JR
Hare Krishna
The following summarizes my feelings towards importance and association of English with intelligence, giving here in this thread so as to hear different perspectives:
(This is my reply in thread 'Are you made to feel small?')
"I do not believe that flawless English is any measure of intelligence. If at all, it is a measure of one's social standing, that he/she attended convents and were exposed to spoken English right from very young age.
The reason i am stating so is because I feel for the disadvantaged brilliant people who otherwise went to substandard schools and never got exposure to spoken English (or even English textbooks).
Besides, I do not like glorification of English language as a measure of intelligence, afterall it is just a language. If you would not call someone proficient in tamil to the point of writing elegant essays in it as 'intelligent', the same way you cannot call a fluent speaker in English 'intelligent' on the basis of this skill alone.
Somehow the French who completely detest English and refuse to speak it in their country rise above in my mind.
As Indians, we have this 'English craze' and we should develop more self-respect for our native languages and should come to regard skills in them as highly as we would look at 'English'.
Besides intelligence has several aspects to it - street smartness, people skills, proficiency in one's specialized study and work, verbal skills, etc. To be considered an 'intelligent' person, one should have reasonable grasp in all the above, as they are surely interlinked and not one standalone parameter alone suffices."
(This is my reply in thread 'Are you made to feel small?')
"I do not believe that flawless English is any measure of intelligence. If at all, it is a measure of one's social standing, that he/she attended convents and were exposed to spoken English right from very young age.
The reason i am stating so is because I feel for the disadvantaged brilliant people who otherwise went to substandard schools and never got exposure to spoken English (or even English textbooks).
Besides, I do not like glorification of English language as a measure of intelligence, afterall it is just a language. If you would not call someone proficient in tamil to the point of writing elegant essays in it as 'intelligent', the same way you cannot call a fluent speaker in English 'intelligent' on the basis of this skill alone.
Somehow the French who completely detest English and refuse to speak it in their country rise above in my mind.
As Indians, we have this 'English craze' and we should develop more self-respect for our native languages and should come to regard skills in them as highly as we would look at 'English'.
Besides intelligence has several aspects to it - street smartness, people skills, proficiency in one's specialized study and work, verbal skills, etc. To be considered an 'intelligent' person, one should have reasonable grasp in all the above, as they are surely interlinked and not one standalone parameter alone suffices."
