Here is the lecture content:

"So I don't know if I'm repeating this part for you guys, but
it's not a it's not a bad thing to repeat something about language in a week
that is more or less about language, although it's about a lot of other things
too. OK, so let's look at 2 maps of India. The top map, map of India is
political map. So we have, we have talked about how Kashmir is placed in
the political map of India and I won't go into that again here. But. Political
map means this is the map that where the states are divided and and you
see what state or part of India the maps on the bottom. The map on the
bottom is a linguistic map of India. So I think I have said this multiple times
before. India has a very multilingual country and multilingualism works
very interestingly and for a linguist and a language learner nerd like me
very, very beautifully. So you see that all of the colors on this map are
representative of different languages that are spoken in India. And when
we're talking about these languages and these colors, we are talking
multiple million people's. Making these languages. So when we talk about
Hindi for example, there are 400 million speakers of Hindi and that means
that there are other people who speak Hindi. Maybe as a non-native
language it means that they speak. Speak a different variety of Hindi, a
dialect of Hindi. There could be somebody who is a native speaker of
Punjabi but speaks Hindi as a as a lingua franca, that is a language of
business or something like that, right? So in a usual day, it is not hard to
imagine that somebody is in in India is using anywhere from 2 to 3
languages just because just because they are, because that is their lived
context, that is their lived reality. OK, so for example, I grew up in a Hindi
speaking household, but my parents also spoke some Gujarati. So I
understand a little bit of Gujarati. Gujarati is a language spoken in West
India right around here. And or actually right around there. I'm sorry this
this pointing with my hand is not working, but you kind of know what I
mean. And you can also Google where is Gujarati spoken in India. Ohh, so I
spoke a little bit of Gujarati, especially with my grandparents. You know
how lots of people are always trying to make their children impress their
grandparents? Gujarati was my language to impress my grandparents.
Both sides of both. Both sets of grandparents. So spoke a little bit of
Gujarati, and then I went to an English medium school, which meant that
all of my schooling was in English, which meant that I learned sciences in
English math and English social study, blah blah blah. You know the whole
thing. And of course I learned English, English literature, things of that
nature. So people are generally multilingual and at least bilingual are
several are multilingual and that does not mean people are not
monolingual. Many people are monolingual as well. But monolingual in
some language or some dialect, so India has. 26 languages in the schedule
of the Constitution of India, meaning that one can. Study those languages
in the schools one can study, one can do some sort of business like buy
land. If you go to buy land, let's say even in Ohio, you have to buy it in a
language, right? A form will be presented to you in a language. That
language will be English in Ohio, but in let's say the state of Gujarat or in in
the state of Uttar Pradesh, that that form can be in Hindi or in English. It is
possible in Uttar Pradesh. It can also be in Urdu. I'm not 100% sure about
that. So you can you can do business multilinguality. Oh, and that's really
lovely, right? You you you learn multiple languages in schools, which you
do here as well, but you also might grow up speaking multiple languages
in your home like I did. So in general, we're talking about a really
multilingual country. The next thing I wanted to show you was like one of
those. You know how in in like kindergarten classrooms, there are lots of
posters on the walls and this is the type of poster we had in the walls of
our classrooms, which is our kindergarten classrooms, which is like people
of India and dress of India, right. So like there are like male and female
costumes or I should say dresses from different parts of India, from
different regions of India and these kind of align. With with States and
these are just this is just a random like poster of different women's dresses
from all over India. So when we are talking about a multilingual country,
we are also talking about a multicultural country. We're also talking about
people, as you saw in these posters, wearing different types of dresses.
And all of that is. Is unmarked, meaning if you are, let's say, driving from
New Delhi which is the capital of I2, let's say a West Indian state of
Rajasthan. You will definitely start hearing a different language after about
200 miles or 200 kilometers, and you will probably start seeing some
differences in how at least women were dressing in in the same amount of
miles. So there's like there there is very visible, audible type of visual,
audible type of type of diversity. In language as well as in culture. So when
we are talking about this type of diversity and this type of linguistic,
cultural, let's say culinary. A diversity, variety, etc. How does that? What
does that mean for Bollywood? Uh, let's look at it in terms of what does
that mean in general, and then what does it mean for Bollywood? What it
means in general is there is sometimes a lot of politics around language,
right? So there are people who would say we should have a national
language and that national language should be Hindi. And then speakers
of, like, you know, every other language would be like, Oh no, that's not
going to work. How, why? Why would that work for us? And. There's
dispute about that. There's conflict around that. There are sometimes really
violent conflict around that. In fact when you will or if you already have,
you already know this. But when you read the article, this article today
from this for this class vellum Dissanaike language in Hindi cinema article,
you will read that in not in India per SE, but also in India, but in Sri Lanka,
there there was a civil war that was more or less about language that was.
