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

[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.