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c0ltanheart t1_j6vkrj0 wrote

What the hell........ this poor kid..... what is wrong with these kids????? What in the self-internalized colonization??????

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anal_opera t1_j6vokvo wrote

Not just the kids, even the school staff were basically like "eh we don't really have proof it happened" despite the literal video proof. I know Pakistan isn't exactly the human rights capital of the world but its ridiculous to punish a kid for speaking the native language of the country he's being raised in.

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c0ltanheart t1_j6vq6h8 wrote

absolutely bonkers.... the amount of xenophobia he received from his OWN country/students/faculty........ awful. My heart goes out to this poor kid who's definitely traumatized by this bullshit

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anal_opera t1_j6vqyvm wrote

Idk what xenophobia is. I went to American public school. Is it related to the xenomorphs from the alien movies?

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11ej25 OP t1_j6x5e21 wrote

>self-internalized colonization

Basically, yes.

Paradoxically, Pakistanis will become defensive regarding Urdu at times (they will argue that it isn't the same as Hindi, even though linguists would sayb they are essentially the same language, at least in colloquial usage. edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi%E2%80%93Urdu_controversy)

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c0ltanheart t1_j6yktyp wrote

I'm East Asian so I didn't know any of that except that Urdu is the main language... really it's that similar to Hindi?? Does the Indian PM Modi's nationalism have to do with Pakistan much at all? Sorry if that's a stupid question btw I know Pakistan is different from India

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11ej25 OP t1_j6yy89y wrote

Urdu and Hindi are similar (just as British and American English are similar) but written in different scripts. In formal literature, the vocabulary is different, though.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi%E2%80%93Urdu_controversy

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c0ltanheart t1_j6z7oak wrote

Ahhhhh, thank you for the insight. I kind of get it more now, I can understand several similar village dialects to my parents' ("Teochew") despite not speaking the "Hakka" or "Hokkien" dialects, which always confused me because I didn't actively speak either.

Fascinating. I wish that such similarities between dialects could be seen more and more of a wonderful handy thing that connects cultures in being able to communicate instead of being used in the name of xenophobia. All dialects should be held as equal, not just the simpler colonizer one that we've adapted into communicating internationally.

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anal_opera t1_j6vo5hm wrote

I figured the article would have more context but nope. The title pretty much sums it up. Apparently they all have to speak English for some reason, and using their own first language is a cause for punishment. At this point I'm nearly certain we're all in the matrix and somebody's been skipping the updates so they don't have to restart the computer and wait.

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11ej25 OP t1_j6x4zdh wrote

I believe this is an "English Medium School", but I put that in quotes for a reason. There are two types of English Medium Schools in Pakistan.

The first is a true English Medium School, where people become fluent in English. This is where people working at multi national companies would send their kids for school. The elite classes of Pakistan would also send their kids to these types of schools.

The second are, by name, also English Medium Schools, but cater to the local population who want their kids to know English (due to global mobility). The problem is that most of these schools don't have teachers who are fluent in English themselves. This, coupled with a legacy of colonialism, makes people feel they are "superior" for knowing English, and that those who only know Urdu are "ignorant". The irony is that they themselves really don't know much English, or can perhaps only read or write English.

The school in question appears to be in the second category.

Paradoxically, Pakistanis are very defensive regarding Urdu (they will often say it is "not the same as Hindi" even though linguists themselves say the two are essentially the same language).

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