American spellings share space with British English
By Raghavendra Verma
NEW DELHI: American spellings are finding widespread acceptability in India. Students are no more admonished for writing ‘color’ instead of ‘colour’ or ‘center’ instead of ‘centre’.
Teachers have recognized that there is no point in sticking to the text books when most of the students’ exposure to written English comes through the net. With American English dominating the online content, not just the children, but many teachers themselves have started using the shorter spellings favored in North America.
The language of government documentation too has Americanized, thanks to the default language option in the Microsoft Office.
Most of the government employees drafting the documents have graduated from using the typewriters and therefore keep their intervention in the software settings to the minimum. Either they are unaware of language setting option in their computer programs or do not bother to change it.
The higher officials reviewing those documents also seem to be indifferent to the version of spellings used. English anyway is not their first language, so it does not matter if it is British or American.
It was the 18th century colonization that introduced English to India, and even gave the country its official name. Now it seems that the 21st century technological colonization is making its own impact felt.
Indian educationalists have been realistic and accommodative as now they have even adopted the western system of counting numbers.
Fifth grade students are being taught millions and billions along with lakhs and crores. With the help of a comparative table, they have to master the art of expressing a figure in both the styles.
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