Paris [France], February 9 (ANI): Harit Joshi, a Hindi and Indian History Professor at Inalco University in France said that several people in France study Hindi to properly understand Indian society and history.
Other than Hindi, people learn other Indian languages like Urdu, Bengali, etc, which helps them to conduct business there.
“French people or French students who come to our university to learn Hindi or any other Indian language have different motives. There are some people who are doing research work on India. They want to know about the history of India about the Indian society, about the culture of India. They realize that in order to know about a country, it is very important to know about the language there or the languages spoken there, so this is very important thing. So there are some whose purpose is to learn any Indian language for research in India, be it Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu. There are others who want to do business in India and they want to learn Hindi or any other Indian language, so that they are able to do their business with them,” he said.
Some students are also of Indian origin, Joshi told ANI, who feel that learning an Indian language is a way to remain connected to their roots.
“There are some students who are of Indian origin, so those whose parents or grandparents or ancestors settled in France many years ago for some reason or another and they feel that, learning the languages or languages of their ancestors is a way to maintain relations with the country from which those people and their families came,” he said.
Joshi also told ANI of a history of French travelers coming to India for exploration and said that some even settled here.
“You think it is very interesting that many people do not know about this matter in the seventeenth century. Among the famous historians, famous travellers came from France to India and they lived in India for many years and they mentioned about their journey in India. I have done some research work on two of them. I have done some research work on these travellers and the living conditions of the people of India and the religious views of the people of India as well as their traditions and about the social system there. This is a very interesting source for historians. The first of them was a well-educated doctor from South France and he came to India in the 1650s and stayed in Delhi and talked a lot about the living conditions of the people of Old Delhi,” he said.
He added that another traveler, a businessman, also wrote about his chronicles in India.
“Another traveler was a businessman. He was interested in doing business in jewelry and he traveled in India five times. He also wrote about his life and his trips to India. This is a very old series of relations between France and India, which continued in the 18th century and some French people came to India and settled here. For example, some French people lived in the court of Awadh,” he said.
Joshi added that several people in the 20th century visited India, and is related to the hippie era.
“Then many people in the 20th century to learn about the religions of India. This is also related to a hippie era to some extent. Nowadays people who are probably less interested in the spirituality of India and more about the changing situation of India’s changing times,” he said.
He said that to know a country deeply, one must know the languages that are spoken there.
“I believe that in order to know about any country, it is important to know its language or the languages spoken there. Many Indian languages are taught in our university and I hope that in the coming years more French students will come to us to learn these languages and to learn about the history of India and society of India. Because India is the language which is essential to better identify any country and they realize this and I hope that they will realize this in the coming years as well,” he said.
Notably, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on a three-day France visit from Monday at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron. He will co-chair Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit with Macron on February 11. (ANI)
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