THE KALAM EFFECT: MY YEARS WITH THE PRESIDENT
by P.M. Nair
HarperCollins
Pages: 180; Rs. 250
Reviewed by Inder Malhotra
Of the 14 presidents this country has had so far, only R. Venkataraman, now in his 90s, has written an eminently readable book on his years in Rashtrapati Bhavan. Giani Zail Singh also wrote a memoir of sorts that someone else translated into English, but it had little to say. Captain (later Colonel) R. Dutt, an ADC to the first two presidents, Rajendra Prasad and S. Radhakrishnan, recounted those years in With Two Presidents.
Now we have P.M. Nair’s account and assessment of his years as secretary to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. The title of this slim book, The Kalam Effect, gives its essence. Kalam had handpicked Nair for the secretary’s job. The two had worked together in harmony at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre at Thumba in the early ’80s, Kalam as a respected scientist and the ias officer as the centre’s "Controller". Ironically, Nair was reluctant to take up the offer, until two men he respected told him tersely "not to be a bloody fool" but jump at it.
Nair’s deep admiration for Kalam is as manifest in this book as the trust reposed in him by the president he served.
Kalam always got a lot of mail. In one, a woman from Patna offered to be the "Official Hostess of Rashtrapati Bhavan".
Yet, to his credit, the author hasn’t gone overboard. In the words of Fali S. Nariman, who has contributed a brief Foreword, Nair has written on Kalam’s undoubted qualities "with frankness, sincerity and affectionate reverence, and without flattery and fawning". His portrait of the great
scientist-turned-arguably the most popular president makes no attempt to hide the warts. Kalam’s unfailing unpunctuality was a source of much inconvenience and irritation all round, but he made no attempt to remedy it. Ditto his penchant to be pedagogic at almost all gatherings, including breakfast meetings to which he invited members of Parliament and other distinguished people. Heavily outweighing these flaws were Kalam’s simplicity, humility, uprightness and, above all, sterling integrity. Refusing to spend public money on an ostentatious Iftar dinner—a must during the month of Ramzan for everyone in high office—he directed that the estimated two-and-a-half lakh rupees to be spent on the lavish meal be donated—in kind, not cash—to orphanages. He also insisted on contributing a lakh of rupees from his personal resources.
The "newsy" and "juicy" parts of the book have already been publicised. But among its other notable sidelights is Nair’s account of the President’s "morning meetings" that usually took place in the afternoon. Kalam was always willing to listen to views contrary to his. He was also punctilious about paying detailed attention to every piece of paper or e-mail received at Rashtrapati Bhavan or on his website. Their volume was enormous and some letters were clearly sent by mentally disturbed people. A particularly hilarious communication was from a woman in Patna offering to serve as "Official Hostess (First Lady) of Rashtrapati Bhavan", and stating that the letter had the consent of her husband, "a free-minded social being".
Of Nair’s own flaws, a major one is that even while trying to be objective, he sometimes errs on the side of subjectivity. A glaring example is his laboured and lame defence of the prompt presidential assent, from distant Moscow, to the May 2005 dissolution of the Bihar assembly, rightly held by the Supreme Court to be unconstitutional and improper. Interestingly, according to Nair, while the President was mulling the issue, it was he who had advised Kalam, "Sir, please sign." Similarly, it is true that popular support for a second term for Kalam was overwhelming. But the spin Nair tries to put on Kalam’s shifting statements on the subject is untenable.
Nair recounts former chief justice of India M.N.Venkatachaliah as telling him that sitting next to President Kalam, the CJI had felt "palpable sensations of godliness and divinity reverberating in me..." Was it because of this touch of divinity that heavy rain that looked like washing out the President’s Independence Day reception stopped in good time and resumed just as he had left? The panicky dispersing glitterati and chatterati were saved from being drenched by the 2,000 umbrellas thoughtfully collected in advance. But, as Nair charmingly puts it, at the end of the day a large number of umbrellas were "found missing".
Altogether, The Kalam Effect is a nice read that should not be missed.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Lord Jeffrey Archer by SHEELA REDDY
The outlook
Magazine| Jun 02, 2008
profile
Man Of Conviction
The best-selling author, soaking up the sun in India, shoots from his quiver
SHEELA REDDY
No wonder Lord Jeffrey Archer, ex-armyman,-politician, -convict,-cop, adores Indians: they read his doorstopper books by the thousands, if not the millions he boasts he sells here; they recognise him with the right mix of adoration and reverence on the streets and cafes—when he got off the plane and gave his passport for checking, the clerk was so excited that he called all his friends who crowded around for his autograph. And they're too "gentle and well-mannered" to rake up his chequered past, unlike "the jealous and envious people" back home. It's the stuff of Archer's wildest dreams.
"You saw them last night," he gloats, referring to the first stop in his six-city author tour organised by the Landmark bookchain, at a bookstore in Gurgaon that was gratifyingly packed. "Don't you think any human being would like to come into a room like that, in any country on earth, and see it so full, all the way to the back, spilling over to the sides, you can't get in the room, can't get a seat? You think I didn't ring my wife last night and tell her: I had no idea it would be like this."
In Archer's version of his own life, he's a fighter who never gives up. His two years in prison for perjury was like a game of cricket which his adversaries thought he'd lost. Like V.V.S. Laxman and Rahul Dravid keeping the Australians at bay for a day. "That's how I fight back. The entire Australian nation against them and they just stay there the whole day. The Australians thought they had the game all wrapped up and those two just stay there and fight back."
Or like Nelson Mandela. "He was in jail for 27 years and came back to be one of the world's great leaders," he says. At the risk of damaging the nation's reputation for good manners, I remind him that Mandela didn't go to jail for paying off a prostitute and lying about it in court. But Archer is unfazed. "We all have our moments of despair," he explains. "The only difference is that mine hit the front pages of newspapers."
Nor, he claims, did his reputation take a beating. "My friends stood by me. I sent out 400 invitations to my champagne and shepherd's pie party the year after I left prison, and only eight people didn't reply out of 400." These parties for the rich and the knighted, now a familiar feature in the Archers' social life in London, are not the only sign of the former Tory vice-chief clawing back into high society. More important, he says, is that his readers—the "public," as he describes them grandly—stood by him. "The public bought more of my latest book, Prisoner of Birth, than any before I went to prison." And, admonishingly, as if he's had it with my prying questions: "So NO, lady, don't go down that road. My friends and the people stood with me. You mouldy journalists might have not." It's said half-jokingly, but still, in a tone that's half command, half appeal, he adds: "Don't print that."
Clearly, self-doubt is not Archer's thing. His life, he says, far from repeatedly leaving him facing public and personal ruin, has been one of "enormous privilege—a thrilling, exciting life". The best thing about going to jail, according to him, was "realising how privileged I was". He confides, "I have a friend who is dying of cancer, same age as I am. Got about a year to live." Then, leaning over to bring his face close to me, he adds dramatically: "You think he wouldn't do two years in jail for another twenty years on earth?" And then, in a repetitive flourish that his readers are familiar with: "I've got another friend who's just gone bankrupt. Sixty-seven years old. Same age as I am. (He's 68, but what's a year when you're making a point).You think he wouldn't do two years in jail to be as rich as me?"
"I always assumed I would be wealthy," says Archer, the third child of a man the English describe as a "chancer" and a nurse, who put him through public school by writing a column in a local newspaper. The story goes that Archer, having lost everything he owned in a stocks crash, immediately sat down to write a bestseller, Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less, to save himself from bankruptcy. But it was less to rescue himself from insolvency and more to fill the vacant hours that Archer says led to his multi-million- dollar writing career. "I couldn't get a job, and I had this good story in mind—about four people who lose their fortune and decide to steal it back from the man who robbed them." It was rejected by 17 publishers before it was finally signed up. "I got £3,000 for it and that doesn't get you out of trouble." It took another two books before Archer got a $3.2 million advance. "I didn't realise that my books would bring me wealth beyond my imagination," he says. Such wealth that the man who was once accused of fiddling with expense accounts (the original "Mr Ten Per Cent") and even of walking away with three suits without paying for them can now dismiss his banker son's suggestions for earning a quarter per cent more interest by saying: "Go away, I'm not interested in money. I want to live!"
It's hard work being number one on the bestseller lists and hanging there for three decades. "Thirty years ago, when I was on the top of the bestseller list it was Graham Green in second place, and now I have chicklit books chasing me." It's an Archerism I'm getting acquainted with: at once equating himself with Graham Green and chicklit, placing them both where they belong: in second place to him. Is he the 20-20, a form of cricket he avowedly despises, of literature? "That's insulting. That's like saying Dickens is 20-20, or Dumas. Or even Shakespeare. We fight just as hard for our skills. Storytelling is a god-given gift."
Each of his books, he claims, goes through 17 drafts—the first draft to get the story down and the rest to hone the art of making the reader turn the page. I venture, as gentle as any Indian, a query about the friends/editors who are rumoured to help him with the writing. He picks up his glass of juice and for a moment, watching his eyes narrow behind his steel-rimmed specs, I'm afraid he'll throw it at me. Instead, he takes a quick sip, places it firmly on the table and says—quietly, for a man who brags he'll never mellow: "That's a myth that died when I went to prison. No one can say I took a team of editors to prison with me." So that's yet another reason why prison was such a blessing for Jeffrey Archer.
© Outlook Publishing (India) Private Limited
Magazine| Jun 02, 2008
profile
Man Of Conviction
The best-selling author, soaking up the sun in India, shoots from his quiver
SHEELA REDDY
No wonder Lord Jeffrey Archer, ex-armyman,-politician, -convict,-cop, adores Indians: they read his doorstopper books by the thousands, if not the millions he boasts he sells here; they recognise him with the right mix of adoration and reverence on the streets and cafes—when he got off the plane and gave his passport for checking, the clerk was so excited that he called all his friends who crowded around for his autograph. And they're too "gentle and well-mannered" to rake up his chequered past, unlike "the jealous and envious people" back home. It's the stuff of Archer's wildest dreams.
"You saw them last night," he gloats, referring to the first stop in his six-city author tour organised by the Landmark bookchain, at a bookstore in Gurgaon that was gratifyingly packed. "Don't you think any human being would like to come into a room like that, in any country on earth, and see it so full, all the way to the back, spilling over to the sides, you can't get in the room, can't get a seat? You think I didn't ring my wife last night and tell her: I had no idea it would be like this."
In Archer's version of his own life, he's a fighter who never gives up. His two years in prison for perjury was like a game of cricket which his adversaries thought he'd lost. Like V.V.S. Laxman and Rahul Dravid keeping the Australians at bay for a day. "That's how I fight back. The entire Australian nation against them and they just stay there the whole day. The Australians thought they had the game all wrapped up and those two just stay there and fight back."
Or like Nelson Mandela. "He was in jail for 27 years and came back to be one of the world's great leaders," he says. At the risk of damaging the nation's reputation for good manners, I remind him that Mandela didn't go to jail for paying off a prostitute and lying about it in court. But Archer is unfazed. "We all have our moments of despair," he explains. "The only difference is that mine hit the front pages of newspapers."
Nor, he claims, did his reputation take a beating. "My friends stood by me. I sent out 400 invitations to my champagne and shepherd's pie party the year after I left prison, and only eight people didn't reply out of 400." These parties for the rich and the knighted, now a familiar feature in the Archers' social life in London, are not the only sign of the former Tory vice-chief clawing back into high society. More important, he says, is that his readers—the "public," as he describes them grandly—stood by him. "The public bought more of my latest book, Prisoner of Birth, than any before I went to prison." And, admonishingly, as if he's had it with my prying questions: "So NO, lady, don't go down that road. My friends and the people stood with me. You mouldy journalists might have not." It's said half-jokingly, but still, in a tone that's half command, half appeal, he adds: "Don't print that."
Clearly, self-doubt is not Archer's thing. His life, he says, far from repeatedly leaving him facing public and personal ruin, has been one of "enormous privilege—a thrilling, exciting life". The best thing about going to jail, according to him, was "realising how privileged I was". He confides, "I have a friend who is dying of cancer, same age as I am. Got about a year to live." Then, leaning over to bring his face close to me, he adds dramatically: "You think he wouldn't do two years in jail for another twenty years on earth?" And then, in a repetitive flourish that his readers are familiar with: "I've got another friend who's just gone bankrupt. Sixty-seven years old. Same age as I am. (He's 68, but what's a year when you're making a point).You think he wouldn't do two years in jail to be as rich as me?"
"I always assumed I would be wealthy," says Archer, the third child of a man the English describe as a "chancer" and a nurse, who put him through public school by writing a column in a local newspaper. The story goes that Archer, having lost everything he owned in a stocks crash, immediately sat down to write a bestseller, Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less, to save himself from bankruptcy. But it was less to rescue himself from insolvency and more to fill the vacant hours that Archer says led to his multi-million- dollar writing career. "I couldn't get a job, and I had this good story in mind—about four people who lose their fortune and decide to steal it back from the man who robbed them." It was rejected by 17 publishers before it was finally signed up. "I got £3,000 for it and that doesn't get you out of trouble." It took another two books before Archer got a $3.2 million advance. "I didn't realise that my books would bring me wealth beyond my imagination," he says. Such wealth that the man who was once accused of fiddling with expense accounts (the original "Mr Ten Per Cent") and even of walking away with three suits without paying for them can now dismiss his banker son's suggestions for earning a quarter per cent more interest by saying: "Go away, I'm not interested in money. I want to live!"
It's hard work being number one on the bestseller lists and hanging there for three decades. "Thirty years ago, when I was on the top of the bestseller list it was Graham Green in second place, and now I have chicklit books chasing me." It's an Archerism I'm getting acquainted with: at once equating himself with Graham Green and chicklit, placing them both where they belong: in second place to him. Is he the 20-20, a form of cricket he avowedly despises, of literature? "That's insulting. That's like saying Dickens is 20-20, or Dumas. Or even Shakespeare. We fight just as hard for our skills. Storytelling is a god-given gift."
Each of his books, he claims, goes through 17 drafts—the first draft to get the story down and the rest to hone the art of making the reader turn the page. I venture, as gentle as any Indian, a query about the friends/editors who are rumoured to help him with the writing. He picks up his glass of juice and for a moment, watching his eyes narrow behind his steel-rimmed specs, I'm afraid he'll throw it at me. Instead, he takes a quick sip, places it firmly on the table and says—quietly, for a man who brags he'll never mellow: "That's a myth that died when I went to prison. No one can say I took a team of editors to prison with me." So that's yet another reason why prison was such a blessing for Jeffrey Archer.
© Outlook Publishing (India) Private Limited
The Tumultuous Prophet: On Vijay Tendulkar by Girish Karnad
The Tumultuous Prophet
His own judges were the first to be baffled. A revolution was born on stage.
Girish Karnad on Vijay Tendulkar in Outlook, May 29, 2008
Marathi is the only Indian language today which has a viable urban theatre, managed by and for the educated middle classes. Right from the early 1930s, alongside the commercial natak mandalis which specialised in song-and-spectacle melodramas, playwrights like Mama Varerkar, M.G. Rangnekar and Acharya Atre devoted themselves to creating a 'parallel theatre', with tasteful and socially engaged plays, aimed at the elite.
Vijay Tendulkar, who died on May 19 at the age of 80, was a product of this tradition, but managed to lead it in a wholly different direction. He created a new language for the stage, rejected the sentimental and self-regarding complacence of his predecessors, and explored middle-class problems with an honesty and depth that often scared the audiences away. He wrote over 30 plays, some inevitably indifferent, but a few—like Shantata! Court Chaloo Aahe (Silence! The Court is in Session), which brought him national recognition in 1969—so powerful and original that they have ensured his place as the greatest Indian playwright of the 20th century.
When Ghashiram Kotwal first competed for the Maharashtra state awards, its innovative combination of music, choreography and analytical design so baffled the judges that they couldn't decide whether it was legitimate theatre. Half a century later, it stands unexcelled for the sheer brilliance of its artistry. Anyone who has ever been involved in such an enterprise knows the amount of preliminary discussion, rewriting and revision that such a complex work demands. But amazingly, Ghashiram Kotwal arrived readymade and complete. The production followed the text exactly, playing every detail as Tendulkar wrote it—a tribute to the precision of Tendulkar's conceptualising.
