Friday, February 27, 2004

The Daily Princetonian - University to offer Hindi language classes in the fall semester

"Ravi Shah '06 came to Princeton with a mission to bring Hindi — the national language of India, which boasts the second-largest population in the world — to the classroom. Just a year and a half later, although he said he finds it almost hard to believe, the University will offer beginner courses in Hindi starting next fall. Intermediate and advanced Hindi classes will be offered the following year for the first time ever at Princeton."
...

'Teens, young adults no longer favour English' : HindustanTimes.com/UK: News for UK Asians:

"English is slowly losing its popularity among 15-24 year-olds, according to a language expert. It is expected that in the world language table, English will be overtaken by Hindi/Urdu and Arabic in the next 50 years.

According to David Graddol, a language consultant writing in the journal Science, nine years ago English (372 million) was second only to Chinese (1.1 billion) in terms of the overall number of people speaking it as their first language.

Graddol, director of the Milton Keynes-based consultancy, The English Company (UK) Ltd, said that by 2050 English will lose its supremacy and slip to fourth among 15-24 year olds. Chinese will dominate in this age group, with 166 million speakers, followed by Hindi/Urdu (73.7 million) and Arabic (72.2 million). English speakers will number 65 million."

Saturday, February 21, 2004

A bunch of blogs in Hindi
In Hindi, not about hindi.

  • अभिव्यक्ति

  • कही अनकही

  • बेदिल

  • नुक्ताचीनी

  • नौ दो ग्यारह - पुराना

  • नौ दो ग्यारह

  • लाईफ ईन ए एचओवी लेन

  • हृदयगाथा

  • हाँ भई

  • Tuesday, February 17, 2004

    Microsoft Office in Hindi now:

    "Microsoft India has launched the Hindi version of its popular Office software which includes Microsoft Word, Excel, Frontpage, Powerpoint and Outlook among others.

    Called 'Office Hindi', the product includes a Hindi language interface will allow users to create documents and communicate with others in Hindi and navigate easily using the menus and toolbars that will be in Hindi.

    Microsoft has termed the release as 'reiterating the commitment to taking IT to the grassroots.'

    'Office Hindi will bring about a productivity revolution among those untouched by the power of computing due to language barriers. We expect this offering to be particularly popular with central and state government, public sector undertakings, the banking industry, educational institutes and the local developer community,' says Rajiv Kaul, Managing Director, Microsoft India.

    The two editions of the product, Office Hindi Professional and Office Hindi Standard, will be available through Microsoft's regular sales channels. Microsoft has also announced the availability of online resources, training material and partner support to ensure that customers can smoothly adopt and integrate the offering into their infrastructure."