[Ilugc] Bill Gates & English
- From: linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Suresh Ramasubramanian)
- Date: Sun Aug 8 18:32:03 2004
Sivasankar Chander wrote:
quoting bala pillai -
"Bill Gates, on his path to billions, has done more for English society than
any Tamil has for Tamil society, this century"
Has he?
English is a language that took root in india much before computers did.
And it has served as a useful link language in a country where all you
have to do is to fly about an hour or two on an airplane to land in a
city where nobody speaks your language at all.
Tamil chauvinism and other misguided ideas about the glory of tamil
culture as opposed to the culture of some other language / ethnic group
is certainly not something to waste time on, whereas bringing the
benefit of computers to people who aren't sufficiently able to harness
their power just because they dont speak / know english too well (or not
at all) is a worthy goal.
Can we safely say that the one person most responsible for all of above,
whether he intended to or not is Bill Gates?
I can safely say that this is rubbish
No, Bill Gates isn't responsible for the dominance of English - it was
already the dominant language before he was born. It became dominant because
of the longstanding mercantile and maritime tradition of England. You may
well said
srs
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