What makes the play so unique is also its prophetic quality. The plot concerns Nana Phadnavis, the 18th-century ruler of Pune, who tries to create a puppet for his own little games, only to realise that he has given birth to a monster who may swallow him up. The play predicted, with terrifying accuracy, the Indira Gandhi-Sant Bhindranwale dance of death, 11 years in advance of the events. The Shiv Sena, claiming the play vilified a Maratha hero, tried to stop it from being sent abroad. But it was smuggled out with the help of the CM, Sharad Pawar, and went on to win global acclaim.
Then came Sakharam Binder. It's not only Tendulkar's best play, but one of the masterpieces of Indian drama. When first performed, several political parties united to demand a ban on the play, and it had to be rescued by the courts. Its critics claimed to be scandalised by its overt sexuality. But one suspects that Tendulkar had once again hit a raw nerve, the basic middle-class hunger for property as a guarantee of security, and the ruthlessness this hunger could unleash. Lakshmi, a perfect embodiment of Hindu womanly virtues, manoeuvres a murder to keep the roof intact over her head, invulnerable in her sense of moral rectitude.
Tendulkar was a journalist by profession and was also known for his scripts for films like Nishant, Manthan, Ardha Satya and Aakrosh. In his last 20 years, he authored two novels, which were received in embarrassed silence, but wrote no new plays. He was buffeted by a series of domestic tragedies—his son died, then there was the traumatising loss of his daughter, Priya, whom he regarded as his creative heir, and finally the lingering death of his wife.
During his tumultuous life in the theatre, Tendulkar was always associated with the adventurous young. Vijaya Mehta at the very beginning of her career, Arvind and Sulabha Deshpande when they started their own group, the Progressive Dramatic Association, Shreeram Lagoo, Satyadev Dubey, Jabbar Patel, Kamlakar Sarang—one can go on.Even during his last few months in the hospital, the volunteers who attended on him would have made the who's who of today's young Marathi theatre. They had all drawn upon his hospitality and warmth, his almost legendary ability to 'listen' to people for hours and give counsel.
When he discovered that there was no hope of his recovering from his final illness, he decided he would rather die. As actor Mohan Agashe emphasises, "It was not a sign of depression. As always with him, it was a rational decision." Satish Alekar notes Tendulkar wasn't a popular playwright. "But," notes the protege and director of the Lalit Kala Kendra, "his plays have been widely translated and staged. They have influenced the theatre in all Indian languages. He was the backbone of the movement that has shaped the sensibility of Indian drama during the last couple
His own judges were the first to be baffled. A revolution was born on stage.
Girish Karnad on Vijay Tendulkar in Outlook, May 29, 2008
Marathi is the only Indian language today which has a viable urban theatre, managed by and for the educated middle classes. Right from the early 1930s, alongside the commercial natak mandalis which specialised in song-and-spectacle melodramas, playwrights like Mama Varerkar, M.G. Rangnekar and Acharya Atre devoted themselves to creating a 'parallel theatre', with tasteful and socially engaged plays, aimed at the elite.
Vijay Tendulkar, who died on May 19 at the age of 80, was a product of this tradition, but managed to lead it in a wholly different direction. He created a new language for the stage, rejected the sentimental and self-regarding complacence of his predecessors, and explored middle-class problems with an honesty and depth that often scared the audiences away. He wrote over 30 plays, some inevitably indifferent, but a few—like Shantata! Court Chaloo Aahe (Silence! The Court is in Session), which brought him national recognition in 1969—so powerful and original that they have ensured his place as the greatest Indian playwright of the 20th century.
When Ghashiram Kotwal first competed for the Maharashtra state awards, its innovative combination of music, choreography and analytical design so baffled the judges that they couldn't decide whether it was legitimate theatre. Half a century later, it stands unexcelled for the sheer brilliance of its artistry. Anyone who has ever been involved in such an enterprise knows the amount of preliminary discussion, rewriting and revision that such a complex work demands. But amazingly, Ghashiram Kotwal arrived readymade and complete. The production followed the text exactly, playing every detail as Tendulkar wrote it—a tribute to the precision of Tendulkar's conceptualising.
What makes the play so unique is also its prophetic quality. The plot concerns Nana Phadnavis, the 18th-century ruler of Pune, who tries to create a puppet for his own little games, only to realise that he has given birth to a monster who may swallow him up. The play predicted, with terrifying accuracy, the Indira Gandhi-Sant Bhindranwale dance of death, 11 years in advance of the events. The Shiv Sena, claiming the play vilified a Maratha hero, tried to stop it from being sent abroad. But it was smuggled out with the help of the CM, Sharad Pawar, and went on to win global acclaim.
Then came Sakharam Binder. It's not only Tendulkar's best play, but one of the masterpieces of Indian drama. When first performed, several political parties united to demand a ban on the play, and it had to be rescued by the courts. Its critics claimed to be scandalised by its overt sexuality. But one suspects that Tendulkar had once again hit a raw nerve, the basic middle-class hunger for property as a guarantee of security, and the ruthlessness this hunger could unleash. Lakshmi, a perfect embodiment of Hindu womanly virtues, manoeuvres a murder to keep the roof intact over her head, invulnerable in her sense of moral rectitude.
Tendulkar was a journalist by profession and was also known for his scripts for films like Nishant, Manthan, Ardha Satya and Aakrosh. In his last 20 years, he authored two novels, which were received in embarrassed silence, but wrote no new plays. He was buffeted by a series of domestic tragedies—his son died, then there was the traumatising loss of his daughter, Priya, whom he regarded as his creative heir, and finally the lingering death of his wife.
During his tumultuous life in the theatre, Tendulkar was always associated with the adventurous young. Vijaya Mehta at the very beginning of her career, Arvind and Sulabha Deshpande when they started their own group, the Progressive Dramatic Association, Shreeram Lagoo, Satyadev Dubey, Jabbar Patel, Kamlakar Sarang—one can go on.Even during his last few months in the hospital, the volunteers who attended on him would have made the who's who of today's young Marathi theatre. They had all drawn upon his hospitality and warmth, his almost legendary ability to 'listen' to people for hours and give counsel.
When he discovered that there was no hope of his recovering from his final illness, he decided he would rather die. As actor Mohan Agashe emphasises, "It was not a sign of depression. As always with him, it was a rational decision." Satish Alekar notes Tendulkar wasn't a popular playwright. "But," notes the protege and director of the Lalit Kala Kendra, "his plays have been widely translated and staged. They have influenced the theatre in all Indian languages. He was the backbone of the movement that has shaped the sensibility of Indian drama during the last couple
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar
Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar passes away
19 May 2008, 0914 hrs IST,AGENCIES
Vijay Tendulkar
Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar
PUNE: Noted Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar died on Monday at his residence here after prolonged illness. He was 80 years old. ( Watch )
Family sources said Tendulkar died at about 8 a.m. He had been unwell for the past two months.
He was suffering from myasthenia gravis-- a muscular disorder -- and had been admitted to a city hospital a few weeks back.
"He slipped into coma on Sunday and never regained consciousness," Dr Shirish Prayag, who was treating him, said.
A large number of theatre and film personalities, including Amol Palekar and Lalan Sarang, visited the hospital to pay their last respect to the author.
The Mumbai-based author, also father of the late actress Priya Tendulkar, is survived by two daughters-- Sushma and Tanjua-- who were at his bedside when he breathed his last.
A Padma Bhushan awardee, Tendulkar was best known for his plays Ghashiram Kotwal and Sakharam Binder. He was also awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and honoured with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship for lifetime achievement.
In 1977, Tendulkar won the National Film Award for his screenplay of Shyam Benegal's movie Manthan . He also wrote the screenplays for other critically acclaimed films like Nishant , Akrosh and Ardh Satya.
19 May 2008, 0914 hrs IST,AGENCIES
Vijay Tendulkar
Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar
PUNE: Noted Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar died on Monday at his residence here after prolonged illness. He was 80 years old. ( Watch )
Family sources said Tendulkar died at about 8 a.m. He had been unwell for the past two months.
He was suffering from myasthenia gravis-- a muscular disorder -- and had been admitted to a city hospital a few weeks back.
"He slipped into coma on Sunday and never regained consciousness," Dr Shirish Prayag, who was treating him, said.
A large number of theatre and film personalities, including Amol Palekar and Lalan Sarang, visited the hospital to pay their last respect to the author.
The Mumbai-based author, also father of the late actress Priya Tendulkar, is survived by two daughters-- Sushma and Tanjua-- who were at his bedside when he breathed his last.
A Padma Bhushan awardee, Tendulkar was best known for his plays Ghashiram Kotwal and Sakharam Binder. He was also awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and honoured with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship for lifetime achievement.
In 1977, Tendulkar won the National Film Award for his screenplay of Shyam Benegal's movie Manthan . He also wrote the screenplays for other critically acclaimed films like Nishant , Akrosh and Ardh Satya.
Words in English :: History
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Words in English :: History
Words in English :: History
A Brief History of English, with Chronology
by Suzanne Kemmer © 2001-2005
* Pre-English | Old English | Middle English | Modern English
The language we call English was first brought to the north sea coasts of England in the 5th and 6th centuries A.D., by seafaring people from Denmark and the northwestern coasts of present-day Germany and the Netherlands. These immigrants spoke a cluster of related dialects falling within the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Their language began to develop its own distinctive features in isolation from the continental Germanic languages, and by 600 A.D. had developed into what we call Old English or Anglo-Saxon, covering the territory of most of modern England.
New waves of Germanic invaders and settlers came from Norway and Denmark starting in the late 8th century. The more violent of these were known as Vikings, sea-faring plunderers who retained their ancient pagan gods and attacked settlements and churches for gold and silver. They spoke a northern Germanic dialect similar to, yet different in grammar from Anglo-Saxon. In the 11th century, the attacks became organized, state-sponsored military invasions and England was even ruled for a time by the kings of Denmark and Norway. The Scandinavian influence on the language was strongest in the north and lasted for a full 600 years, although English seems to have been adopted by the settlers fairly early on.
The Norman Invasion and Conquest of 1066 was a cataclysmic event that brought new rulers and new cultural, social and linguistic influences to the British Isles. The Norman French ruling minority dominated the church, government, legal, and educational systems for three centuries. The Norman establishment used French and Latin, leaving English as the language of the illiterate and powerless majority. During this period English adopted thousands of words from Norman French and from Latin, and its grammar changed rather radically. By the end of that time, however, the aristocracy had adopted English as their language and the use and importance of French gradually faded. The period from the Conquest to the reemergence of English as a full-fledged literary language is called Middle English. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, in Middle English in the late 1300s.
William Caxton set up the first printing press in Britain at the end of the 15th century. The arrival of printing marks the point at which the language began to take the first steps toward standardization and its eventual role as a national language. The period from 1500 to about 1650 is called Early Modern English, a period during which notable sound changes, syntactic changes and lexical enrichment took place. The Great English Vowel Shift, which systematically shifted the phonetic values of all the long vowels in English, occurred during this period. Word order became more fixed in a subject-verb-object pattern, and English developed a complex auxiliary verb system. A rush of new vocabulary from the classical languages, the modern European languages, and more distant trading partners such as the countries of Asian minor and the Middle East entered the language as the renaissance influences of culture and trade and the emerging scientific community of Europe took root in England.
Shakespeare wrote prolifically during the late 1500s and early 1600s and, like Chaucer, took the language into new and creative literary territory. His influence on English drama and poetry continued to grow after his death in 1616 and he has never been surpassed as the best known and most read poet/playwright of modern English.
The King James Bible was published in 1611, the culmination of at least a century of efforts to bring a Bible written in the native language of the people into the Church establishment and into people's homes. Among the common people, whose contact with literature often did not go far past the Bible, the language of the scriptures as presented in this version commissioned by King James I was deeply influential, due in part to its religious significance, but also to its literary quality. Its simple style and use of native vocabulary had a surpassing beauty that still resonates today.
By the 1700s almost all of the modern syntactic patterns of English were in place and the language is easily readable by modern speakers. Colonization of new territories by the newly united Kingdom of Great Britain spread English to the far corners of the globe and brought cargoes of still more loanwords from those far-flung places. At this point English began to develop its major world dialectal varieties, some of which would develop into national standards for newly independent colonies. By the 21st century, as the language of international business, science, and popular culture, English has become the most important language on the planet.
* Comparison of the Lord's Prayer in different stages of English
Pre-English Period (before 600 AD) [Top]
ca. 3000 B.C.
(or 6000 B.C?) Proto-Indo-European spoken in Baltic area.
(or Anatolia?)
* Excurses: Indo-European languages | Proto-Indo-European
ca. 1000 B.C. After many migrations, the various branches of Indo-European have become distinct. Celtic becomes most widespread branch of I.E. in Europe; Celtic peoples inhabit what is now Spain, France, Germany and England.
55 B.C. Beginning of Roman raids on British Isles.
43 A.D. Roman occupation of Britain. Roman colony of "Britannia" established. Eventually, many Celtic Britons become Romanized. (Others continually rebel).
* Excursus: History of Latin
200 B.C.-200 A.D. Germanic peoples move down from Scandinavia and spread over Central Europe in successive waves. Supplant Celts. Come into contact (at times antagonistic, at times commercial) with northward-expanding empire of Romans.
Early 5th century. Roman Empire collapses. Romans pull out of Britain and other colonies, attempting to shore up defense on the home front; but it's useless. Rome sacked by Goths.
Germanic tribes on the continent continue migrations west and south; consolidate into ever larger units. Those taking over in Rome call themselves "Roman emperors."
ca. 410 A.D. First Germanic tribes arrive in England.
410-600 Settlement of most of Britain by Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, some Frisians) speaking West Germanic dialects descended from Proto-Germanic. These dialects are distantly related to Latin, but also have a sprinkling of Latin borrowings due to earlier cultural contact with the Romans on the continent.
Celtic peoples, most of whom are Christianized, are pushed increasingly (despite occasional violent uprisings) into the marginal areas of Britain: Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Anglo-Saxons, originally sea-farers, settle down as farmers, exploiting rich English farmland.
By 600 A.D., the Germanic speech of England comprises dialects of a language distinct from the continental Germanic languages.
Old English Period (ca. 600-1100) [Top]
600-800 Rise of three great kingdoms politically unifying large areas: Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex. Supremacy passes from one kingdom to another in that order.
ca. 600 Christianity introduced among Anglo-Saxons by St. Augustine, missionary from Rome. Irish missionaries also spread Celtic form of Christianity to mainland Britain.
793 First serious Viking incursions. Lindisfarne monastery sacked.
* Excursus: Map of Viking invasions
800 Charlemagne, king of the Franks, crowned Holy Roman Emperor; height of Frankish power in Europe. Wessex kings aspire to similar glory; want to unite all England, and if possible the rest of mainland Britain, under one crown (theirs).
840s-870s Viking incursions grow worse and worse. Large organized groups set up permanent encampments on English soil. Slay kings of Northumbria and East Anglia, subjugate king of Mercia. Storm York (Anglo-Saxon Eoforwic) and set up a Viking kingdom (Jorvik). Wessex stands alone as the last Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Britain.
871 Vikings move against Wessex. In six pitched battles, the English hold their own, but fail to repel attackers decisively. In the last battle, the English king is mortally wounded. His young brother, Alfred, who had distinguished himself during the battles, is crowned king.
871-876 Alfred builds a navy. The kings of Denmark and Norway have come to view England as ripe for the plucking and begin to prepare an attack.
876 Three Danish kings attack Wessex. Alfred prevails, only to be attacked again a few months later. His cause looks hopeless.
878 Decisive battle at Edington; Alfred and a large contingent of desperate Anglo-Saxons make a last stand (they know what awaits them if they fail). Alfred leads the Anglo-Saxons to decisive victory; blockades a large Viking camp nearby, starving them into submission; and exacts homage from the kings of Denmark and an oath that the Danes will leave Wessex forever.
Under Alfred's terms of victory, England is partitioned into a part governed by the Anglo-Saxons (under the house of Wessex) and a part governed by the Scandinavians (some of whom become underlords of Alfred), divided by Watling Street. 15 years of peace follow; Alfred reigns over peaceful and prosperous kingdom. First called "Alfred the Great".
925 Athelstan crowned king. Height of Anglo-Saxon power. Athelstan reconquers York from the Vikings, and even conquers Scotland and Wales, heretofore ruled by Celts. Continues Alfred's mission of making improvemen ts in government, education, defense, and other social institutions.
10th century Danes and English continue to mix peacefully, and ultimately become indistinguishable. Many Scandinavian loanwords enter the language; English even borrows pronouns like them, their they.
