hindi department. This is something like the fourth most widely-spoken language in the world, 400 million speakers (many more if you include urdu speakers, and speakers of hindi as a second language). How does nobody think it might be useful for somebody to be able to speak this language?

Comments

[adamdobay.livejournal.com]

Woah. Is this only restructuring, I mean will they put part of Hindi / Sanskrit studies into a different department (like they just did with a number of majors at my university ELTE) or will it cease to exist entirely?

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

They're ending South Asian Studies as a course in itself. Students in a couple of other departments (classics, theology, maybe modern languages) will be able to take a paper in Sanskrit or Hindi, but not to concentrate on it fully.

[adamdobay.livejournal.com]

That quite sucks. At ELTE presently they're quietly doing the same to smaller study programs like drama pedagogy and a branch of cultural anthropology, while elsewhere (quite stupidly) they've ended the majors for Film, Communication, Philosophy, Aesthetics and two others, and put them under a generic major, so everyone will now study a bit of everything when they go there, which is quite stupid in my opinion.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

yes. Studying bits of things is OK, but one of the best things about university is getting obsessively fascinated with some little corner. That's the only way you move beyond just paraphrasing what you've read in textbooks, and get to contribute original research.

One of the big problems with academic Sanskrit (outside India) is that people mostly come to it via some other route - generally, Latin and Greek, but sometimes theology. That means they end up with a fairly warped perspective. The advantage of starting on Sanskrit as an undergraduate is that you get the chance to study your subject in itself, not as a spin-off.

[adamdobay.livejournal.com]

Exactly, especially that everything Eastern requires a specific mindset. We are taught to believe that most of Eastern concepts rhyme with concepts of our Middle Ages Christian upbringing (some of which, like the system of penalties and rewards, permeate most non-Christian families as well), when they do not really. It took me quite a time to realize that Eastern thought is in some parts requires a radically different way of thinking. So the sooner you start that the better, and if you start out your Eastern studies based on Western&Christian stuff, well that's not very good.

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

Bloody hell. :-(

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

That sounds bad. However, Sussex were going to close the Chemistry department, but it was stopped due to protest!

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

I think this decision is pretty firm - everybody involved seems resigned to it (and mostly, they're resigning as well). Basically, everything's going to move to Oxford :(

[hulegu.livejournal.com]

Language programmes under threat. Sounds familiar. SOAS, my alma mater, recently announced plans to cease teaching Bengali, but I think they've now scrapped that idea in the face of overwhelming student-led protests. However, I seem to remember reading in Robert Irwin's For Lust of Knowing (his recent splendid defense of orientalists) that Cambridge was having trouble filling its Chair for either Persian or Arabic, due to lack of outstanding candidates? or was it Oxford? I forget which.

ps. found yr lj via your other blog via Registan. Mind if I add you as a friend?

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

sure, nice to (not quite) meet you.

I think SOAS has just got the last Hindi lecturer from Cambridge, Francesca Orsini.

The problem with sanskrit/hindi is really at the school level - children don't realise that these courses are even options, so they don't apply. Then there aren't enough students to justify teaching the course.

FWIW. Oxford seems to have a brilliant and thriving Sanskrit department, which will no doubt continue to embed itself as the centre of everything old and south asian.

[hulegu.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's the result of that old Thatherite canard, market-driven demand. The customers (sorry, students ... ), apparently, don't want it, so the universities stop stocking (sorry, offering ... ) it.

On a slightly related note, SOAS advertises all sorts of weird and wonderful languages through its Language Centre programme (essentially evening classes) but actually only holds classes for a handful.

The current government has made all sorts of promises regarding the expansion of language-training, but has yet to deliver on any of them.