marathi-vachva

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मराठी वाचवा

मराठी भाषेवर इंग्रजी भाषेचा सतत वाढत असलेल्या प्रभावला नियंत्रित करायला मी हा प्रकल्प चालू केला आहे.

उद्देश असा आहे की मराठी भाषेत अनावश्यक इंग्रजी शब्दांचा वापर कमी करावा.

मी मराठीत इंग्रजी शब्द वापरण्याच्या विरोधात नाही. माझ्या मते, जिथे खरंच आवश्यकता आहे तिथे इंग्रजी शब्द वापरायला हरकत नाही. पण मराठी बोलत/लिहत असताना अनावश्यक ठिकाणी, अनावधानेने व नकळत इंग्रजी शब्दांचा वापर टाळावा असे माझे मत आहे.

उपप्रकल्प

• मराठी शब्द - इंग्रजी ते मराठीचा कोश

थोडक्यात

मी शहरांमध्ये मराठीच्या ढासळत्या गुणवत्तेबद्दल लोकांना जाणीव करून देण्याचा प्रयत्न करीत आहे आणि त्यास सामोरे जाण्यासाठी काही संसाधने आणि उपाय प्रदान करीत आहे. २ मुख्य समस्या आहेत ते म्हणजे -

• मराठी बोलताना व लिहिताना इंग्रजी शब्दांचा नकळत व खूप प्रमाणात प्रयोग
• देवनागरी ऐवजी लॅटिन (इंग्रजी) लिपी वापरून मराठी लिहिणे

आत्तापर्यंत पहिल्या समस्येशी संबंधित मदत करण्यासाठी, आम्ही एक उपप्रकल्प मराठी शब्द स्थापित केला आहे ज्यामध्ये जाहिरातमुक्त इंग्रजी ते मराठी कोश आहे.

ह्या प्रकल्पात मदत होण्या साठी व्हिडीओ, ब्लॉग, लेख, सॉफ्टवेअर साधने (जसे हे संकेतस्थळ) इत्यादी यांच्या उपयोग करायचा विचार आहे.

अधिक माहितीसाठी खालील इंग्रजी मजकूर वाचा.

योगदान

• या प्रकल्पात मदत करायची इच्छा असेल तर आम्हाला इथे संपर्क करा.
• आपण सॉफ्टवेअर अभियंते जरी नसाल तरीही आपण योगदान करू शकता.
• मला विशेषतः मराठीत मजकूर लिहिण्यासाठी मदतीची गरज आहे.
• Github वर खाते असल्यास आपण थेट “Discussions” पृष्ठावरील आपल्या कल्पना, टिप्पण्या इत्यादी नोंदवून त्यावर चर्चा करू शकता.

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<English begins here>

मराठी वाचवा (Save the Marathi language)

About

This project is being developed as an effort to help prevent the evergrowing influence of the English language on the Marathi language.

The objective is to reduce the usage of unnecessary English vocabulary in Marathi language.

I am not against the use of English words in Marathi. I feel it is ok to use them where it is absolutely necessary, but the unnoticed, unintentional and unnecessary use of English words is something that I am trying to avoid and make people aware of.

Overview (TLDR)

I am trying to make people realise about the deteriorating quality of Marathi in cities and providing some resources and solutions to tackle it. The two main problems are “excessive use of English vocabulary in Marathi” and “writing Marathi using Latin alphabet instead of Devanagari”.

As of now, we have a sub project मराठी शब्द in place which is an ad free English to Marathi thesaurus, to help with the first problem.

I plan to do this with a combination of videos, blogs. articles etc. and software tools such as this.

Problem #1

Excessive, unnecessary and unknowing use of English words in Marathi sentences.

When speaking or writing in Marathi we often, unknowingly and unnecessarily use a lot of English words. Though this is a natural way for a language to evolve (by using loanwords), the way in which it is currently happening is severly impacting the Marathi language. Some of the reasons, in my opinion, being -

• most of the English words are not adding to any missing gaps in the Marathi vocabulary, but instead replacing existing words. The Marathi language (like all other Indian languages) already has an extremely vast, diverse and beautiful vocabulary.
• with every next generation of Maharashtrians, the knowledge of Marathi vocabulary is reducing and it may have reduced drastically in the past few decades.
• as the reach of English medium schools and the internet widens, this phenomena will continue to grow even to rural areas. Even today’s TV serials, web series, Youtube channels etc. have an extremely Englishised version of Marathi.
• and last, but not the least, we all don’t even realise that this is happening. Which means that no one is taking any corrective action on it, and this problem continues to grow like an avalanche.

Listen to this speech to better understand what I want to say. Below is an excellent example taken from the same.

Fresh vegetable आणून त्यांना boil करा, मग त्यांना mash करून त्याचं dough बनवा. मग त्याला cut करून deep fry करा.

8 out of the 20 words (40%) are in English! And most of us urban folk speak like this, without even realising it.

Solution

Reduce the use of English words when communicating in Marathi.

Below is a simple way in which you can improve your usage of Marathi and at the same time help others in doing the same. To make this a success, it will need a collective effort from all of us. Also I think that teaching children about this is extremely important and beneficial to this cause, as they can take this in without any bias or prejudice and also influence their peers.

1. From now on whenever you speak (or write) in Marathi, try to observe the amount of English you use in it (like in the example above).
2. Then try to correct youself. Use the below website (or any website/source you like) to help you find the right Marathi words.
   • मराठी शब्द (English to Marathi thesaurus without ads)
3. Ask your family, friends, relatives to do the same.
4. Lastly, do share this page with others on social media and messaging apps.

Some tips from personal experience

• I admit that even when I started doing this, there were certain obstacles that I faced. Such as some words felt weird to use or people gave funny reactions etc. But trust me, this is all momentary. All the weirdness is simply due to we not be used to use our mother tongue proficiently. (As a side note, what can be worse that people laughing and feeling weird about their own language. Sigh!)
• Also don’t go full on from 40% English to 0% English in one day, as that can surprise (and may be scare) some people. Instead go gradually, replacing a few words daily. This will make it feel more natural to you as well as the people around you.
• Stand your ground if people try to discourage or ridicule you.

Problem #2

Typing/writing Marathi using the Latin alphabet instead of Devanagari.

Do you write Marathi like this when chatting with your friends or posting on the internet -

aaj me ghari ushira yein.

instead of writing it correctly like this -

आज मी घरी उशिरा येईन.

Honestly this was a genuine problem due to technical limitations till about 7-8 years ago when we didn’t have transliteration keyboards for Indian languages. But today we have those on all platforms be it mobile or computers. However it continues to exist as people seem to be reluctant to let go of their habit of typing using Latin (English) alphabet.

Solution

The solution is pretty simple for this - start using Indic keyboards.

• Easiest way is to use a transliteration keyboard. That lets you type in English (which lets assume you are used to) but outputs the words in Devanagari script. So basically you type “namaskar” to get “नमस्कार”
• These kind of keyboards are available on all platforms like Android, iOS, Windows, Mac and GNU/Linux with some slight variations. The most popular one on mobile is GBoard from Google, I think.
• On computers you can also use Google translate to do transliteration typing.
• Another way, with a steep learning curve but more efficiency (especially if you type long texts), is to use an InScript keyboard.

I will write a detailed post on keyboards later when I can get time.

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