978 Aethelred "the Unready" becomes king at 11 years of age.
991 Aethelred has proved to be a weak king, who does not repel minor Viking attacks. Vikings experiment with a major incursion at Maldon in Essex. After losing battle, Aethelred bribes them to depart with 10,000 pounds of silver. Mistake. Sveinn, king of Denmark, takes note.
994-1014 After 20 years of continuous battles and bribings, and incompetent and cowardly military leadership and governance, the English capitulate to king Sveinn of Denmark (later also of Norway). Aethelred flees to Normandy, across the channel.
1014 Sveinn's young son Cnut (or Canute) crowned king of England. Cnut decides to follow in Alfred's footsteps, aiming for a peaceful and prosperous kingdom. Encourages Anglo-Saxon culture and literature. Even marries Aethelred's widow Emma, brought over from Normandy.
After Cnut's death his sons bicker over the kingdom. When they die without issue, the kingdom passes back to the house of Wessex, to young Edward, son of Aethelred and Emma, who had been raised in exile in Normandy. Edward is a pious, monkish man called "The Confessor".
Edward has strong partiality for his birthplace, Normandy, a duchy populated by the descendents of Romanized Vikings. Especially fond of young Duke William of Normandy. Edward is dominated by his Anglo-Saxon earls, especially powerful earl Godwin. Godwin's son, Harold Godwinson, becomes de facto ruler as Edward takes less and less interest in governing.
1066 January. Edward dies childless, apparently recommending Harold Godwinson as successor. Harold duly chosen by Wessex earls, as nearest of kin to the crown is only an infant. Mercian and Northumbrian earls are hesitant to go along with choice of Harold.
William of Normandy claims that Harold once promised to support HIM as successor to Edward. Harold denies it. William prepares to mount an invasion. Ready by summer, but the winds are unfavorable for sailing.
September. Harald Hardradi of Norway decides this is a good time to attack England. Harold Godwinson rushes north and crushes Hardradi's army at Stamford Bridge. The winds change, and William puts to sea. Harold rushes back down to the south coast to try to repel William's attack. Mercians and Northumbrians are supposed to march down to help him, but never do. They don't realize what's in store for them.
October. Harold is defeated and killed at the battle of Hastings.
December. William of Normandy crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day.
* Excursus: The Bayeux Tapestry
Middle English Period (ca. 1100-1500) [Top]
1066-1075 William crushes uprisings of Anglo-Saxon earls and peasants with a brutal hand; in Mercia and Northumberland, uses (literal) scorched earth policy, decimating population and laying waste the countryside. Anglo-Saxon earls and freemen deprived of property; many enslaved. William distributes property and titles to Normans (and some English) who supported him. Many of the English hereditary titles of nobility date from this period.
English becomes the language of the lower classes (peasants and slaves). Norman French becomes the language of the court and propertied classes. The legal system is redrawn along Norman lines and conducted in French. Churches, monasteries gradually filled with French-speaking functionaries, who use French for record-keeping. After a while, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is no longer kept up. Authors write literature in French, not English. For all practical purposes English is no longer a written language.
Bilingualism gradually becomes more common, especially among those who deal with both upper and lower classes. Growth of London as a commercial center draws many from the countryside who can fill this socially intermediate role.
1204 The English kings lose the duchy of Normandy to French kings. England is now the only home of the Norman English.
1205 First book in English appears since the conquest.
1258 First royal proclamation issued in English since the conquest.
ca. 1300 Increasing feeling on the part of even noblemen that they are English, not French. Nobility begin to educate their children in English. French is taught to children as a foreign language rather than used as a medium of instruction.
1337 Start of the Hundred Years' War between England and France.
1362 English becomes official language of the law courts. More and more authors are writing in English.
ca. 1380 Chaucer writes the Canterbury tales in Middle English. the language shows French influence in thousands of French borrowings. The London dialect, for the first time, begins to be recognized as the "Standard", or variety of English taken as the norm, for all England. Other dialects are relegated to a less prestigious position, even those that earlier served as standards (e.g. the Wessex dialect of southwest England).
* Excursus: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
1474 William Caxton brings a printing press to England from Germany. Publishes the first printed book in England. Beginning of the long process of standardization of spelling.
* Excursus: The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye
Modern English Period (ca. 1500-present) [Top]
1500-1650 Early Modern English develops. The Great Vowel Shift gradually takes place. There is a large influx of Latin and Greek borrowings and neologisms.
1552 Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, publishes the Book of Common Prayer, a translation of the church's liturgy into English.
1611 King James Bible published, which has influenced English writing down to the present day.
* Excursus: Common phrases from the King James Bible
1616 Shakespeare dies. Recognized even then as a genius of the English language. Wove native and borrowed words together in amazing and pleasing combinations.
* Excursus: Shakespeare's Legacy
1700s Classical period of English literature. The fashion for borrowing Latin and Greek words, and coining new words with Latin and Greek morphemes, rages unabated. Elaborate syntax matches elaborate vocabulary (e.g. writings of Samuel Johnson).
The rise of English purists, e.g. Jonathan Swift, who decried the 'degeneration' of English and sought to 'purify' it and fix it forever in unchanging form.
17th-19th centuries British imperialism. Borrowings from languages around the world.
Development of American English. By 19th century, a standard variety of American English develops, based on the dialect of the Mid-Atlantic states.
Establishment of English in Australia, South Africa, and India, among other British colonial outposts.
* Excursus: Borrowed words in English
19th century Recognition (and acceptance) by linguistic scholars of the ever-changing nature of language. Discovery of the Indo-European language family. Late in century: Recognition that all languages are fundamentally the same in nature; no "primitive" or "advanced" languages.
19th-20th centuries Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. Development of technical vocabularies. Within a few centuries, English has gone from an island tongue to a world language, following the fortunes of those who speak it.
20th century Communications revolution. Spread of a few languages at the expense of many. Languages of the world begin to die out on a large scale as mastery of certain world languages becomes necessary for survival. Classification and description of non-Indo-European languages by linguists continues, in many cases in a race against the clock.
1945-present American political, economic, military supremacy. Borrowing patterns continue. English has greater impact than ever on other languages, even those with more native speakers. Becomes most widely studied second language, and a scientific lingua franca.
By the 1990s, preferences begin to shift in many places from British to American English as the selected standard for second language acquisition. The twin influences of British and American broadcasting media make the language accessible to more and more people. Hollywood and the pop music industry help make English an irresistible medium for the transmission of popular culture. Even long-established European cultures begin to feel linguistically and culturally threatened, as English comes into use in more and more spheres and large numbers of English borrowings enter their languages.
New waves of immigrants to the U.S. Linguistic diversity increases where the newcomers settle, but immigrants repeat the pattern of earlier settlers and lose their language within a generation or two. The culture at large remains resolutely monolingual (despite the fears of cultural purists). But as ever, the language continues to absorb loanwords, continually enriched by the many tongues of the newcomers to these shores.
* Excursus: Internet slang
[Top]
Site maintained by Suzanne Kemmer at Rice University. Design Copyright © 2003 by James Jirtle, WebWiz Design.
Words in English :: History
Words in English :: History
A Brief History of English, with Chronology
by Suzanne Kemmer © 2001-2005
* Pre-English | Old English | Middle English | Modern English
The language we call English was first brought to the north sea coasts of England in the 5th and 6th centuries A.D., by seafaring people from Denmark and the northwestern coasts of present-day Germany and the Netherlands. These immigrants spoke a cluster of related dialects falling within the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Their language began to develop its own distinctive features in isolation from the continental Germanic languages, and by 600 A.D. had developed into what we call Old English or Anglo-Saxon, covering the territory of most of modern England.
New waves of Germanic invaders and settlers came from Norway and Denmark starting in the late 8th century. The more violent of these were known as Vikings, sea-faring plunderers who retained their ancient pagan gods and attacked settlements and churches for gold and silver. They spoke a northern Germanic dialect similar to, yet different in grammar from Anglo-Saxon. In the 11th century, the attacks became organized, state-sponsored military invasions and England was even ruled for a time by the kings of Denmark and Norway. The Scandinavian influence on the language was strongest in the north and lasted for a full 600 years, although English seems to have been adopted by the settlers fairly early on.
The Norman Invasion and Conquest of 1066 was a cataclysmic event that brought new rulers and new cultural, social and linguistic influences to the British Isles. The Norman French ruling minority dominated the church, government, legal, and educational systems for three centuries. The Norman establishment used French and Latin, leaving English as the language of the illiterate and powerless majority. During this period English adopted thousands of words from Norman French and from Latin, and its grammar changed rather radically. By the end of that time, however, the aristocracy had adopted English as their language and the use and importance of French gradually faded. The period from the Conquest to the reemergence of English as a full-fledged literary language is called Middle English. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, in Middle English in the late 1300s.
William Caxton set up the first printing press in Britain at the end of the 15th century. The arrival of printing marks the point at which the language began to take the first steps toward standardization and its eventual role as a national language. The period from 1500 to about 1650 is called Early Modern English, a period during which notable sound changes, syntactic changes and lexical enrichment took place. The Great English Vowel Shift, which systematically shifted the phonetic values of all the long vowels in English, occurred during this period. Word order became more fixed in a subject-verb-object pattern, and English developed a complex auxiliary verb system. A rush of new vocabulary from the classical languages, the modern European languages, and more distant trading partners such as the countries of Asian minor and the Middle East entered the language as the renaissance influences of culture and trade and the emerging scientific community of Europe took root in England.
Shakespeare wrote prolifically during the late 1500s and early 1600s and, like Chaucer, took the language into new and creative literary territory. His influence on English drama and poetry continued to grow after his death in 1616 and he has never been surpassed as the best known and most read poet/playwright of modern English.
The King James Bible was published in 1611, the culmination of at least a century of efforts to bring a Bible written in the native language of the people into the Church establishment and into people's homes. Among the common people, whose contact with literature often did not go far past the Bible, the language of the scriptures as presented in this version commissioned by King James I was deeply influential, due in part to its religious significance, but also to its literary quality. Its simple style and use of native vocabulary had a surpassing beauty that still resonates today.
By the 1700s almost all of the modern syntactic patterns of English were in place and the language is easily readable by modern speakers. Colonization of new territories by the newly united Kingdom of Great Britain spread English to the far corners of the globe and brought cargoes of still more loanwords from those far-flung places. At this point English began to develop its major world dialectal varieties, some of which would develop into national standards for newly independent colonies. By the 21st century, as the language of international business, science, and popular culture, English has become the most important language on the planet.
* Comparison of the Lord's Prayer in different stages of English
Pre-English Period (before 600 AD) [Top]
ca. 3000 B.C.
(or 6000 B.C?) Proto-Indo-European spoken in Baltic area.
(or Anatolia?)
* Excurses: Indo-European languages | Proto-Indo-European
ca. 1000 B.C. After many migrations, the various branches of Indo-European have become distinct. Celtic becomes most widespread branch of I.E. in Europe; Celtic peoples inhabit what is now Spain, France, Germany and England.
55 B.C. Beginning of Roman raids on British Isles.
43 A.D. Roman occupation of Britain. Roman colony of "Britannia" established. Eventually, many Celtic Britons become Romanized. (Others continually rebel).
* Excursus: History of Latin
200 B.C.-200 A.D. Germanic peoples move down from Scandinavia and spread over Central Europe in successive waves. Supplant Celts. Come into contact (at times antagonistic, at times commercial) with northward-expanding empire of Romans.
Early 5th century. Roman Empire collapses. Romans pull out of Britain and other colonies, attempting to shore up defense on the home front; but it's useless. Rome sacked by Goths.
Germanic tribes on the continent continue migrations west and south; consolidate into ever larger units. Those taking over in Rome call themselves "Roman emperors."
ca. 410 A.D. First Germanic tribes arrive in England.
410-600 Settlement of most of Britain by Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, some Frisians) speaking West Germanic dialects descended from Proto-Germanic. These dialects are distantly related to Latin, but also have a sprinkling of Latin borrowings due to earlier cultural contact with the Romans on the continent.
Celtic peoples, most of whom are Christianized, are pushed increasingly (despite occasional violent uprisings) into the marginal areas of Britain: Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Anglo-Saxons, originally sea-farers, settle down as farmers, exploiting rich English farmland.
By 600 A.D., the Germanic speech of England comprises dialects of a language distinct from the continental Germanic languages.
Old English Period (ca. 600-1100) [Top]
600-800 Rise of three great kingdoms politically unifying large areas: Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex. Supremacy passes from one kingdom to another in that order.
ca. 600 Christianity introduced among Anglo-Saxons by St. Augustine, missionary from Rome. Irish missionaries also spread Celtic form of Christianity to mainland Britain.
793 First serious Viking incursions. Lindisfarne monastery sacked.
* Excursus: Map of Viking invasions
800 Charlemagne, king of the Franks, crowned Holy Roman Emperor; height of Frankish power in Europe. Wessex kings aspire to similar glory; want to unite all England, and if possible the rest of mainland Britain, under one crown (theirs).
840s-870s Viking incursions grow worse and worse. Large organized groups set up permanent encampments on English soil. Slay kings of Northumbria and East Anglia, subjugate king of Mercia. Storm York (Anglo-Saxon Eoforwic) and set up a Viking kingdom (Jorvik). Wessex stands alone as the last Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Britain.
871 Vikings move against Wessex. In six pitched battles, the English hold their own, but fail to repel attackers decisively. In the last battle, the English king is mortally wounded. His young brother, Alfred, who had distinguished himself during the battles, is crowned king.
871-876 Alfred builds a navy. The kings of Denmark and Norway have come to view England as ripe for the plucking and begin to prepare an attack.
876 Three Danish kings attack Wessex. Alfred prevails, only to be attacked again a few months later. His cause looks hopeless.
878 Decisive battle at Edington; Alfred and a large contingent of desperate Anglo-Saxons make a last stand (they know what awaits them if they fail). Alfred leads the Anglo-Saxons to decisive victory; blockades a large Viking camp nearby, starving them into submission; and exacts homage from the kings of Denmark and an oath that the Danes will leave Wessex forever.
Under Alfred's terms of victory, England is partitioned into a part governed by the Anglo-Saxons (under the house of Wessex) and a part governed by the Scandinavians (some of whom become underlords of Alfred), divided by Watling Street. 15 years of peace follow; Alfred reigns over peaceful and prosperous kingdom. First called "Alfred the Great".
925 Athelstan crowned king. Height of Anglo-Saxon power. Athelstan reconquers York from the Vikings, and even conquers Scotland and Wales, heretofore ruled by Celts. Continues Alfred's mission of making improvemen ts in government, education, defense, and other social institutions.
10th century Danes and English continue to mix peacefully, and ultimately become indistinguishable. Many Scandinavian loanwords enter the language; English even borrows pronouns like them, their they.
978 Aethelred "the Unready" becomes king at 11 years of age.
991 Aethelred has proved to be a weak king, who does not repel minor Viking attacks. Vikings experiment with a major incursion at Maldon in Essex. After losing battle, Aethelred bribes them to depart with 10,000 pounds of silver. Mistake. Sveinn, king of Denmark, takes note.
994-1014 After 20 years of continuous battles and bribings, and incompetent and cowardly military leadership and governance, the English capitulate to king Sveinn of Denmark (later also of Norway). Aethelred flees to Normandy, across the channel.
1014 Sveinn's young son Cnut (or Canute) crowned king of England. Cnut decides to follow in Alfred's footsteps, aiming for a peaceful and prosperous kingdom. Encourages Anglo-Saxon culture and literature. Even marries Aethelred's widow Emma, brought over from Normandy.
After Cnut's death his sons bicker over the kingdom. When they die without issue, the kingdom passes back to the house of Wessex, to young Edward, son of Aethelred and Emma, who had been raised in exile in Normandy. Edward is a pious, monkish man called "The Confessor".
Edward has strong partiality for his birthplace, Normandy, a duchy populated by the descendents of Romanized Vikings. Especially fond of young Duke William of Normandy. Edward is dominated by his Anglo-Saxon earls, especially powerful earl Godwin. Godwin's son, Harold Godwinson, becomes de facto ruler as Edward takes less and less interest in governing.
1066 January. Edward dies childless, apparently recommending Harold Godwinson as successor. Harold duly chosen by Wessex earls, as nearest of kin to the crown is only an infant. Mercian and Northumbrian earls are hesitant to go along with choice of Harold.