About Sinhalese and Tamil and and language is really related to our
identity and our culture and our sense of self. So, so people are people,
people are very. Very, very serious about it, let's say. So what does it mean
for Bollywood? It means that Bollywood is of course Hindi language
cinema. So when we are thinking about Bollywood, we are thinking about
how how Bollywood, which is Hindi language cinema but which might be
circulated in other parts of the country, how that that imaging, how that,
how the representation of different people on the screen in Bollywood
works. So that's kind of what we're talking about this week. And I'm, I'm.
I'm going to be looking at a lot of my notes now, but. But when we are
talking about. And we are talking about seeing an image on the on the
screen and we are talking about seeing a person. Is it possible that even
before we see, before we hear the person, we make an assumption about
how they will talk? So is it possible that even before I speak, somebody
who looks at me can be like, oh, that woman, she will have an Indian
accent? Uh, and that may or may not be true. There is no copyright of
Indian women on the way I dress, right? So like somebody else could be
dressed like this and they probably don't have an Indian accent. So. But,
but, but the point here is, when we see somebody on the screen and on a
Bollywood film screen, do we ever make an assumption that, oh, this is
how they're going to talk and this is what perhaps even they're going to
say? It is that area. It is that assumption that we are kind of underlining
today and we are talking about today O with our film for today, we kind of
really challenge the assumption that the film is trying to make. And with
this specific reading when we are thinking about we can think more
generally about how we treat people who speak language differently and
how does. How does cinema represent different languages? So even from
our our lecture and our reading from last week, we kind of saw that there
is some politics of Hinduism and Islam in India. I should say there's a lot of
politics of Hinduism in Islam in India and there's a language association
with this politics. Islam is generally associated with Urdu in North India and
Hinduism is associated with Hindu in North India and both of these.
Languages can sometimes be at ARM and not not getting along but
Bollywood, and we have seen this in other examples kind of is a blend of of
what is, what is Urdu and what is Hindi. It is kind of like Hindi, Urdu or
Hindustani. That's the colloquial form of what we speak. What one speaks
when one speaks Hindi in North India or one speaks Urdu in North India as
well, more, more or less so. What does it mean when we kind of have
these types of associations with with language and with people? And more
more generally, what does it mean when this type of conflict that is not
necessarily linguistic, when there is the Hindu, Hindi, Urdu conflict, which
is kind of not about language, it's more about religion that that conflict is
represented on film. So. So the point that that our author makes is this.
There is a relationship between what we are seeing on the screen and
what language is being spoken on the screen and what we are assuming
about what the characters will say. That relationship is underlined by how
we generally understand the relationship between different languages and
different different people, even if those different languages and different
people were part of the same nation, were part of India. So in Bollywood
film, there's a particular way in which different types of Indians, in which
Indians from different communities in which Indians from different states
of India. Which are which are also linguistic in a lot of senses are
represented in Bollywood film. So how is the Bengali person represented?
Bengal is a state in East India. How is Gujarati person represented? Gujarat
is a state in east in in West India. How is a Punjabi person represented?
How is a Tamil Nadu person or a Tamil person represented? Tamil Nadu is
a state in southern India and and. Does Nikki makes the point that in a lot
of ways when we are talking about language with respect to Hollywood
film, we are basically saying that language is secondary to the visual that
you see on the screen. That may actually not be true for Bollywood cinema
and for his point for Sri Lankan cinema, because what you see on the
screen is a combination of the language that is being spoken of the
language. Variety that is being spoken and the image that you see. So, so
the point here is I well, the point has already been made. But an additional
point here is that there is a deeper relationship between what is being said
and the visual image in cinema out of Bollywood. Then there is other forms
of cinema because this is a region of the world that is just very, very
multilingual and also in a lot of ways very, very multicultural. And I think as
we as we go on this this week, we can we can see more more detail about
this point. The last thing to think about in terms of the snake is, is the
relationship between language and the nation state. And again, that's the
point that I'm going to keep on making this this week, because yes,
Bollywood cinema is in Hindi, but Bollywood really does represent a lot of
different type of people on the screen, and we definitely see that in the film
for this week in Chennai Express. So there's definitely a relationship
between what one speaks and how they are and how much. Or how little
are they part of the nation or the nation building project? Think about this
with respect to the United States and with respect to how languages that
are not English are represented in the United States. How do we talk about
Spanish? How do we talk about French? How do we talk about German?
How do we talk about Hindi for that matter? So think about how the status
of these languages is represented in United States and. That kind of will
lead you to what the snake is trying to say. There is a relationship between
how language works, what language one speaks and how they are or they
are not, or in what capacity are they not or are part of the nation state,
right. So. So in that way, language is really, really tied to citizenship and
how. And how how the nation treats their citizens."

Using only the lecture content, answer the following questions in a 200 word response
1. What does the linguistic and cultural diversity in India mean for Bollywood?
2. How does addition of characters from non-Hindi speaking backgrounds add to the story of Bollywood films?