The rebellion is now regarded by many Indians as the first war of independence. The uprising was ruthlessly put down, but the shock it provoked in London brought about the dissolution of the East India Company and the establishment of the British Raj. Macaulay’s vision of an independent class of Anglophone Indians was being realized.īut this development was not without irony: 1857 was also the year that Indian soldiers rebelled against the East India Company’s century-long rule. Sullivan, “English was the dominant language in Calcutta.” In 1857, English-speaking universities opened in Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. With Macaulay’s backing, schools instructed Indian students in English, a language that offered “ready access to all the vast intellectual wealth, which all the wisest nations of the earth have created and hoarded in the course of ninety generations,” whereas Sanskrit and Arabic offered only “false taste and false philosophy.” By 1840, according to Macaulay’s biographer Robert E. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.” The implication was obvious: Indians must learn the language of their occupiers. “But she can have the next best thing: a firm and impartial despotism.” A few months later, Macaulay wrote a memo on Indian education, which stated, “It is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. “We know that India cannot have a free Government,” Macaulay had written to the Scottish philosopher James Mill the year before. He travelled north to Calcutta, then India’s capital, to assume the role of Law Member of the Governor-General’s Council. ![]() In 1834, Thomas Babington Macaulay, the British historian and statesman, arrived in Madras. I’ve already eliminated a few prepositional errors, which are always the bane of non-native speakers’ attempts at speaking a foreign language, but I’m sure there are others solecisms I’ve left behind.Robert McCrum Illustration by Paul Hamlyn A native speaker should be able to really improve on that.Īnd I hope a native Spanish speaker attempts the crossword I made so that they can point out all the mistakes I missed. The crossword I made is really quite simple - but it should be a bit more enjoyable than an ordinary synonym-based crossword. I only published the crossword last night and it’s already fourth in rank when you Google for crucigrama críptico - clearly not a term that abounds in relevant results.Īlthough I don’t think the richness of trickery is possible for cryptics in Spanish, Greek or Portuguese, you can still have some reasonable fun with them. I must say I’ve been surprised at how few (none, basically) cryptic crosswords there are in the languages I can get around in, Spanish, Greek and Portuguese. I would assume it’s higher than the norm. ![]() It’d be interesting to see too what proportion of cruciverbalists speak a foreign language. ![]() It’s right down my alley, as I assume it is for most people on this site. I’m very much looking forward to reading that book of yours, DA.
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