William of Normandy claims that Harold once promised to support HIM as successor to Edward. Harold denies it. William prepares to mount an invasion. Ready by summer, but the winds are unfavorable for sailing.
September. Harald Hardradi of Norway decides this is a good time to attack England. Harold Godwinson rushes north and crushes Hardradi's army at Stamford Bridge. The winds change, and William puts to sea. Harold rushes back down to the south coast to try to repel William's attack. Mercians and Northumbrians are supposed to march down to help him, but never do. They don't realize what's in store for them.
October. Harold is defeated and killed at the battle of Hastings.
December. William of Normandy crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day.
* Excursus: The Bayeux Tapestry
Middle English Period (ca. 1100-1500) [Top]
1066-1075 William crushes uprisings of Anglo-Saxon earls and peasants with a brutal hand; in Mercia and Northumberland, uses (literal) scorched earth policy, decimating population and laying waste the countryside. Anglo-Saxon earls and freemen deprived of property; many enslaved. William distributes property and titles to Normans (and some English) who supported him. Many of the English hereditary titles of nobility date from this period.
English becomes the language of the lower classes (peasants and slaves). Norman French becomes the language of the court and propertied classes. The legal system is redrawn along Norman lines and conducted in French. Churches, monasteries gradually filled with French-speaking functionaries, who use French for record-keeping. After a while, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is no longer kept up. Authors write literature in French, not English. For all practical purposes English is no longer a written language.
Bilingualism gradually becomes more common, especially among those who deal with both upper and lower classes. Growth of London as a commercial center draws many from the countryside who can fill this socially intermediate role.
1204 The English kings lose the duchy of Normandy to French kings. England is now the only home of the Norman English.
1205 First book in English appears since the conquest.
1258 First royal proclamation issued in English since the conquest.
ca. 1300 Increasing feeling on the part of even noblemen that they are English, not French. Nobility begin to educate their children in English. French is taught to children as a foreign language rather than used as a medium of instruction.
1337 Start of the Hundred Years' War between England and France.
1362 English becomes official language of the law courts. More and more authors are writing in English.
ca. 1380 Chaucer writes the Canterbury tales in Middle English. the language shows French influence in thousands of French borrowings. The London dialect, for the first time, begins to be recognized as the "Standard", or variety of English taken as the norm, for all England. Other dialects are relegated to a less prestigious position, even those that earlier served as standards (e.g. the Wessex dialect of southwest England).
* Excursus: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
1474 William Caxton brings a printing press to England from Germany. Publishes the first printed book in England. Beginning of the long process of standardization of spelling.
* Excursus: The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye
Modern English Period (ca. 1500-present) [Top]
1500-1650 Early Modern English develops. The Great Vowel Shift gradually takes place. There is a large influx of Latin and Greek borrowings and neologisms.
1552 Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, publishes the Book of Common Prayer, a translation of the church's liturgy into English.
1611 King James Bible published, which has influenced English writing down to the present day.
* Excursus: Common phrases from the King James Bible
1616 Shakespeare dies. Recognized even then as a genius of the English language. Wove native and borrowed words together in amazing and pleasing combinations.
* Excursus: Shakespeare's Legacy
1700s Classical period of English literature. The fashion for borrowing Latin and Greek words, and coining new words with Latin and Greek morphemes, rages unabated. Elaborate syntax matches elaborate vocabulary (e.g. writings of Samuel Johnson).
The rise of English purists, e.g. Jonathan Swift, who decried the 'degeneration' of English and sought to 'purify' it and fix it forever in unchanging form.
17th-19th centuries British imperialism. Borrowings from languages around the world.
Development of American English. By 19th century, a standard variety of American English develops, based on the dialect of the Mid-Atlantic states.
Establishment of English in Australia, South Africa, and India, among other British colonial outposts.
* Excursus: Borrowed words in English
19th century Recognition (and acceptance) by linguistic scholars of the ever-changing nature of language. Discovery of the Indo-European language family. Late in century: Recognition that all languages are fundamentally the same in nature; no "primitive" or "advanced" languages.
19th-20th centuries Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. Development of technical vocabularies. Within a few centuries, English has gone from an island tongue to a world language, following the fortunes of those who speak it.
20th century Communications revolution. Spread of a few languages at the expense of many. Languages of the world begin to die out on a large scale as mastery of certain world languages becomes necessary for survival. Classification and description of non-Indo-European languages by linguists continues, in many cases in a race against the clock.
1945-present American political, economic, military supremacy. Borrowing patterns continue. English has greater impact than ever on other languages, even those with more native speakers. Becomes most widely studied second language, and a scientific lingua franca.
By the 1990s, preferences begin to shift in many places from British to American English as the selected standard for second language acquisition. The twin influences of British and American broadcasting media make the language accessible to more and more people. Hollywood and the pop music industry help make English an irresistible medium for the transmission of popular culture. Even long-established European cultures begin to feel linguistically and culturally threatened, as English comes into use in more and more spheres and large numbers of English borrowings enter their languages.
New waves of immigrants to the U.S. Linguistic diversity increases where the newcomers settle, but immigrants repeat the pattern of earlier settlers and lose their language within a generation or two. The culture at large remains resolutely monolingual (despite the fears of cultural purists). But as ever, the language continues to absorb loanwords, continually enriched by the many tongues of the newcomers to these shores.
* Excursus: Internet slang
[Top]
Site maintained by Suzanne Kemmer at Rice University. Design Copyright © 2003 by James Jirtle, WebWiz Design.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Mushirul Hasan:MODERATE OR MILITANT — Images of India’s Muslims
Book Review
Prevailing perceptions of Muslims
An assessment of India’s Muslims by engaging with the debates surrounding society, polity and history
Balraj Puri
MODERATE OR MILITANT — Images of India’s Muslims: Mushirul Hasan; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 495.
This book with 648 references to the works of all known and lesser-known scholars, sub-continental and foreign, and litterateurs of Urdu, and to some extent Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi with a glossary of 21 pages would overawe the reader by the range of knowledge and study of the author about the Muslims of India. It traces the multiple influences on Muslims and how they adopted many social and cultural practices of pre-Islamic origin.
The author discusses in detail the role mainly played by Sufi and Bhakti saints and Urdu poets in projecting a syncretic culture in which Hindus could not be distinguished from Muslims. Urdu poetry bordered on heresy which might be considered un-Islamic today. For instance Ghalib, the doyen of Urdu poets, ridiculed the concept of paradise and hell, and calls Kashi Kabha of India and sign of God.
After 1857, a new phase started in India. Among Muslims it manifested in the form of two broad trends: the first led by Syed Ahmad Khan who founded the Aligarh Muslim University, which became the centre of what may be called the first modern intelligentsia of North India; the second, religious seminaries, chief among them was Darul uloom of Deoband. According to Mushirul Hasan, “it was a stronghold of conservatism” and therefore, “Syed Ahmad Khan was a deadly poison to the early Deobandis.”
Diversity
There was a bewildering diversity of Muslim communities. “In 1918, India’s Secretary of State received 44 deputations from Muslim groups; each of them played a different tune,” the author notes. What held together these diverse movements was the idea of pan-Islamism. It manifested in the movement for restoration of the Khilafat which the Congress supported. The towering personality of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad provided a link between various religious scholars, who otherwise too were anti-British, and the Indian national movement led by Gandhiji, whereas Syed Ahmad Khan, a modern liberal Muslim was explicitly loyal to the British rule.
Nationalist forces
The author mentions other nationalist forces among Muslims, including the second generation of Aligarh like Mohammad Habib, K.M. Ashraf and Zakir Hussain. The breakaway group laid the foundation of the Jamia Milla Islamia with Gandhiji’s blessings. Another important secular group was that of the Urdu writers of Progressive Writers Association, who spoke for the poor and hungry, and was socialistically inclined. Congress also had the support of Muslim organisations like Momins, Ahrars, Khaksars and Khadai Khidmatgars led by Abdul Ghaffar Khan.
After the first election in 1937, under the Indian Constitution Act of 1935, the Congress formed governments in six out of 11 provinces while the performance of the Muslim League was lacklustre.
When and how did Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who did not know much about precepts and practices of Islam and could not speak Urdu, emerge as the “sole spokesman” (title of the book by Ayesha Jalal) of the Indian Muslims? The explanation offered in this book is that the Viceroy turned to the Muslim League after the Congress refused to support the war effort. Secondly, when the Congress Government resigned in 1939, after the British Government declared war against the axis powers on behalf of India, without consulting it, the Muslim League organised a day of deliverance from what it called a Hindu Raj.
Partition
The Muslim League passed a resolution demanding a separate Muslim country of Pakistan in 1940. According to the author, “the post 1942 period (when the Congress launched the Quit India movement) yielded success to Jinnah.” Another landmark in his successful journey was the Direct Action he launched on July, 29 1946 followed by large scale communal riots which polarised India along religious lines. Within almost a year he emerged triumphant and achieved Pakistan. As a clue to this miracle the book refers to the awakening in Bengal in the late 19th century which harked back to the predominantly Hindu past. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhay, for instance, looked upon medieval India as a period of bondage. Vande Matram, the song in his book, Ananda math, became the national song of India.
The author regrets that even Tagore did not raise his voice against the slandering of Muslims. The fact however is that Gurudev was one of those who warned against the concept of Indian nationalism. In his novel, Ghaire-Baire (the famous film director Satyajit Ray made a film with the same theme and title), he has described how during the Swadeshi movement, Hindu mobs singing Vande Matram attacked Muslims and looted their shops. M. N. Roy’s attacks on Indian nationalism were far more strident. Though the inference of the book that Indian nationalism did not clearly distinguish itself from Hindu nationalism is valid, far more research is needed than done so far on the causes of the Partition of India, for which the book contains sufficient source material. As far as the title of the book the evidence is rather scanty.
Prevailing perceptions of Muslims
An assessment of India’s Muslims by engaging with the debates surrounding society, polity and history
Balraj Puri
MODERATE OR MILITANT — Images of India’s Muslims: Mushirul Hasan; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 495.
This book with 648 references to the works of all known and lesser-known scholars, sub-continental and foreign, and litterateurs of Urdu, and to some extent Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi with a glossary of 21 pages would overawe the reader by the range of knowledge and study of the author about the Muslims of India. It traces the multiple influences on Muslims and how they adopted many social and cultural practices of pre-Islamic origin.
The author discusses in detail the role mainly played by Sufi and Bhakti saints and Urdu poets in projecting a syncretic culture in which Hindus could not be distinguished from Muslims. Urdu poetry bordered on heresy which might be considered un-Islamic today. For instance Ghalib, the doyen of Urdu poets, ridiculed the concept of paradise and hell, and calls Kashi Kabha of India and sign of God.
After 1857, a new phase started in India. Among Muslims it manifested in the form of two broad trends: the first led by Syed Ahmad Khan who founded the Aligarh Muslim University, which became the centre of what may be called the first modern intelligentsia of North India; the second, religious seminaries, chief among them was Darul uloom of Deoband. According to Mushirul Hasan, “it was a stronghold of conservatism” and therefore, “Syed Ahmad Khan was a deadly poison to the early Deobandis.”
Diversity
There was a bewildering diversity of Muslim communities. “In 1918, India’s Secretary of State received 44 deputations from Muslim groups; each of them played a different tune,” the author notes. What held together these diverse movements was the idea of pan-Islamism. It manifested in the movement for restoration of the Khilafat which the Congress supported. The towering personality of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad provided a link between various religious scholars, who otherwise too were anti-British, and the Indian national movement led by Gandhiji, whereas Syed Ahmad Khan, a modern liberal Muslim was explicitly loyal to the British rule.
Nationalist forces
The author mentions other nationalist forces among Muslims, including the second generation of Aligarh like Mohammad Habib, K.M. Ashraf and Zakir Hussain. The breakaway group laid the foundation of the Jamia Milla Islamia with Gandhiji’s blessings. Another important secular group was that of the Urdu writers of Progressive Writers Association, who spoke for the poor and hungry, and was socialistically inclined. Congress also had the support of Muslim organisations like Momins, Ahrars, Khaksars and Khadai Khidmatgars led by Abdul Ghaffar Khan.
After the first election in 1937, under the Indian Constitution Act of 1935, the Congress formed governments in six out of 11 provinces while the performance of the Muslim League was lacklustre.
When and how did Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who did not know much about precepts and practices of Islam and could not speak Urdu, emerge as the “sole spokesman” (title of the book by Ayesha Jalal) of the Indian Muslims? The explanation offered in this book is that the Viceroy turned to the Muslim League after the Congress refused to support the war effort. Secondly, when the Congress Government resigned in 1939, after the British Government declared war against the axis powers on behalf of India, without consulting it, the Muslim League organised a day of deliverance from what it called a Hindu Raj.
Partition
The Muslim League passed a resolution demanding a separate Muslim country of Pakistan in 1940. According to the author, “the post 1942 period (when the Congress launched the Quit India movement) yielded success to Jinnah.” Another landmark in his successful journey was the Direct Action he launched on July, 29 1946 followed by large scale communal riots which polarised India along religious lines. Within almost a year he emerged triumphant and achieved Pakistan. As a clue to this miracle the book refers to the awakening in Bengal in the late 19th century which harked back to the predominantly Hindu past. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhay, for instance, looked upon medieval India as a period of bondage. Vande Matram, the song in his book, Ananda math, became the national song of India.
The author regrets that even Tagore did not raise his voice against the slandering of Muslims. The fact however is that Gurudev was one of those who warned against the concept of Indian nationalism. In his novel, Ghaire-Baire (the famous film director Satyajit Ray made a film with the same theme and title), he has described how during the Swadeshi movement, Hindu mobs singing Vande Matram attacked Muslims and looted their shops. M. N. Roy’s attacks on Indian nationalism were far more strident. Though the inference of the book that Indian nationalism did not clearly distinguish itself from Hindu nationalism is valid, far more research is needed than done so far on the causes of the Partition of India, for which the book contains sufficient source material. As far as the title of the book the evidence is rather scanty.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
'The Musalman', oldest handwritten Urdu newspaper - Yahoo! India News
'The Musalman', oldest handwritten Urdu newspaper - Yahoo! India News
'The Musalman', oldest handwritten Urdu newspaper
Wed, May 14 11:35 AM
Chennai, May 14(ANI): In this era of information explosion where news industry has become synonymous with high end technology, Chennai is successfully publishing a handwritten urdu newspaper for past eight decades now. Titled 'The Musalman', it is perhaps the oldest Urdu daily in the country and possibly the only handwritten newspaper in the world.
Since the past 81 years, the newspaper is being printed everyday without fail from Triplicane High Road office ever since its inception in 1927.
'The Musalman', oldest handwritten Urdu newspaper
Wed, May 14 11:35 AM
Chennai, May 14(ANI): In this era of information explosion where news industry has become synonymous with high end technology, Chennai is successfully publishing a handwritten urdu newspaper for past eight decades now. Titled 'The Musalman', it is perhaps the oldest Urdu daily in the country and possibly the only handwritten newspaper in the world.
Since the past 81 years, the newspaper is being printed everyday without fail from Triplicane High Road office ever since its inception in 1927.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Ray Bradbury:Fahrenheit 451(1953)
The Hindu - Indian Newspapers in English Language from eight editions.
Future Possiblity of Book hateRay Bradbury:Fahrenheit 451(1953).
FANTASY
Prescient and enthralling
SHWETA SARAN
Fifty-four years after its publication, Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian novel transcends the framework within which it was placed.
Last year, the American Library Association (ALA) celebrated the Banned Books Week between September 29 and October 6. The Banned Books Week is a hugely popular awareness campaign that began in 1982 and works towards protecting freedom of expression by encouraging people to read or revisit books that have been banned, challenged or restricted in specific countries.
The ALA’s reading list includes J.D. Salinger, Vladmir Nabokov, and Salman Rushdie. It also includes a book that is upheld by the ALA for imagining a future in which all books are prohibited and burned.
When books are banned
Fifty-four years after its publication, this book remains more prescient than George Orwell’s 1984 and equally enthralling. Published unobtrusively in 1953, it has gained a steady following for itself and its writer. This little book was written using a rented typewriter in the library of the University of California, an interesting place to write a novel about the possible anathematisation of reading. The author was Ray Bradbury and the book was Fahrenheit 451.
