Here is one example of monolingual mindset originating in colonial discourse from Orwells Burmese Days:

Butler! yelled Elllis, and as the butler appeared, go and wake that bloody chokra up!
Yes, master.
And butler!
Yes, master?
How much ice have we got left?
Bout twenty pounds, master. Will only last today, I think. I find it very difficult to keep ice cool now.

Dont talk like that, damn you- I find it very difficult! Have you swallowed a dictionary? Please, master, cant keeping ice cool- thats how you ought to talk English too well. I cant stick servants who talk English. D you hear,
Yes, master, said the butler, and retired.

I would like to make a brief comment about linguistics realities and social realities. I think they are not always complementary to each other.

Khan

Thanks, Aditi. The review in The Mercury I used doesn’t have a title nor an author. However, the article under review must have been published in The Calcutta Review in 1882 (or 1881 if we assume that it took a while for the issue to get from Calcutta to Tasmania). The title of the article is not mentioned, either, but the author is: H. G. Keene:

The place of honour in the magazine is occupied by a paper by H G Keene, who, with the aid of Herr Zimmer’s recent work, gives a discriminating disquisition on the early manners and customs of the Indian Aryans.

I’ve googled H. G. Keene and he is also the author of the 1887 book The fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan but couldn’t find out more about him without spending a bit more time. If anyone has more background on H. G. Keene and Herr Zimmer, send it on 🙂

Hi Ingrid ,

Thanks for replying me .Well i asked that left field question (wink ) beoz the name of my country (Iran ) Was also in the map with the flashing red color .

Best

Hi Golnaz,
interesting question & completely out of the left field (and, no, I’m not biased against “left” 😉 … the map is from the Wikipedia entry for “Indo-European languages” as you will have noticed if you clicked on it. So, the grey means nothing more than “non-European” — a fairly frequent background choice and no deeper meaning. The Indo-European languages are all marked in what would be considered warm colours; strong colors for background and to maximize difference, too, seems unremarkable.

Hello ,

I would like to know if there is any connotational meaning there by means of colors in map ? Does warm color indicate a negative connotation while cold colors positive ?

Thanks