Why Do Most Parents In West Not Teach Punjabi To Their Children?

[Jonny101]

27 minutes ago, dallysingh101 said:

Bro, at some stage we have to pucker up enough balls to name this culture what it is, and not hide behind the 'Punjabi culture' label. I witnessed the growth of this 'culture' with my own eyes.  

It is contemporary Punjabi culture not old Punjabi culture. Old Punjabi culture for example a man or woman coming from a respectable family didn't dance and sing because these were seen as done by people belonging to the Marasi and Kanjar castes. The Marasi were the singing caste while the Kanjar caste whose occupation it was to dance and Bhangra was there dance form. The Kanjars were regarded so low that it became a swear word to call someone a Kanjar even to this day. Maharaja Ranjit Singh famously married a dancing woman of the Islamic faith. She was always called a Kanjri all her life to denote her origins as a dancing girl. During weddings Jatts would call Marasis and Kanjars for entertainment. On these weddings these Mararis and Kanjars would sing and do their bhangra dance to emulate movements Jatts would make during farming to entertain their intended audience

 

Decades passed and Jatts became liberal and started to emulate the Marasis by becoming Bhangra singers and also took a liking to the dance of the Kanjars called Bhangra and excelled in this dance form even more than the Kanjars ever did.

[GurjantGnostic]

I'm not sure if this is the most practical idea, and I can tell it will take me considerable time, but I'm hoping to learn pure Guri from Guru Granth Sahib Ji. 

It interests me to look at more every day punjabi after. 

Any and every household that has punjabi speaking family would be benefiting the children and future of the Panth by teaching fluent punjabi at home. 

[GurjantGnostic]

Being raised monolingual in the imperial tongue is so embarrassing...

[dallysingh101]

1 hour ago, Jonny101 said:

It is contemporary Punjabi culture not old Punjabi culture. Old Punjabi culture for example a man or woman coming from a respectable family didn't dance and sing because these were seen as done by people belonging to the Marasi and Kanjar castes. The Marasi were the singing caste while the Kanjar caste whose occupation it was to dance and Bhangra was there dance form. The Kanjars were regarded so low that it became a swear word to call someone a Kanjar even to this day. Maharaja Ranjit Singh famously married a dancing woman of the Islamic faith. She was always called a Kanjri all her life to denote her origins as a dancing girl. During weddings Jatts would call Marasis and Kanjars for entertainment. On these weddings these Mararis and Kanjars would sing and do their bhangra dance to emulate movements Jatts would do during farming to entertain their intended audience

 

Decades passed and Jatts became liberal and started to emulate the Marasis by becoming Bhangra singers and also took a liking to the dance of the Kanjars called Bhangra and excelled in this dance form even more than the Kanjars ever did.

In my own life, I've seen (when younger) how conservative Sikh weddings were, with mainly kirtan, the women doing giddah and boliyan with a dholki in their own company (no blokes, just kids and them, and believe you me, watching and hearing them screeching and jumping on the floorboards wasn't a pleasant experience.....)

Blokes would at least hide their shame and drink discreetly back then. 

Then you had Jut blokes explicitly saying "Yeah, drinking and doing bhangra is a Jut thing, yeah!" I worked in a Panjabi booze warehouse as a teen and even then the share amount of booze Juts would buy for weddings was astronomical.  We are talking thousands in the late 80s/ early 90s which is saying something given inflation!  They celebrated it shamelessly. This shyte spread to the rest of the <banned word filter activated> sub-communities and fast forward to today - we all know what the score is:

 

Bhangra was a dance from villages, as the name denotes, it was commonly done off your head on bhang (and probably other stuff), little seems to have changed.....  

[dallysingh101]

12 minutes ago, GurjantGnostic said:

Being raised monolingual in the imperial tongue is so embarrassing...

I know Irish people who can speak Gaelic - did your parents never encourage it? 

[puzzled]

I wouldn't marry some1 who doesn't know how to speak Punjabi, its a straight no.

Punjabi is the language of our ancestors, its over 1000 years old and full of history and soul, It has seen so much history. Speaking Punjabi is not just a language, its a heritage and history and is full of soul, the language of our forefathers and the land of our origin.

A Punjabi person speaking Punjabi is enriched head to toe with all that history, heritage and soul. A Punjabi person who only knows how to speak English is enriched with a White foreign language, head to toe.

[puzzled]

6 hours ago, MisterrSingh said:

People of our mentality need to understand that most Sikhs residing outside of India for generations just aren't interested invested in the culture and the religion to the extent that its practice and preservation is a priority. They partake in some of the expected cultural rituals, for the sake of family, etc., but there's a further hardcore minority who I'd hazard a guess don't particularly like any outward sign of their belonging to a religious minority. I'm not knocking them, it's just the way things are I suppose.

Isn't this clinging on just for the sake of clinging on just weakening the community, we then end up with people having a voice in the community who have very little interest in the faith and culture. 

Theres people out there, cultural Sikhs, who call themselves Sikhs because they do fireworks and light candles on Diwali and go Gurdwara a couple of times a year, yet these people feel they are entitled to have a say in Sikh matters and tell us what Sikhi should be. 

[MisterrSingh]

3 minutes ago, puzzled said:

Isn't this clinging on just for the sake of clinging on just weakening the community, we then end up with people having a voice in the community who have very little interest in the faith and culture. 

Very true. If I were of that frame of mind, I would have the decency not to involve myself in matters which have previously never been a priority for me. But there's always going to be that latent attachment to the community and the people, which is why I guess some people are stirred into action. It's funny because these types of people are considered to be rational types not swayed by overly religious or cultural sentiments, therefore the external "leaders" are drawn to these people / so-called representatives in the mistaken sense that they occupy the moderate ground on which discussion and compromise can take place. That's how we end up getting betrayed and ceding ground in issues we should never agree with.

[shastarSingh]

22 minutes ago, puzzled said:

I wouldn't marry some1 who doesn't know how to speak Punjabi, its a straight no.

Punjabi is the language of our ancestors, its over 1000 years old and full of history and soul, It has seen so much history. Speaking Punjabi is not just a language, its a heritage and history and is full of soul, the language of our forefathers and the land of our origin.

A Punjabi person speaking Punjabi is enriched head to toe with all that history, heritage and soul. A Punjabi person who only knows how to speak English is enriched with a White foreign language, head to toe.

u r a good sikh brother

[puzzled]

My Mami is from Southampton,1950s, and her son (my cousin) was born here as well in the 70s, and now he has a little boy and he speaks to him in Punjabi, that's 3 generations from the UK.