Ray Bradbury is one of the most popular writers of fantasy and science fiction, having impressed people as diverse as filmmaker Federico Fellini, novelist Christopher Isherwood, Renaissance Scholar Bernard Berenson, popular fantasy writer Neil Gaiman and filmmaker Francois Truffaut, who adapted Fahrenheit 451 into a movie. Bradbury’s body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems and essays. His other famous books include The Martian Chronicles, The October Country, and Dandelion Wine.
Fahrenheit 451 is often misinterpreted as a book attacking the evils of censorship when in fact Bradbury wanted to portray the danger of reading being phased out by television and the sense of apathy that will prevail in such a society.
In Bradbury’s future, life is reduced to signals, sensations, useless information and the perverse leaps and thrills of technology. Books are regarded as unnecessary. Firemen do not put out fires but burn books instead. A fireman named Montag is quite happy with his job, until he discovers that his colleagues burn a woman who refuses to give up her books.
Montag is drawn to the unknown power of books. He tries to start a rebellion but is forced to flee and hunt for other book lovers, even as his city is thrown into a nuclear war.
Unsettling
There is something unsettling about Bradbury’s novel. It is equivocal about whatever little hope it displays and the literature that it references. On touching and reading a book for the first time, Montag feels an acute sense of fear, not only because the other firemen will be out to get him, but also because there are so many years to catch up with and so much to understand and accept. The chasm is large.
Bradbury’s depiction of technology replacing thought and memory is especially evident in Montag’s wife Mildred, who always has a radio tamp-on plugged to her ear, transporting her on waves of sound, music and talk. This sense of desolation and disconnection is echoed in Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach”, a poem that Montag reads out to Mildred and her friends, much against their wishes.
Critics have derided his choice of material for many years but fantasy and science fiction have been Bradbury’s best loves. His fantasy world is so natural and believable that his readers are unassumingly drawn into its mythologies and its rich emotional, atmospheric and verbal textures. In his short stories, Bradbury pushes boundaries and extends over areas as varied as literature, travel, anthropology and history. For instance, in “The Parrot Who Met Papa”, a parrot is kidnapped when people discover that it had spent a lot of time with Ernest Hemingway, having memorised his manner of speaking and even the draft of his last book. The assailant is a fictitious character named Shelley Capon, who seems delightfully similar to Truman Capote. In the story, Bradbury gives us an astonishingly believable sense of Hemingway’s Cuba.
The “The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse” combines dark humour and social satire. There are hundreds of other stories, all equally ingenious, varied and engrossing.
When interviewed for the 50th anniversary of Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury stressed that the problem today was not censorship as much as it was about people’s growing disdain for reading. Bradbury also discredited news channels and their negative impact on reading and education, a sense of mistrust that is evident in Fahrenheit 451.
Interestingly, Bradbury has observed that in future, the forms of censorship that writers will have to contend with will be the world’s obsession with being politically correct and the editing of books intended primarily to accommodate the businesses of a fast-paced world.
Future Possiblity of Book hateRay Bradbury:Fahrenheit 451(1953).
FANTASY
Prescient and enthralling
SHWETA SARAN
Fifty-four years after its publication, Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian novel transcends the framework within which it was placed.
Last year, the American Library Association (ALA) celebrated the Banned Books Week between September 29 and October 6. The Banned Books Week is a hugely popular awareness campaign that began in 1982 and works towards protecting freedom of expression by encouraging people to read or revisit books that have been banned, challenged or restricted in specific countries.
The ALA’s reading list includes J.D. Salinger, Vladmir Nabokov, and Salman Rushdie. It also includes a book that is upheld by the ALA for imagining a future in which all books are prohibited and burned.
When books are banned
Fifty-four years after its publication, this book remains more prescient than George Orwell’s 1984 and equally enthralling. Published unobtrusively in 1953, it has gained a steady following for itself and its writer. This little book was written using a rented typewriter in the library of the University of California, an interesting place to write a novel about the possible anathematisation of reading. The author was Ray Bradbury and the book was Fahrenheit 451.
Ray Bradbury is one of the most popular writers of fantasy and science fiction, having impressed people as diverse as filmmaker Federico Fellini, novelist Christopher Isherwood, Renaissance Scholar Bernard Berenson, popular fantasy writer Neil Gaiman and filmmaker Francois Truffaut, who adapted Fahrenheit 451 into a movie. Bradbury’s body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems and essays. His other famous books include The Martian Chronicles, The October Country, and Dandelion Wine.
Fahrenheit 451 is often misinterpreted as a book attacking the evils of censorship when in fact Bradbury wanted to portray the danger of reading being phased out by television and the sense of apathy that will prevail in such a society.
In Bradbury’s future, life is reduced to signals, sensations, useless information and the perverse leaps and thrills of technology. Books are regarded as unnecessary. Firemen do not put out fires but burn books instead. A fireman named Montag is quite happy with his job, until he discovers that his colleagues burn a woman who refuses to give up her books.
Montag is drawn to the unknown power of books. He tries to start a rebellion but is forced to flee and hunt for other book lovers, even as his city is thrown into a nuclear war.
Unsettling
There is something unsettling about Bradbury’s novel. It is equivocal about whatever little hope it displays and the literature that it references. On touching and reading a book for the first time, Montag feels an acute sense of fear, not only because the other firemen will be out to get him, but also because there are so many years to catch up with and so much to understand and accept. The chasm is large.
Bradbury’s depiction of technology replacing thought and memory is especially evident in Montag’s wife Mildred, who always has a radio tamp-on plugged to her ear, transporting her on waves of sound, music and talk. This sense of desolation and disconnection is echoed in Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach”, a poem that Montag reads out to Mildred and her friends, much against their wishes.
Critics have derided his choice of material for many years but fantasy and science fiction have been Bradbury’s best loves. His fantasy world is so natural and believable that his readers are unassumingly drawn into its mythologies and its rich emotional, atmospheric and verbal textures. In his short stories, Bradbury pushes boundaries and extends over areas as varied as literature, travel, anthropology and history. For instance, in “The Parrot Who Met Papa”, a parrot is kidnapped when people discover that it had spent a lot of time with Ernest Hemingway, having memorised his manner of speaking and even the draft of his last book. The assailant is a fictitious character named Shelley Capon, who seems delightfully similar to Truman Capote. In the story, Bradbury gives us an astonishingly believable sense of Hemingway’s Cuba.
The “The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse” combines dark humour and social satire. There are hundreds of other stories, all equally ingenious, varied and engrossing.
When interviewed for the 50th anniversary of Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury stressed that the problem today was not censorship as much as it was about people’s growing disdain for reading. Bradbury also discredited news channels and their negative impact on reading and education, a sense of mistrust that is evident in Fahrenheit 451.
Interestingly, Bradbury has observed that in future, the forms of censorship that writers will have to contend with will be the world’s obsession with being politically correct and the editing of books intended primarily to accommodate the businesses of a fast-paced world.
Friday, May 9, 2008
oldposts
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
My Favorite Sentence Revision Technique | Writing Power
My Favorite Sentence Revision Technique | Writing Power
My Favorite Sentence Revision Technique
Author: loren
18 Mar
My students typically get into a bad place about their writing style right about now - at midterm. Gripping their temples, they moan, “This is pointless. It’s stupid. You know what I meant.” Just a couple of weeks ago, they had (somewhat glibly) assured me that they were eager to learn how to write with a more powerful, lively, specific style. Now that they have had a taste of how difficult stylistic issues can be, and how deeply ingrained in their prose wordiness is, they’re frustrated. Quite understandably.
Revising to improve writing style can be a tortuous - and torturous - process. All too often, we fix one style error by creating another. Or we can’t think of a different way to phrase our ideas. Sometimes, we don’t even understand the wordy, jargon-filled prose our earlier selves drafted. It’s enough to make a writer want to give up.
But my students are not giving up. They are turning on the assignment instead, demanding to know what’s so great about active voice or what’s so wrong with “due to the fact that.” I find this feistiness encouraging, because it means that they are questioning assumptions about writing. They are thinking critically, even if their goal is nothing more noble than trying to worm out of the hard work of stylistic revision. They need a manageable sentence revision strategy to get them started.
At this point, I introduce the class to my favorite sentence revision technique: Richard Lanham’s Paramedic Method of Revision. It’s simple to understand, easy to do, and effective.
Here it is:
1. Circle all the forms of the verb “to be.”
2. Circle all the prepositions.
3. Ask yourself, “who is doing the central action in this sentence?”
4. Make your answer the active subject of the sentence.
5. Eliminate mindless introductory phrases.
Let’s break it down.
1. Forms of the verb to be (For example: is, am, are, was, were, will have been, would be, has been, will be) are often a signal that passive voice is present. Additionally, “to be” is the most inert verb in the English language - step #3 almost always identifies a central action other than “being.”
2. The more prepositions in a sentence (For example: of, to, from, by, for, beside, among, between, over, off, in, onto, under, through, around, at), the higher the chance that the writer is using wordy phrases. Like the verb “to be,” prepositions have valid uses in English; however, writers often overuse them as well.
3. Often in a wordy sentence, the most important action is hiding in a noun or wordy phrase. By asking yourself to identify your sentence’s essential core, you will find that action and turn it into a vibrant active verb.
4. Make the “doer” of that active verb the sentence’s subject. After all, the subject and verb are a sentence’s most important parts. It stands to reason that they should communicate the sentence’s most important information.
5. Introductory phrases can be useful, but they can also be rhetorical throat-clearing. Your sentences should hit the ground running, content wise.
Example before the paramedic method:
In today’s society, honesty is seen as a quality that many people do not value.
After:
Few people value honesty.
Another example before:
It is evident that there is an extensive process involved in the creation of high-quality writing that begins in the mind of the writer and does not cease but continues over the course of the process of writing from invention to editing.
And after:
A writer’s creative process starts in his or her mind and continues from invention to editing.
Of course, the Paramedic Method will not catch every stylistic gaffe. But applying it diligently can improve your writing dramatically. I hope you’ll try it soon.
Posted by Dr. T. Jacob Thomas at 9:59 PM 0 comments
Govt drops move for stricter Sati law-India-The Times of India
Govt drops move for stricter Sati law-India-The Times of India
Govt drops move for stricter Sati law
23 Apr 2008, 0021 hrs IST,Himanshi Dhawan,TNN
Print Save EMail Write to Editor
NEW DELHI: The UPA government has dropped attempts to strengthen the anti-Sati law, more than 20 years after it was first enacted. This comes at a time when the women's reservation bill has been relegated to the backburner.
The amendments to the Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987, had met with resistance in the Cabinet over some clauses. The proposed law was expected to increase prison terms for those committing as well as glorifying the practice while holding the entire community responsible for the act.
Sources in the women and child development ministry said the amendments have been dropped following political pressure.
Cabinet members, including minister for mines Sis Ram Ola, and science and technology minister Kapil Sibal had objected to the amendments in a meeting in September.
Ola, who hails from Jhunjhunu, raised several issues. He said the proposals would challenge existing mores. What would happen to the Sati temples and how would the government deal with the tradition of worship at these temples, he asked.
Sibal had pointed out certain legal lapses in the bill that holds the panchayat and onlookers responsible for "participation" in bride-burning. The bill had recommended that the village be heavily fined and the panchayat be made responsible for alerting the police and the district magistrate to any such incident.
The proposed legislation recommended that coercing a woman to commit Sati be made a non-bailable offence. The amendments were cleared by a GoM in August 2007.
Posted by Dr. T. Jacob Thomas at 6:20 PM 0 comments
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Times of India - Indian Newspapers in English Language from six editions.
The Times of India - Indian Newspapers in English Language from six editions.
Is the CJI a public servant?
22 Apr 2008, 0300 hrs IST,Dhananjay Mahapatra,TNN
Print Save EMail Write to Editor
NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan's contention that the CJI was not a public servant but a constitutional authority flies in the face of a 1991 ruling by a five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court which held that all judges of the apex court and high courts were "public servants".
Justice Balakrishnan recently said, "The Chief Justice is not a public servant. He is a constitutional authority. RTI does not cover constitutional authorities." This assertion appears contrary to the ruling of the five-judge Bench, which by a 4:1 majority, held that "a judge of the high court or the Supreme Court is a 'public servant' within the meaning of Section 2 of the Prevention of Corruption Act".
The RTI Act had not been conceived at that time and the SC could not debate whether a person categorised as public servant under PC Act would retain his classification under the RTI Act.
In the judgment given on July 25, 1991, the apex court had rejected the plea of a former HC chief justice, K Veeraswamy, seeking quashing of criminal proceedings initiated against him by the CBI for accumulating disproportionate assets during his tenure as CJ.
Justices K J Shetty, B C Ray, L M Sharma and M N Venkatachalliah unanimously came to the conclusion that all judges of the superior courts were "public servants".
Justice J S Verma dissented. "A judge or chief justice of a high court is a constitutional functionary, even though he holds a public office and in that sense, he may be included in the wide definition of a public servant."
He said that as there was no authority nominated in the PC Act to sanction prosecution of SC and HC judges, they could not be classified as public servants under the anti-corruption law.
The majority did not agree with Justice Verma. They said for sanctioning prosecution of a judge of the Supreme Court or high court in a corruption case, the President would be the competent authority, though no criminal case would be registered without first consulting the chief justice of the court where the judge was working.
"If the Chief Justice of India himself is the person against whom allegations of criminal misconduct are received, the government shall consult any other judge or judges of the Supreme Court," the majority verdict said.
dhananjay.mahapatra@timesgroup.com
Posted by Dr. T. Jacob Thomas at 6:23 PM 0 comments
Sunday, April 13, 2008
History of Latin
History of Latin
History of Latin Close this window
An irreverent but true chronology by Timothy J. Pulju.
753 BC — Traditional date of the founding of the city of Rome by Romulus, a fictional character who killed his twin brother Remus, populated his city with escaped convicts, and found wives for his subjects by kidnapping Sabine women who had come for a visit. At this stage, Latin is the language spoken by several thousand people in and near Rome.
6th century BC — Earliest known Latin inscription, on a pin, which says "Manios me fhefhaked Numasioi", meaning "Manius made me for Numerius". Only a few other inscriptions predate the 3rd century BC.
250-100 BC — Early Latin. The first Latin literature, usually loose translations of Greek works or imitations of Greek genres, stems from this period. Meanwhile, the Romans are conquering the Mediterranean world and bringing their language with them.
100 BC-150 AD — Classical Latin. Guys like Cicero, Caesar, Vergil, and Tacitus write masterpieces of Latin literature. Also, Ovid writes a book on how to pick up women at the gladiator shows. The literary language becomes fixed and gradually loses touch with the ever- changing popular language known today as Vulgar Latin.
200-550 — Late Latin. Some varieties of literature adhere closely to the classical standard, others are less polished or deliberately closer to the popular speech (e.g., St. Jerome's translation of the Bible into Latin—the Vulgate). The western half of the empire is falling to pieces, but the Greek-speaking east, which is still in good shape, keeps using Latin in official contexts until the end of this period.
600-750 — Latin has become a dead language. Few people in the west outside of monasteries can read. The spoken languages of Italy, France and Spain change rapidly. Monks, particularly in Ireland, read and write classical Latin and preserve ancient texts as well as church documents. The Roman Catholic church continues to use Late Latin in the liturgy, though they eventually decide to deliver homilies in the local popular language. The Byzantines still call themselves Romans but have given up on the Latin language.
800-900 — The Carolingian Renaissance. Charlemagne decides that education is a good thing and promotes it in his kingdoms. After his death scholarship goes downhill a while, but never as far as it had before his reign.
1100-1300 — Contact with the educated Arabs who have conquered North Africa and Spain leads to a revival of learning, especially the study of Aristotle and other Greeks. Leading smart guys include St. Thomas "The Dumb Ox" Aquinas and John "Dunce" Scotus, as well as Petrus Hispanus, a pope who was killed when a ceiling collapsed on him. All learned writing is done in Latin, a practice which persisted until the 20th century at some fairly silly universities.
Mid 14th century — The Black Death kills a lot of people, including students, professors and other people who live in crowded, unsanitary cities. This is bad for the educational system. Meanwhile, an Italian poet named Petrarch decides that plague-infested professors and anyone else who doesn't write the classical Latin used by Cicero is a moron. In fact, everyone between Cicero and Petrarch was a moron in the latter's opinion, so it was high time to have a Renaissance and make fun of everything medieval.
