Something as basic as how you conceive time may be specific to your language.
In 2010, a new goddess, about two feet tall and cast in bronze, was set to appear in a village within the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. She looked nothing like the deities of Hindu mythology. In lieu of Durga's bright saris or Lakshmi's opulent jewels, she wore a wide-brimmed hat and the robes of the Statue of Liberty. She wasn't riding a lion or a swan; she stood on a desktop computer. Instead of a sword or a spear, she held a pen in one hand and the Indian constitution—with its promise of legalized equality—in the other. Her name was Angrezi Devi, the Goddess English, and she was intended for India's Dalits, or “untouchables.”
“The Goddess English can empower Dalits, giving them a chance to break free from centuries of oppression,” her creator, the prominent Dalit writer Chandra Bhan Prasad, declared. He saw English as an immensely valuable resource for the Dalit. “Will English-speaking Dalits be expected to clean gutters and roads?” he asked. “Will English-speaking Dalits be content to work as menials at landlords’ farms?” An atheist, he designed the goddess in order to infuse English into the Dalit identity, propelling his people from a feudal subaltern standing to the ranks of the modern and independent. “Learning English has become the greatest mass movement the world has ever seen,” he wrote.
この記事は The New Yorker の December 30, 2024 - January 6, 2025 版に掲載されています。
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この記事は The New Yorker の December 30, 2024 - January 6, 2025 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
ART OF STONE
\"The Brutalist.\"
MOMMA MIA
Audra McDonald triumphs in \"Gypsy\" on Broadway.
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
\"Black Doves,\" on Netflix.
NATURE STUDIES
Kyle Abraham's “Dear Lord, Make Me Beautiful.”
WHAT GOOD IS MORALITY?
Ask not just where it came from but what it does for us
THE SPOTIFY SYNDROME
What is the world's largest music-streaming platform really costing us?
THE LEPER - LEE CHANGDONG
. . . to survive, to hang on, waiting for the new world to dawn, what can you do but become a leper nobody in the world would deign to touch? - From \"Windy Evening,\" by Kim Seong-dong.
YOU WON'T GET FREE OF IT
Alice Munro's partner sexually abused her daughter. The harm ran through the work and the family.
TALK SENSE
How much sway does our language have over our thinking?
TO THE DETECTIVE INVESTIGATING MY MURDER
Dear Detective, I'm not dead, but a lot of people can't stand me. What I mean is that breathing is not an activity they want me to keep doing. What I mean is, they want to knock me off. My days are numbered.