English Medium Education: An Individual and National Need

From www.ekantipur.com

On a day in my twelfth grade, my English teacher was marking my test papers in front of me. Suddenly he asked me if I came from a government school. I said, "Yes, I am from Nepali medium." Then he commented, "If your parents had enrolled you in an English medium school…" He didn't complete the sentence, but looked at my face directly and seriously. My face turned very serious and quite shy. This comment had such an impression on me that I am still thinking what if my parents had enrolled me in an English medium school.

No Respect for Native Rules

"To write every word in correct rhaswas and dirghas, I'm not a Nepali professor after all", many youths and adults tell this sentence when someone tries to correct some spellings in their Nepali writings. So – does one need to be a Nepali professor to write Nepali correctly? If yes, given that most of us try to make our English spellings as correct as possible, why have not we been English professors yet?

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Author and journalist Sharat Chandra Wastiwrites, "The national language should have become stronger day by day, but this is not the case due to extreme ignorance and an impulse toward fashion. On the one hand are those risen to senior positions and highly educated who feel proud, not shy, to say "I don't know Nepali much". On the other hand are those involved in language-related professions who take linguistic incompetence for their pride by saying "Do I need to learn Nepali? Whatever I write is Nepali." The general user lies confused between these two poles" (IX). It shows that Nepali population has been too much ignorant about correct use of own language. And, this can be best seen in spellings of Nepali words in Nepali (Devnagari) script they write.

English Affixation

1.      Affixation

Affixes are the bound morphemes which are added to base forms of words.  Yule, 2010 defines affixes as "a large number of small “bits” of the English language which are not usually given separate listings in dictionaries" (58). For example, "re-", "dis-", "-s", "-ed" are some common affixes in English language.

Phonetic Description of Nepali Consonants

1.      Consonants

Consonants are one of the major two subdivisions of phonemes of any language. It is distinguished from the other major subdivision 'Vowels'. Unlike vowels, consonant sounds cannot be pronounced without obstruction in airflow. In other words, "consonants are produced by temporarily obstructing or restricting the airstream as it passes through the mouth" (Lyons 75).     

Syllable Structures in Nepali Language

1.       Introduction to Syllables

A syllable is generally a speech sound of a particular language which can be pronounced with a single puff of breathes.  It is an essential element for a morpheme, i.e.: no morpheme can be formed without a syllable.  Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia states "Syllables are often considered the phonological 'building blocks' of words." For example, in the word 'Book' [bʊk], there is only one syllable, whereas the word 'Copy' [kopi:] is made up of two syllables. We need to break air to pronounce this word between 'co', and 'py'.