1400-1650 — During the Renaissance, which spreads from Italy to France and finally to England, people start reading Latin classical authors and bringing Latin words into their languages. In England, this is called "aureate diction" and is considered evidence of great learnedness. Furthermore, as science develops, Europeans find it useful to have a universal Latinate terminology to facilitate international research.
up till 1900 — Almost everyone who goes to college has to learn Latin, and most humanities majors have to study Greek as well. Many of the Latin roots borrowed during the aureate diction period have come to seem native and can be used in forming new words.
mid 1960s — The Catholic Church decides that Latin is no longer the obligatory language of Catholic liturgies. Meanwhile, what with free love and everything, most young people of the 60s figure they have better things to do than learn Latin.
Today — Nobody speaks Latin well, and few people can write it, but lots can read it. Many of them are tenured professors, so they'd be hard to get rid of even if we wanted to.
Close this window
Posted by Dr. T. Jacob Thomas at 8:20 AM 0 comments
History of English
A Brief History of English, with Chronology
by Suzanne Kemmer © 2001-2005
* Pre-English | Old English | Middle English | Modern English
The language we call English was first brought to the north sea coasts of England in the 5th and 6th centuries A.D., by seafaring people from Denmark and the northwestern coasts of present-day Germany and the Netherlands. These immigrants spoke a cluster of related dialects falling within the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Their language began to develop its own distinctive features in isolation from the continental Germanic languages, and by 600 A.D. had developed into what we call Old English or Anglo-Saxon, covering the territory of most of modern England.
New waves of Germanic invaders and settlers came from Norway and Denmark starting in the late 8th century. The more violent of these were known as Vikings, sea-faring plunderers who retained their ancient pagan gods and attacked settlements and churches for gold and silver. They spoke a northern Germanic dialect similar to, yet different in grammar from Anglo-Saxon. In the 11th century, the attacks became organized, state-sponsored military invasions and England was even ruled for a time by the kings of Denmark and Norway. The Scandinavian influence on the language was strongest in the north and lasted for a full 600 years, although English seems to have been adopted by the settlers fairly early on.
The Norman Invasion and Conquest of 1066 was a cataclysmic event that brought new rulers and new cultural, social and linguistic influences to the British Isles. The Norman French ruling minority dominated the church, government, legal, and educational systems for three centuries. The Norman establishment used French and Latin, leaving English as the language of the illiterate and powerless majority. During this period English adopted thousands of words from Norman French and from Latin, and its grammar changed rather radically. By the end of that time, however, the aristocracy had adopted English as their language and the use and importance of French gradually faded. The period from the Conquest to the reemergence of English as a full-fledged literary language is called Middle English. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, in Middle English in the late 1300s.
William Caxton set up the first printing press in Britain at the end of the 15th century. The arrival of printing marks the point at which the language began to take the first steps toward standardization and its eventual role as a national language. The period from 1500 to about 1650 is called Early Modern English, a period during which notable sound changes, syntactic changes and lexical enrichment took place. The Great English Vowel Shift, which systematically shifted the phonetic values of all the long vowels in English, occurred during this period. Word order became more fixed in a subject-verb-object pattern, and English developed a complex auxiliary verb system. A rush of new vocabulary from the classical languages, the modern European languages, and more distant trading partners such as the countries of Asian minor and the Middle East entered the language as the renaissance influences of culture and trade and the emerging scientific community of Europe took root in England.
Shakespeare wrote prolifically during the late 1500s and early 1600s and, like Chaucer, took the language into new and creative literary territory. His influence on English drama and poetry continued to grow after his death in 1616 and he has never been surpassed as the best known and most read poet/playwright of modern English.
The King James Bible was published in 1611, the culmination of at least a century of efforts to bring a Bible written in the native language of the people into the Church establishment and into people's homes. Among the common people, whose contact with literature often did not go far past the Bible, the language of the scriptures as presented in this version commissioned by King James I was deeply influential, due in part to its religious significance, but also to its literary quality. Its simple style and use of native vocabulary had a surpassing beauty that still resonates today.
By the 1700s almost all of the modern syntactic patterns of English were in place and the language is easily readable by modern speakers. Colonization of new territories by the newly united Kingdom of Great Britain spread English to the far corners of the globe and brought cargoes of still more loanwords from those far-flung places. At this point English began to develop its major world dialectal varieties, some of which would develop into national standards for newly independent colonies. By the 21st century, as the language of international business, science, and popular culture, English has become the most important language on the planet.
* Comparison of the Lord's Prayer in different stages of English
Pre-English Period (before 600 AD) [Top]
ca. 3000 B.C.
(or 6000 B.C?) Proto-Indo-European spoken in Baltic area.
(or Anatolia?)
* Excurses: Indo-European languages | Proto-Indo-European
ca. 1000 B.C. After many migrations, the various branches of Indo-European have become distinct. Celtic becomes most widespread branch of I.E. in Europe; Celtic peoples inhabit what is now Spain, France, Germany and England.
55 B.C. Beginning of Roman raids on British Isles.
43 A.D. Roman occupation of Britain. Roman colony of "Britannia" established. Eventually, many Celtic Britons become Romanized. (Others continually rebel).
* Excursus: History of Latin
200 B.C.-200 A.D. Germanic peoples move down from Scandinavia and spread over Central Europe in successive waves. Supplant Celts. Come into contact (at times antagonistic, at times commercial) with northward-expanding empire of Romans.
Early 5th century. Roman Empire collapses. Romans pull out of Britain and other colonies, attempting to shore up defense on the home front; but it's useless. Rome sacked by Goths.
Germanic tribes on the continent continue migrations west and south; consolidate into ever larger units. Those taking over in Rome call themselves "Roman emperors."
ca. 410 A.D. First Germanic tribes arrive in England.
410-600 Settlement of most of Britain by Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, some Frisians) speaking West Germanic dialects descended from Proto-Germanic. These dialects are distantly related to Latin, but also have a sprinkling of Latin borrowings due to earlier cultural contact with the Romans on the continent.
Celtic peoples, most of whom are Christianized, are pushed increasingly (despite occasional violent uprisings) into the marginal areas of Britain: Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Anglo-Saxons, originally sea-farers, settle down as farmers, exploiting rich English farmland.
By 600 A.D., the Germanic speech of England comprises dialects of a language distinct from the continental Germanic languages.
Old English Period (ca. 600-1100) [Top]
600-800 Rise of three great kingdoms politically unifying large areas: Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex. Supremacy passes from one kingdom to another in that order.
ca. 600 Christianity introduced among Anglo-Saxons by St. Augustine, missionary from Rome. Irish missionaries also spread Celtic form of Christianity to mainland Britain.
793 First serious Viking incursions. Lindisfarne monastery sacked.
* Excursus: Map of Viking invasions
800 Charlemagne, king of the Franks, crowned Holy Roman Emperor; height of Frankish power in Europe. Wessex kings aspire to similar glory; want to unite all England, and if possible the rest of mainland Britain, under one crown (theirs).
840s-870s Viking incursions grow worse and worse. Large organized groups set up permanent encampments on English soil. Slay kings of Northumbria and East Anglia, subjugate king of Mercia. Storm York (Anglo-Saxon Eoforwic) and set up a Viking kingdom (Jorvik). Wessex stands alone as the last Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Britain.
871 Vikings move against Wessex. In six pitched battles, the English hold their own, but fail to repel attackers decisively. In the last battle, the English king is mortally wounded. His young brother, Alfred, who had distinguished himself during the battles, is crowned king.
871-876 Alfred builds a navy. The kings of Denmark and Norway have come to view England as ripe for the plucking and begin to prepare an attack.
876 Three Danish kings attack Wessex. Alfred prevails, only to be attacked again a few months later. His cause looks hopeless.
878 Decisive battle at Edington; Alfred and a large contingent of desperate Anglo-Saxons make a last stand (they know what awaits them if they fail). Alfred leads the Anglo-Saxons to decisive victory; blockades a large Viking camp nearby, starving them into submission; and exacts homage from the kings of Denmark and an oath that the Danes will leave Wessex forever.
Under Alfred's terms of victory, England is partitioned into a part governed by the Anglo-Saxons (under the house of Wessex) and a part governed by the Scandinavians (some of whom become underlords of Alfred), divided by Watling Street. 15 years of peace follow; Alfred reigns over peaceful and prosperous kingdom. First called "Alfred the Great".
925 Athelstan crowned king. Height of Anglo-Saxon power. Athelstan reconquers York from the Vikings, and even conquers Scotland and Wales, heretofore ruled by Celts. Continues Alfred's mission of making improvemen ts in government, education, defense, and other social institutions.
10th century Danes and English continue to mix peacefully, and ultimately become indistinguishable. Many Scandinavian loanwords enter the language; English even borrows pronouns like them, their they.
978 Aethelred "the Unready" becomes king at 11 years of age.
991 Aethelred has proved to be a weak king, who does not repel minor Viking attacks. Vikings experiment with a major incursion at Maldon in Essex. After losing battle, Aethelred bribes them to depart with 10,000 pounds of silver. Mistake. Sveinn, king of Denmark, takes note.
994-1014 After 20 years of continuous battles and bribings, and incompetent and cowardly military leadership and governance, the English capitulate to king Sveinn of Denmark (later also of Norway). Aethelred flees to Normandy, across the channel.
1014 Sveinn's young son Cnut (or Canute) crowned king of England. Cnut decides to follow in Alfred's footsteps, aiming for a peaceful and prosperous kingdom. Encourages Anglo-Saxon culture and literature. Even marries Aethelred's widow Emma, brought over from Normandy.
After Cnut's death his sons bicker over the kingdom. When they die without issue, the kingdom passes back to the house of Wessex, to young Edward, son of Aethelred and Emma, who had been raised in exile in Normandy. Edward is a pious, monkish man called "The Confessor".
Edward has strong partiality for his birthplace, Normandy, a duchy populated by the descendents of Romanized Vikings. Especially fond of young Duke William of Normandy. Edward is dominated by his Anglo-Saxon earls, especially powerful earl Godwin. Godwin's son, Harold Godwinson, becomes de facto ruler as Edward takes less and less interest in governing.
1066 January. Edward dies childless, apparently recommending Harold Godwinson as successor. Harold duly chosen by Wessex earls, as nearest of kin to the crown is only an infant. Mercian and Northumbrian earls are hesitant to go along with choice of Harold.
William of Normandy claims that Harold once promised to support HIM as successor to Edward. Harold denies it. William prepares to mount an invasion. Ready by summer, but the winds are unfavorable for sailing.
September. Harald Hardradi of Norway decides this is a good time to attack England. Harold Godwinson rushes north and crushes Hardradi's army at Stamford Bridge. The winds change, and William puts to sea. Harold rushes back down to the south coast to try to repel William's attack. Mercians and Northumbrians are supposed to march down to help him, but never do. They don't realize what's in store for them.
October. Harold is defeated and killed at the battle of Hastings.
December. William of Normandy crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day.
* Excursus: The Bayeux Tapestry
Middle English Period (ca. 1100-1500) [Top]
1066-1075 William crushes uprisings of Anglo-Saxon earls and peasants with a brutal hand; in Mercia and Northumberland, uses (literal) scorched earth policy, decimating population and laying waste the countryside. Anglo-Saxon earls and freemen deprived of property; many enslaved. William distributes property and titles to Normans (and some English) who supported him. Many of the English hereditary titles of nobility date from this period.
English becomes the language of the lower classes (peasants and slaves). Norman French becomes the language of the court and propertied classes. The legal system is redrawn along Norman lines and conducted in French. Churches, monasteries gradually filled with French-speaking functionaries, who use French for record-keeping. After a while, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is no longer kept up. Authors write literature in French, not English. For all practical purposes English is no longer a written language.
Bilingualism gradually becomes more common, especially among those who deal with both upper and lower classes. Growth of London as a commercial center draws many from the countryside who can fill this socially intermediate role.
1204 The English kings lose the duchy of Normandy to French kings. England is now the only home of the Norman English.
1205 First book in English appears since the conquest.
1258 First royal proclamation issued in English since the conquest.
ca. 1300 Increasing feeling on the part of even noblemen that they are English, not French. Nobility begin to educate their children in English. French is taught to children as a foreign language rather than used as a medium of instruction.
1337 Start of the Hundred Years' War between England and France.
1362 English becomes official language of the law courts. More and more authors are writing in English.
ca. 1380 Chaucer writes the Canterbury tales in Middle English. the language shows French influence in thousands of French borrowings. The London dialect, for the first time, begins to be recognized as the "Standard", or variety of English taken as the norm, for all England. Other dialects are relegated to a less prestigious position, even those that earlier served as standards (e.g. the Wessex dialect of southwest England).
* Excursus: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
1474 William Caxton brings a printing press to England from Germany. Publishes the first printed book in England. Beginning of the long process of standardization of spelling.
* Excursus: The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye
Modern English Period (ca. 1500-present) [Top]
1500-1650 Early Modern English develops. The Great Vowel Shift gradually takes place. There is a large influx of Latin and Greek borrowings and neologisms.
1552 Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, publishes the Book of Common Prayer, a translation of the church's liturgy into English.
1611 King James Bible published, which has influenced English writing down to the present day.
* Excursus: Common phrases from the King James Bible
1616 Shakespeare dies. Recognized even then as a genius of the English language. Wove native and borrowed words together in amazing and pleasing combinations.
* Excursus: Shakespeare's Legacy
1700s Classical period of English literature. The fashion for borrowing Latin and Greek words, and coining new words with Latin and Greek morphemes, rages unabated. Elaborate syntax matches elaborate vocabulary (e.g. writings of Samuel Johnson).
The rise of English purists, e.g. Jonathan Swift, who decried the 'degeneration' of English and sought to 'purify' it and fix it forever in unchanging form.
17th-19th centuries British imperialism. Borrowings from languages around the world.
Development of American English. By 19th century, a standard variety of American English develops, based on the dialect of the Mid-Atlantic states.
Establishment of English in Australia, South Africa, and India, among other British colonial outposts.
* Excursus: Borrowed words in English
19th century Recognition (and acceptance) by linguistic scholars of the ever-changing nature of language. Discovery of the Indo-European language family. Late in century: Recognition that all languages are fundamentally the same in nature; no "primitive" or "advanced" languages.
19th-20th centuries Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. Development of technical vocabularies. Within a few centuries, English has gone from an island tongue to a world language, following the fortunes of those who speak it.
20th century Communications revolution. Spread of a few languages at the expense of many. Languages of the world begin to die out on a large scale as mastery of certain world languages becomes necessary for survival. Classification and description of non-Indo-European languages by linguists continues, in many cases in a race against the clock.
1945-present American political, economic, military supremacy. Borrowing patterns continue. English has greater impact than ever on other languages, even those with more native speakers. Becomes most widely studied second language, and a scientific lingua franca.
By the 1990s, preferences begin to shift in many places from British to American English as the selected standard for second language acquisition. The twin influences of British and American broadcasting media make the language accessible to more and more people. Hollywood and the pop music industry help make English an irresistible medium for the transmission of popular culture. Even long-established European cultures begin to feel linguistically and culturally threatened, as English comes into use in more and more spheres and large numbers of English borrowings enter their languages.
New waves of immigrants to the U.S. Linguistic diversity increases where the newcomers settle, but immigrants repeat the pattern of earlier settlers and lose their language within a generation or two. The culture at large remains resolutely monolingual (despite the fears of cultural purists). But as ever, the language continues to absorb loanwords, continually enriched by the many tongues of the newcomers to these shores.
* Excursus: Internet slang
[Top]
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Posted by Dr. T. Jacob Thomas at 8:17 AM 0 comments
Friday, April 11, 2008
Lalu, Antony slam pay panel's 'pro-IAS' report-India-The Times of India
Lalu, Antony slam pay panel's 'pro-IAS' report-India-The Times of India
*
Lalu, Antony slam pay panel's 'pro-IAS' report
12 Apr 2008, 0315 hrs IST,Vishwa Mohan & Bisheshwar Mishra,TNN
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NEW DELHI: The gathering discontent against the recommendations of the sixth pay commission found a loud echo in the Union Cabinet on Friday, with railway minister Lalu Prasad strongly asking for a review of what he called "a package loaded in favour of big babus in the IAS".
The recommendations were iniquitous and would increase salary disparities among different sections of employees, Lalu said. He added that while secretaries and other senior IAS officers had fared well, other services — police, paramilitary forces, defence services, railways, as well as lower and middle-rank functionaries of almost all central services — had been given a short shrift.
Lalu's strong advocacy received support, according to sources, from defence minister A K Antony, home minister Shivraj Patil and others, leading Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to suggest that the recommendations were not the last word and the government would take a view after a detailed scrutiny of the report and the grievances it has generated.
