Americans taking to learning Hindi in a big way

Americans are taking to learning Hindi in a big way. Nearly 80-90 per cent of enrolments at graduate level language programme in US universities are Americans.

"In first and second-year Hindi the percentage of white American students is 10-20 per cent but at the advanced levels the percentage is 80-90 per cent, mostly graduate students," Herman Van Olphen, Professor, Asian Studies, University of Texas, Austin, told PTI in an email interview.

"The heritage (Indian background) student percentage is higher at the lower levels because most of them take Hindi on the side while majoring in pre-med (biology) or other fields," he said.

"We have trained thousands of students in Hindi in the last 45 years, although there have been many levels of training; some students study Hindi for only two years while others study for much longer periods," said Prof Olphen.

In States such as Texas, California, New York, and New Jersey, where large numbers of Indian immigrant live, Hindi classes have enrolled more and more heritage students until now they make up 80-90 per cent of the students studying Hindi. At the same time, the profile of advanced students at the graduate level has not changed that much, he said.

There are now some heritage students also who are making a career out of the study of India and study Hindi with the goal of using their language in research, but they are still a minority at this level, said Prof Olphen.

Source : Msn.co.in