Telugu-medium students do better at math than English-medium students - report

A recent report (PDF, 18 p. + appendices) concludes that "Telugu (mother tongue) medium students on an average perform significantly better as compared to English medium students after controlling for students ability, household characteristics and parental aspiration. This analysis suggests that introducing English medium of instruction at earlier grades during school life may negatively affect learning outcomes of students."

The report's author P. Sree Kumar Nair compared math test score data of 182 primary school students from 78 English-medium schools and 694 students in 144 Telugu-medium schools in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. He asks "does medium of instruction affect learning outcomes?" His answer is yes, it does. But the material conditions of these two groups of students are quite different. He notes:

"Summary statistics indicate that Telugu medium students are still substantial in number and are a disadvantaged lot as they not only have fewer infrastructural facilities but also their nutritional levels are significantly lower than their counterparts. Such a situation leads to lower cognitive development of students. Moreover Human Development Report of Telangana (2014) also reveals that there is lesser accountability on the part of government school permanent teachers that offer Telugu medium education. Against all such odds, there exists a strong potential for Telugu medium students to perform better. Thus, this evidence supports the claim that this paper strives to make about the need to give importance to mother tongue based education at primary levels of education." (p. 16)

Thus, the report cautions against changing the medium of primary education from Telugu to English. "In other words, a step towards a transition of schools at primary level from Telugu to English medium might create larger inequalities by widening the gap in the achievement levels.... Moreover, insistence on instruction in English is certainly a barrier for the poor, rural and lower caste students as revealed by this study." (p. 16-17).

Languages on Worldmapper

Spent a happy hour in the Languages section of the visually remarkable Worldmapper site. (The maps, or "cartograms" on that site "re-size each territory according to the variable being mapped".)

The Indigenous living languages map presents a pretty good picture of the world's linguistic diversity (the uncertainty about numbers notwithstanding).

One surprise was the map of Languages not mapped: "The languages that we have not mapped tend to be confined to just a few often neighbouring countries; many are spoken by members of just one tribe." And then adds:

"Some of the largest of the languages included here are Telugu and Marathi, both have high numbers in speakers in certain regions of India...."

Hmm. The geographical boundedness of Telugu (74 m speakers) and Marathi (72 m) had not struck me until now.

The native-speaker numbers in brackets are from the Indian government's 2001 census. Other sources give other figures. UCLA's Language Materials Project, for instance, draws upon other sources to give Marathi "90 million people in India, 70 million of whom speak the language natively. The remaining 20 million people speak Marathi as a second language."

For Telugu, the profile says, "There are about 69,634,000 speakers of Telugu in India (1997 IMA). The total population in all countries is 69,666,000 or more. The total population of speakers including second language speakers is about 75,000,000 (1999 WA)."

Kannada in a Greek play of 2nd cent. BC??

Announcing the classical status of Kannada and Telugu, a Times of India report says, "Govind Pai proved that Kannada phrases like 'Mindeya?' ('Have you had bath?') were used in a Greek play of 2nd century BC."

'Proved', eh? The Wikipedia article on Kannada does not seem to've heard of this Greek connection.

However, Kamat's Potpourri - that fascinating "hodge-podge of Indian history, arts and culture" - does mention that the remarkable Pai identified "Kannada names from ancient Greek classics including Ptolemy".