The Cabinet cleared a proposal to set up a high-level panel headed by cabinet secretary K M Chandrashekhar to screen the recommendations and look into the alleged anomalies.
The 12-member committee will comprise secretaries of the ministries of home, defence, revenue and expenditure.
The secretary of the department of post, secretary of security, deputy CAG, and financial commissioner and member secretary of the Railway Board will be the other members of the panel.
"The final recommendations of the committee will be submitted to the Cabinet for approval," science and technology minister Kapil Sibal told reporters after the Cabinet meeting. The minister did not announce any time-frame by which the committee would submit its report.
Given the widespread grievances against the pay panel's "bias" for IAS, there are doubts whether the agitating sections will accept the recommendations of the panel dominated by the "elite corps".
Meanwhile, The IPS Association has already asked for setting up of a GoM to go into their demand for "principle of parity in pay, promotion, pension and service conditions with IAS". The stand was finalized at a meeting of IPS officers drawn from across the country on Thursday.
"One should not forget what happened to similar committees formed after the fourth and fifth pay commission. The follow-up reports by such panels were merely an eyewash as it hardly addressed the grievances of employees," said a senior IPS officer.
What increases the prospect of a GoM is the sympathy that the political class, ever resentful of the "obstructionist ways" of the "steel frame", has shown for the discontented sections of the government servants since the pay commission unveiled its much-awaited report last month.
Before Lalu, UP chief minister Mayawati had come out strongly for the IPS cadre and the cops can only be expected to step up the lobbying.
The bubbling resentment came out in the open in the Capital on Friday with the Central Secretariat Services Association holding a huge protest demonstration. Members of the association have decided to observe a "protest week", beginning May 21.
There was strong fear of the employees cranking up their protests and was suspected to be the main reason for Lalu's forceful intervention in the Cabinet.
While the government had expected some protests, its willingness to deal with them would be constrained by the looming polls. Sections are wary of the implications of any generosity on the fiscal figures. But it has to balance the concern with consideration not to appear insensitive to the demands of a vocal and organized workforce that has a disproportionate say in influencing opinion.
Then, it also has to reckon with powerful partners as well as the Left who have traditionally been more aligned with the aspirations of the cops and non-IAS sections of the
Posted by Dr. T. Jacob Thomas at 6:08 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Muslims suss rpaCatholics: Will interfaith dialogue follow? | redblueamerica.com
Muslims surpass Catholics: Will interfaith dialogue follow? | redblueamerica.com
Muslims surpass Catholics: Will interfaith dialogue follow?
Demographic changes are reshaping the world's religions. The Vatican on Sunday reported that Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion.
"For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican's yearbook. He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population -- a stable percentage -- while Muslims were at 19.2 percent. (Christianity as a whole, however, remains the dominant world religion.)
"It is true that while Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer," the monsignor said.
The news comes as Catholics and Muslims prepare to launch an unprecedented interfaith dialogue. Should the shifting population change the course of dialogue? Do Christians have anything to worry about? How does the rising Muslim population change the way Americans think about Islam and the war on terrorism? Does the changing face of world religion give new impetus to efforts to promote religious tolerance and peace?
Posted by Dr. T. Jacob Thomas at 6:53 AM 0 comments
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+ My Favorite Sentence Revision Technique | Writing ...
+ Govt drops move for stricter Sati law-India-The Ti...
+ The Times of India - Indian Newspapers in English ...
+ History of Latin
+ History of English
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My Favorite Sentence Revision Technique | Writing Power
My Favorite Sentence Revision Technique | Writing Power
My Favorite Sentence Revision Technique
Author: loren
18 Mar
My students typically get into a bad place about their writing style right about now - at midterm. Gripping their temples, they moan, “This is pointless. It’s stupid. You know what I meant.” Just a couple of weeks ago, they had (somewhat glibly) assured me that they were eager to learn how to write with a more powerful, lively, specific style. Now that they have had a taste of how difficult stylistic issues can be, and how deeply ingrained in their prose wordiness is, they’re frustrated. Quite understandably.
Revising to improve writing style can be a tortuous - and torturous - process. All too often, we fix one style error by creating another. Or we can’t think of a different way to phrase our ideas. Sometimes, we don’t even understand the wordy, jargon-filled prose our earlier selves drafted. It’s enough to make a writer want to give up.
But my students are not giving up. They are turning on the assignment instead, demanding to know what’s so great about active voice or what’s so wrong with “due to the fact that.” I find this feistiness encouraging, because it means that they are questioning assumptions about writing. They are thinking critically, even if their goal is nothing more noble than trying to worm out of the hard work of stylistic revision. They need a manageable sentence revision strategy to get them started.
At this point, I introduce the class to my favorite sentence revision technique: Richard Lanham’s Paramedic Method of Revision. It’s simple to understand, easy to do, and effective.
Here it is:
1. Circle all the forms of the verb “to be.”
2. Circle all the prepositions.
3. Ask yourself, “who is doing the central action in this sentence?”
4. Make your answer the active subject of the sentence.
5. Eliminate mindless introductory phrases.
Let’s break it down.
1. Forms of the verb to be (For example: is, am, are, was, were, will have been, would be, has been, will be) are often a signal that passive voice is present. Additionally, “to be” is the most inert verb in the English language - step #3 almost always identifies a central action other than “being.”
2. The more prepositions in a sentence (For example: of, to, from, by, for, beside, among, between, over, off, in, onto, under, through, around, at), the higher the chance that the writer is using wordy phrases. Like the verb “to be,” prepositions have valid uses in English; however, writers often overuse them as well.
3. Often in a wordy sentence, the most important action is hiding in a noun or wordy phrase. By asking yourself to identify your sentence’s essential core, you will find that action and turn it into a vibrant active verb.
4. Make the “doer” of that active verb the sentence’s subject. After all, the subject and verb are a sentence’s most important parts. It stands to reason that they should communicate the sentence’s most important information.
5. Introductory phrases can be useful, but they can also be rhetorical throat-clearing. Your sentences should hit the ground running, content wise.
Example before the paramedic method:
In today’s society, honesty is seen as a quality that many people do not value.
After:
Few people value honesty.
Another example before:
It is evident that there is an extensive process involved in the creation of high-quality writing that begins in the mind of the writer and does not cease but continues over the course of the process of writing from invention to editing.
And after:
A writer’s creative process starts in his or her mind and continues from invention to editing.
Of course, the Paramedic Method will not catch every stylistic gaffe. But applying it diligently can improve your writing dramatically. I hope you’ll try it soon.
Posted by Dr. T. Jacob Thomas at 9:59 PM 0 comments
Govt drops move for stricter Sati law-India-The Times of India
Govt drops move for stricter Sati law-India-The Times of India
Govt drops move for stricter Sati law
23 Apr 2008, 0021 hrs IST,Himanshi Dhawan,TNN
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NEW DELHI: The UPA government has dropped attempts to strengthen the anti-Sati law, more than 20 years after it was first enacted. This comes at a time when the women's reservation bill has been relegated to the backburner.
The amendments to the Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987, had met with resistance in the Cabinet over some clauses. The proposed law was expected to increase prison terms for those committing as well as glorifying the practice while holding the entire community responsible for the act.
Sources in the women and child development ministry said the amendments have been dropped following political pressure.
Cabinet members, including minister for mines Sis Ram Ola, and science and technology minister Kapil Sibal had objected to the amendments in a meeting in September.
Ola, who hails from Jhunjhunu, raised several issues. He said the proposals would challenge existing mores. What would happen to the Sati temples and how would the government deal with the tradition of worship at these temples, he asked.
Sibal had pointed out certain legal lapses in the bill that holds the panchayat and onlookers responsible for "participation" in bride-burning. The bill had recommended that the village be heavily fined and the panchayat be made responsible for alerting the police and the district magistrate to any such incident.
The proposed legislation recommended that coercing a woman to commit Sati be made a non-bailable offence. The amendments were cleared by a GoM in August 2007.
Posted by Dr. T. Jacob Thomas at 6:20 PM 0 comments
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Times of India - Indian Newspapers in English Language from six editions.
The Times of India - Indian Newspapers in English Language from six editions.
Is the CJI a public servant?
22 Apr 2008, 0300 hrs IST,Dhananjay Mahapatra,TNN
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NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan's contention that the CJI was not a public servant but a constitutional authority flies in the face of a 1991 ruling by a five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court which held that all judges of the apex court and high courts were "public servants".
Justice Balakrishnan recently said, "The Chief Justice is not a public servant. He is a constitutional authority. RTI does not cover constitutional authorities." This assertion appears contrary to the ruling of the five-judge Bench, which by a 4:1 majority, held that "a judge of the high court or the Supreme Court is a 'public servant' within the meaning of Section 2 of the Prevention of Corruption Act".
The RTI Act had not been conceived at that time and the SC could not debate whether a person categorised as public servant under PC Act would retain his classification under the RTI Act.
In the judgment given on July 25, 1991, the apex court had rejected the plea of a former HC chief justice, K Veeraswamy, seeking quashing of criminal proceedings initiated against him by the CBI for accumulating disproportionate assets during his tenure as CJ.
Justices K J Shetty, B C Ray, L M Sharma and M N Venkatachalliah unanimously came to the conclusion that all judges of the superior courts were "public servants".
Justice J S Verma dissented. "A judge or chief justice of a high court is a constitutional functionary, even though he holds a public office and in that sense, he may be included in the wide definition of a public servant."
He said that as there was no authority nominated in the PC Act to sanction prosecution of SC and HC judges, they could not be classified as public servants under the anti-corruption law.
The majority did not agree with Justice Verma. They said for sanctioning prosecution of a judge of the Supreme Court or high court in a corruption case, the President would be the competent authority, though no criminal case would be registered without first consulting the chief justice of the court where the judge was working.
"If the Chief Justice of India himself is the person against whom allegations of criminal misconduct are received, the government shall consult any other judge or judges of the Supreme Court," the majority verdict said.
dhananjay.mahapatra@timesgroup.com
Posted by Dr. T. Jacob Thomas at 6:23 PM 0 comments
Sunday, April 13, 2008
History of Latin
History of Latin
History of Latin Close this window
An irreverent but true chronology by Timothy J. Pulju.
753 BC — Traditional date of the founding of the city of Rome by Romulus, a fictional character who killed his twin brother Remus, populated his city with escaped convicts, and found wives for his subjects by kidnapping Sabine women who had come for a visit. At this stage, Latin is the language spoken by several thousand people in and near Rome.
6th century BC — Earliest known Latin inscription, on a pin, which says "Manios me fhefhaked Numasioi", meaning "Manius made me for Numerius". Only a few other inscriptions predate the 3rd century BC.
250-100 BC — Early Latin. The first Latin literature, usually loose translations of Greek works or imitations of Greek genres, stems from this period. Meanwhile, the Romans are conquering the Mediterranean world and bringing their language with them.
100 BC-150 AD — Classical Latin. Guys like Cicero, Caesar, Vergil, and Tacitus write masterpieces of Latin literature. Also, Ovid writes a book on how to pick up women at the gladiator shows. The literary language becomes fixed and gradually loses touch with the ever- changing popular language known today as Vulgar Latin.
200-550 — Late Latin. Some varieties of literature adhere closely to the classical standard, others are less polished or deliberately closer to the popular speech (e.g., St. Jerome's translation of the Bible into Latin—the Vulgate). The western half of the empire is falling to pieces, but the Greek-speaking east, which is still in good shape, keeps using Latin in official contexts until the end of this period.
600-750 — Latin has become a dead language. Few people in the west outside of monasteries can read. The spoken languages of Italy, France and Spain change rapidly. Monks, particularly in Ireland, read and write classical Latin and preserve ancient texts as well as church documents. The Roman Catholic church continues to use Late Latin in the liturgy, though they eventually decide to deliver homilies in the local popular language. The Byzantines still call themselves Romans but have given up on the Latin language.
800-900 — The Carolingian Renaissance. Charlemagne decides that education is a good thing and promotes it in his kingdoms. After his death scholarship goes downhill a while, but never as far as it had before his reign.
1100-1300 — Contact with the educated Arabs who have conquered North Africa and Spain leads to a revival of learning, especially the study of Aristotle and other Greeks. Leading smart guys include St. Thomas "The Dumb Ox" Aquinas and John "Dunce" Scotus, as well as Petrus Hispanus, a pope who was killed when a ceiling collapsed on him. All learned writing is done in Latin, a practice which persisted until the 20th century at some fairly silly universities.
Mid 14th century — The Black Death kills a lot of people, including students, professors and other people who live in crowded, unsanitary cities. This is bad for the educational system. Meanwhile, an Italian poet named Petrarch decides that plague-infested professors and anyone else who doesn't write the classical Latin used by Cicero is a moron. In fact, everyone between Cicero and Petrarch was a moron in the latter's opinion, so it was high time to have a Renaissance and make fun of everything medieval.
1400-1650 — During the Renaissance, which spreads from Italy to France and finally to England, people start reading Latin classical authors and bringing Latin words into their languages. In England, this is called "aureate diction" and is considered evidence of great learnedness. Furthermore, as science develops, Europeans find it useful to have a universal Latinate terminology to facilitate international research.
up till 1900 — Almost everyone who goes to college has to learn Latin, and most humanities majors have to study Greek as well. Many of the Latin roots borrowed during the aureate diction period have come to seem native and can be used in forming new words.
mid 1960s — The Catholic Church decides that Latin is no longer the obligatory language of Catholic liturgies. Meanwhile, what with free love and everything, most young people of the 60s figure they have better things to do than learn Latin.
Today — Nobody speaks Latin well, and few people can write it, but lots can read it. Many of them are tenured professors, so they'd be hard to get rid of even if we wanted to.
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Posted by Dr. T. Jacob Thomas at 8:20 AM 0 comments
History of English
A Brief History of English, with Chronology
by Suzanne Kemmer © 2001-2005
* Pre-English | Old English | Middle English | Modern English
The language we call English was first brought to the north sea coasts of England in the 5th and 6th centuries A.D., by seafaring people from Denmark and the northwestern coasts of present-day Germany and the Netherlands. These immigrants spoke a cluster of related dialects falling within the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Their language began to develop its own distinctive features in isolation from the continental Germanic languages, and by 600 A.D. had developed into what we call Old English or Anglo-Saxon, covering the territory of most of modern England.
New waves of Germanic invaders and settlers came from Norway and Denmark starting in the late 8th century. The more violent of these were known as Vikings, sea-faring plunderers who retained their ancient pagan gods and attacked settlements and churches for gold and silver. They spoke a northern Germanic dialect similar to, yet different in grammar from Anglo-Saxon. In the 11th century, the attacks became organized, state-sponsored military invasions and England was even ruled for a time by the kings of Denmark and Norway. The Scandinavian influence on the language was strongest in the north and lasted for a full 600 years, although English seems to have been adopted by the settlers fairly early on.
The Norman Invasion and Conquest of 1066 was a cataclysmic event that brought new rulers and new cultural, social and linguistic influences to the British Isles. The Norman French ruling minority dominated the church, government, legal, and educational systems for three centuries. The Norman establishment used French and Latin, leaving English as the language of the illiterate and powerless majority. During this period English adopted thousands of words from Norman French and from Latin, and its grammar changed rather radically. By the end of that time, however, the aristocracy had adopted English as their language and the use and importance of French gradually faded. The period from the Conquest to the reemergence of English as a full-fledged literary language is called Middle English. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, in Middle English in the late 1300s.
William Caxton set up the first printing press in Britain at the end of the 15th century. The arrival of printing marks the point at which the language began to take the first steps toward standardization and its eventual role as a national language. The period from 1500 to about 1650 is called Early Modern English, a period during which notable sound changes, syntactic changes and lexical enrichment took place. The Great English Vowel Shift, which systematically shifted the phonetic values of all the long vowels in English, occurred during this period. Word order became more fixed in a subject-verb-object pattern, and English developed a complex auxiliary verb system. A rush of new vocabulary from the classical languages, the modern European languages, and more distant trading partners such as the countries of Asian minor and the Middle East entered the language as the renaissance influences of culture and trade and the emerging scientific community of Europe took root in England.
Shakespeare wrote prolifically during the late 1500s and early 1600s and, like Chaucer, took the language into new and creative literary territory. His influence on English drama and poetry continued to grow after his death in 1616 and he has never been surpassed as the best known and most read poet/playwright of modern English.
