Kiran
01-03-2009, 00:28
First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for giving me enough reading material to keep me busy reading for over a couple of weeks now. I've searched for this, and I haven't found anything that satisfies my answers.
A little background on me: I'm an Indian serving in the US Military, and frankly, I believe in the mission of USMIL and especially USASF in the GWOT down to my core. I'm frankly embarrassed that there are quite a few dhimmis in my community, but that's irrelevant. I speak Telugu (a south Indian language, and the dialect I speak has a lot of Sanskritic vocabulary,) English, Hindi and Spanish in order of proficiency. Of all the listed languages, I can read and write the script. I have a working knowledge of Spanish and can understand in the limits of what I learned in classes. I know the Latin culture decently well and I get exposure to it through a couple of friends. My Hindi, however, is what's known as shudh [pure] Hindi (which retains its Sanskritic vocabulary,) whereas common Hindi has a lot of borrowed vocabulary from Urdu; it's roughly akin to classical and modern standard Arabic. However, Urdu speakers can't understand shudh Hindi as well as Hindi speakers can understand Urdu. My Telugu and English need no mention since I have no problems with either languages.
From my research, I have found out that the 1st SFG, the group whose AO is PACOM, under which India is categorized holds some interest to me. I also know, from this (http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=49157&postcount=2) post from TR that ethnicity won't play a role unless there's a language involved. It doesn't matter where I get sent, because I'm fully committed to the mission. The reason I ask is because although it's on the ACASP's list of positive skills, I haven't seen Hindi mentioned around the SF circles, except for the Ranger to whom I speak frequently (read further in the post.)
My questions to all QP's that could be of help are these:
a. Do you, sirs or sergeants, know a QP that speaks Hindi, and has that skill been beneficial to him, at whatever time he used it?
b. Should I focus on just rehashing my Hindi skills to finish the DLPT and focus more efforts on a more practical language like Farsi, Pashto, Dari, Arabic or Urdu?
c. Based on the COE, would it be useful at all to Mother Army, or at the least, myself, to invest time in Hindi beyond the standard movie watching, music listening and conversing with my fellow brown friends in Hindi?
Also, this is not as important as the questions of substance above, but I've been told by a QP (tabbed, but now with USAREC; I saw him at MEPS,) and a recruiter at the closest station who's got his Ranger Scrolls who said me being able to blend into the general public in the Middle East and South Asia, that it'd be a very favorable. I was wondering if there's any validity to this. Would any QP's want to shed some light? I appreciate any and all insight, and many thanks in advance. Take care.
--Kiran
A little background on me: I'm an Indian serving in the US Military, and frankly, I believe in the mission of USMIL and especially USASF in the GWOT down to my core. I'm frankly embarrassed that there are quite a few dhimmis in my community, but that's irrelevant. I speak Telugu (a south Indian language, and the dialect I speak has a lot of Sanskritic vocabulary,) English, Hindi and Spanish in order of proficiency. Of all the listed languages, I can read and write the script. I have a working knowledge of Spanish and can understand in the limits of what I learned in classes. I know the Latin culture decently well and I get exposure to it through a couple of friends. My Hindi, however, is what's known as shudh [pure] Hindi (which retains its Sanskritic vocabulary,) whereas common Hindi has a lot of borrowed vocabulary from Urdu; it's roughly akin to classical and modern standard Arabic. However, Urdu speakers can't understand shudh Hindi as well as Hindi speakers can understand Urdu. My Telugu and English need no mention since I have no problems with either languages.
From my research, I have found out that the 1st SFG, the group whose AO is PACOM, under which India is categorized holds some interest to me. I also know, from this (http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=49157&postcount=2) post from TR that ethnicity won't play a role unless there's a language involved. It doesn't matter where I get sent, because I'm fully committed to the mission. The reason I ask is because although it's on the ACASP's list of positive skills, I haven't seen Hindi mentioned around the SF circles, except for the Ranger to whom I speak frequently (read further in the post.)
My questions to all QP's that could be of help are these:
a. Do you, sirs or sergeants, know a QP that speaks Hindi, and has that skill been beneficial to him, at whatever time he used it?
b. Should I focus on just rehashing my Hindi skills to finish the DLPT and focus more efforts on a more practical language like Farsi, Pashto, Dari, Arabic or Urdu?
c. Based on the COE, would it be useful at all to Mother Army, or at the least, myself, to invest time in Hindi beyond the standard movie watching, music listening and conversing with my fellow brown friends in Hindi?
Also, this is not as important as the questions of substance above, but I've been told by a QP (tabbed, but now with USAREC; I saw him at MEPS,) and a recruiter at the closest station who's got his Ranger Scrolls who said me being able to blend into the general public in the Middle East and South Asia, that it'd be a very favorable. I was wondering if there's any validity to this. Would any QP's want to shed some light? I appreciate any and all insight, and many thanks in advance. Take care.
--Kiran