The King James Bible was published in 1611, the culmination of at least a century of efforts to bring a Bible written in the native language of the people into the Church establishment and into people's homes. Among the common people, whose contact with literature often did not go far past the Bible, the language of the scriptures as presented in this version commissioned by King James I was deeply influential, due in part to its religious significance, but also to its literary quality. Its simple style and use of native vocabulary had a surpassing beauty that still resonates today.
By the 1700s almost all of the modern syntactic patterns of English were in place and the language is easily readable by modern speakers. Colonization of new territories by the newly united Kingdom of Great Britain spread English to the far corners of the globe and brought cargoes of still more loanwords from those far-flung places. At this point English began to develop its major world dialectal varieties, some of which would develop into national standards for newly independent colonies. By the 21st century, as the language of international business, science, and popular culture, English has become the most important language on the planet.
* Comparison of the Lord's Prayer in different stages of English
Pre-English Period (before 600 AD) [Top]
ca. 3000 B.C.
(or 6000 B.C?) Proto-Indo-European spoken in Baltic area.
(or Anatolia?)
* Excurses: Indo-European languages | Proto-Indo-European
ca. 1000 B.C. After many migrations, the various branches of Indo-European have become distinct. Celtic becomes most widespread branch of I.E. in Europe; Celtic peoples inhabit what is now Spain, France, Germany and England.
55 B.C. Beginning of Roman raids on British Isles.
43 A.D. Roman occupation of Britain. Roman colony of "Britannia" established. Eventually, many Celtic Britons become Romanized. (Others continually rebel).
* Excursus: History of Latin
200 B.C.-200 A.D. Germanic peoples move down from Scandinavia and spread over Central Europe in successive waves. Supplant Celts. Come into contact (at times antagonistic, at times commercial) with northward-expanding empire of Romans.
Early 5th century. Roman Empire collapses. Romans pull out of Britain and other colonies, attempting to shore up defense on the home front; but it's useless. Rome sacked by Goths.
Germanic tribes on the continent continue migrations west and south; consolidate into ever larger units. Those taking over in Rome call themselves "Roman emperors."
ca. 410 A.D. First Germanic tribes arrive in England.
410-600 Settlement of most of Britain by Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, some Frisians) speaking West Germanic dialects descended from Proto-Germanic. These dialects are distantly related to Latin, but also have a sprinkling of Latin borrowings due to earlier cultural contact with the Romans on the continent.
Celtic peoples, most of whom are Christianized, are pushed increasingly (despite occasional violent uprisings) into the marginal areas of Britain: Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Anglo-Saxons, originally sea-farers, settle down as farmers, exploiting rich English farmland.
By 600 A.D., the Germanic speech of England comprises dialects of a language distinct from the continental Germanic languages.
Old English Period (ca. 600-1100) [Top]
600-800 Rise of three great kingdoms politically unifying large areas: Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex. Supremacy passes from one kingdom to another in that order.
ca. 600 Christianity introduced among Anglo-Saxons by St. Augustine, missionary from Rome. Irish missionaries also spread Celtic form of Christianity to mainland Britain.
793 First serious Viking incursions. Lindisfarne monastery sacked.
* Excursus: Map of Viking invasions
800 Charlemagne, king of the Franks, crowned Holy Roman Emperor; height of Frankish power in Europe. Wessex kings aspire to similar glory; want to unite all England, and if possible the rest of mainland Britain, under one crown (theirs).
840s-870s Viking incursions grow worse and worse. Large organized groups set up permanent encampments on English soil. Slay kings of Northumbria and East Anglia, subjugate king of Mercia. Storm York (Anglo-Saxon Eoforwic) and set up a Viking kingdom (Jorvik). Wessex stands alone as the last Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Britain.
871 Vikings move against Wessex. In six pitched battles, the English hold their own, but fail to repel attackers decisively. In the last battle, the English king is mortally wounded. His young brother, Alfred, who had distinguished himself during the battles, is crowned king.
871-876 Alfred builds a navy. The kings of Denmark and Norway have come to view England as ripe for the plucking and begin to prepare an attack.
876 Three Danish kings attack Wessex. Alfred prevails, only to be attacked again a few months later. His cause looks hopeless.
878 Decisive battle at Edington; Alfred and a large contingent of desperate Anglo-Saxons make a last stand (they know what awaits them if they fail). Alfred leads the Anglo-Saxons to decisive victory; blockades a large Viking camp nearby, starving them into submission; and exacts homage from the kings of Denmark and an oath that the Danes will leave Wessex forever.
Under Alfred's terms of victory, England is partitioned into a part governed by the Anglo-Saxons (under the house of Wessex) and a part governed by the Scandinavians (some of whom become underlords of Alfred), divided by Watling Street. 15 years of peace follow; Alfred reigns over peaceful and prosperous kingdom. First called "Alfred the Great".
925 Athelstan crowned king. Height of Anglo-Saxon power. Athelstan reconquers York from the Vikings, and even conquers Scotland and Wales, heretofore ruled by Celts. Continues Alfred's mission of making improvemen ts in government, education, defense, and other social institutions.
10th century Danes and English continue to mix peacefully, and ultimately become indistinguishable. Many Scandinavian loanwords enter the language; English even borrows pronouns like them, their they.
978 Aethelred "the Unready" becomes king at 11 years of age.
991 Aethelred has proved to be a weak king, who does not repel minor Viking attacks. Vikings experiment with a major incursion at Maldon in Essex. After losing battle, Aethelred bribes them to depart with 10,000 pounds of silver. Mistake. Sveinn, king of Denmark, takes note.
994-1014 After 20 years of continuous battles and bribings, and incompetent and cowardly military leadership and governance, the English capitulate to king Sveinn of Denmark (later also of Norway). Aethelred flees to Normandy, across the channel.
1014 Sveinn's young son Cnut (or Canute) crowned king of England. Cnut decides to follow in Alfred's footsteps, aiming for a peaceful and prosperous kingdom. Encourages Anglo-Saxon culture and literature. Even marries Aethelred's widow Emma, brought over from Normandy.
After Cnut's death his sons bicker over the kingdom. When they die without issue, the kingdom passes back to the house of Wessex, to young Edward, son of Aethelred and Emma, who had been raised in exile in Normandy. Edward is a pious, monkish man called "The Confessor".
Edward has strong partiality for his birthplace, Normandy, a duchy populated by the descendents of Romanized Vikings. Especially fond of young Duke William of Normandy. Edward is dominated by his Anglo-Saxon earls, especially powerful earl Godwin. Godwin's son, Harold Godwinson, becomes de facto ruler as Edward takes less and less interest in governing.
1066 January. Edward dies childless, apparently recommending Harold Godwinson as successor. Harold duly chosen by Wessex earls, as nearest of kin to the crown is only an infant. Mercian and Northumbrian earls are hesitant to go along with choice of Harold.
William of Normandy claims that Harold once promised to support HIM as successor to Edward. Harold denies it. William prepares to mount an invasion. Ready by summer, but the winds are unfavorable for sailing.
September. Harald Hardradi of Norway decides this is a good time to attack England. Harold Godwinson rushes north and crushes Hardradi's army at Stamford Bridge. The winds change, and William puts to sea. Harold rushes back down to the south coast to try to repel William's attack. Mercians and Northumbrians are supposed to march down to help him, but never do. They don't realize what's in store for them.
October. Harold is defeated and killed at the battle of Hastings.
December. William of Normandy crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day.
* Excursus: The Bayeux Tapestry
Middle English Period (ca. 1100-1500) [Top]
1066-1075 William crushes uprisings of Anglo-Saxon earls and peasants with a brutal hand; in Mercia and Northumberland, uses (literal) scorched earth policy, decimating population and laying waste the countryside. Anglo-Saxon earls and freemen deprived of property; many enslaved. William distributes property and titles to Normans (and some English) who supported him. Many of the English hereditary titles of nobility date from this period.
English becomes the language of the lower classes (peasants and slaves). Norman French becomes the language of the court and propertied classes. The legal system is redrawn along Norman lines and conducted in French. Churches, monasteries gradually filled with French-speaking functionaries, who use French for record-keeping. After a while, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is no longer kept up. Authors write literature in French, not English. For all practical purposes English is no longer a written language.
Bilingualism gradually becomes more common, especially among those who deal with both upper and lower classes. Growth of London as a commercial center draws many from the countryside who can fill this socially intermediate role.
1204 The English kings lose the duchy of Normandy to French kings. England is now the only home of the Norman English.
1205 First book in English appears since the conquest.
1258 First royal proclamation issued in English since the conquest.
ca. 1300 Increasing feeling on the part of even noblemen that they are English, not French. Nobility begin to educate their children in English. French is taught to children as a foreign language rather than used as a medium of instruction.
1337 Start of the Hundred Years' War between England and France.
1362 English becomes official language of the law courts. More and more authors are writing in English.
ca. 1380 Chaucer writes the Canterbury tales in Middle English. the language shows French influence in thousands of French borrowings. The London dialect, for the first time, begins to be recognized as the "Standard", or variety of English taken as the norm, for all England. Other dialects are relegated to a less prestigious position, even those that earlier served as standards (e.g. the Wessex dialect of southwest England).
* Excursus: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
1474 William Caxton brings a printing press to England from Germany. Publishes the first printed book in England. Beginning of the long process of standardization of spelling.
* Excursus: The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye
Modern English Period (ca. 1500-present) [Top]
1500-1650 Early Modern English develops. The Great Vowel Shift gradually takes place. There is a large influx of Latin and Greek borrowings and neologisms.
1552 Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, publishes the Book of Common Prayer, a translation of the church's liturgy into English.
1611 King James Bible published, which has influenced English writing down to the present day.
* Excursus: Common phrases from the King James Bible
1616 Shakespeare dies. Recognized even then as a genius of the English language. Wove native and borrowed words together in amazing and pleasing combinations.
* Excursus: Shakespeare's Legacy
1700s Classical period of English literature. The fashion for borrowing Latin and Greek words, and coining new words with Latin and Greek morphemes, rages unabated. Elaborate syntax matches elaborate vocabulary (e.g. writings of Samuel Johnson).
The rise of English purists, e.g. Jonathan Swift, who decried the 'degeneration' of English and sought to 'purify' it and fix it forever in unchanging form.
17th-19th centuries British imperialism. Borrowings from languages around the world.
Development of American English. By 19th century, a standard variety of American English develops, based on the dialect of the Mid-Atlantic states.
Establishment of English in Australia, South Africa, and India, among other British colonial outposts.
* Excursus: Borrowed words in English
19th century Recognition (and acceptance) by linguistic scholars of the ever-changing nature of language. Discovery of the Indo-European language family. Late in century: Recognition that all languages are fundamentally the same in nature; no "primitive" or "advanced" languages.
19th-20th centuries Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. Development of technical vocabularies. Within a few centuries, English has gone from an island tongue to a world language, following the fortunes of those who speak it.
20th century Communications revolution. Spread of a few languages at the expense of many. Languages of the world begin to die out on a large scale as mastery of certain world languages becomes necessary for survival. Classification and description of non-Indo-European languages by linguists continues, in many cases in a race against the clock.
1945-present American political, economic, military supremacy. Borrowing patterns continue. English has greater impact than ever on other languages, even those with more native speakers. Becomes most widely studied second language, and a scientific lingua franca.
By the 1990s, preferences begin to shift in many places from British to American English as the selected standard for second language acquisition. The twin influences of British and American broadcasting media make the language accessible to more and more people. Hollywood and the pop music industry help make English an irresistible medium for the transmission of popular culture. Even long-established European cultures begin to feel linguistically and culturally threatened, as English comes into use in more and more spheres and large numbers of English borrowings enter their languages.
New waves of immigrants to the U.S. Linguistic diversity increases where the newcomers settle, but immigrants repeat the pattern of earlier settlers and lose their language within a generation or two. The culture at large remains resolutely monolingual (despite the fears of cultural purists). But as ever, the language continues to absorb loanwords, continually enriched by the many tongues of the newcomers to these shores.
* Excursus: Internet slang
[Top]
Site maintained by Suzanne Kemmer at Rice University. Design Copyright © 2003 by James Jirtle, WebWiz Design.
Posted by Dr. T. Jacob Thomas at 8:17 AM 0 comments
Friday, April 11, 2008
Lalu, Antony slam pay panel's 'pro-IAS' report-India-The Times of India
Lalu, Antony slam pay panel's 'pro-IAS' report-India-The Times of India
*
Lalu, Antony slam pay panel's 'pro-IAS' report
12 Apr 2008, 0315 hrs IST,Vishwa Mohan & Bisheshwar Mishra,TNN
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NEW DELHI: The gathering discontent against the recommendations of the sixth pay commission found a loud echo in the Union Cabinet on Friday, with railway minister Lalu Prasad strongly asking for a review of what he called "a package loaded in favour of big babus in the IAS".
The recommendations were iniquitous and would increase salary disparities among different sections of employees, Lalu said. He added that while secretaries and other senior IAS officers had fared well, other services — police, paramilitary forces, defence services, railways, as well as lower and middle-rank functionaries of almost all central services — had been given a short shrift.
Lalu's strong advocacy received support, according to sources, from defence minister A K Antony, home minister Shivraj Patil and others, leading Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to suggest that the recommendations were not the last word and the government would take a view after a detailed scrutiny of the report and the grievances it has generated.
The Cabinet cleared a proposal to set up a high-level panel headed by cabinet secretary K M Chandrashekhar to screen the recommendations and look into the alleged anomalies.
The 12-member committee will comprise secretaries of the ministries of home, defence, revenue and expenditure.
The secretary of the department of post, secretary of security, deputy CAG, and financial commissioner and member secretary of the Railway Board will be the other members of the panel.
"The final recommendations of the committee will be submitted to the Cabinet for approval," science and technology minister Kapil Sibal told reporters after the Cabinet meeting. The minister did not announce any time-frame by which the committee would submit its report.
Given the widespread grievances against the pay panel's "bias" for IAS, there are doubts whether the agitating sections will accept the recommendations of the panel dominated by the "elite corps".
Meanwhile, The IPS Association has already asked for setting up of a GoM to go into their demand for "principle of parity in pay, promotion, pension and service conditions with IAS". The stand was finalized at a meeting of IPS officers drawn from across the country on Thursday.
"One should not forget what happened to similar committees formed after the fourth and fifth pay commission. The follow-up reports by such panels were merely an eyewash as it hardly addressed the grievances of employees," said a senior IPS officer.
What increases the prospect of a GoM is the sympathy that the political class, ever resentful of the "obstructionist ways" of the "steel frame", has shown for the discontented sections of the government servants since the pay commission unveiled its much-awaited report last month.
Before Lalu, UP chief minister Mayawati had come out strongly for the IPS cadre and the cops can only be expected to step up the lobbying.
The bubbling resentment came out in the open in the Capital on Friday with the Central Secretariat Services Association holding a huge protest demonstration. Members of the association have decided to observe a "protest week", beginning May 21.
There was strong fear of the employees cranking up their protests and was suspected to be the main reason for Lalu's forceful intervention in the Cabinet.
While the government had expected some protests, its willingness to deal with them would be constrained by the looming polls. Sections are wary of the implications of any generosity on the fiscal figures. But it has to balance the concern with consideration not to appear insensitive to the demands of a vocal and organized workforce that has a disproportionate say in influencing opinion.
Then, it also has to reckon with powerful partners as well as the Left who have traditionally been more aligned with the aspirations of the cops and non-IAS sections of the
Posted by Dr. T. Jacob Thomas at 6:08 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Muslims suss rpaCatholics: Will interfaith dialogue follow? | redblueamerica.com
Muslims surpass Catholics: Will interfaith dialogue follow? | redblueamerica.com
Muslims surpass Catholics: Will interfaith dialogue follow?
Demographic changes are reshaping the world's religions. The Vatican on Sunday reported that Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion.
"For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican's yearbook. He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population -- a stable percentage -- while Muslims were at 19.2 percent. (Christianity as a whole, however, remains the dominant world religion.)
"It is true that while Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer," the monsignor said.
The news comes as Catholics and Muslims prepare to launch an unprecedented interfaith dialogue. Should the shifting population change the course of dialogue? Do Christians have anything to worry about? How does the rising Muslim population change the way Americans think about Islam and the war on terrorism? Does the changing face of world religion give new impetus to efforts to promote religious tolerance and peace?
Posted by Dr. T. Jacob Thomas at 6:53 AM 0 comments
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