Recently an email arrived from the Indian Embassy in the Netherlands, where I live. It announced a venture to promote Sanskrit. That this i...
Recently an email arrived from the Indian Embassy in the Netherlands, where I live. It announced a venture to promote Sanskrit. That this is necessary does not surprise me. Like Latin, the antecedent of European languages, Sanskrit, the root of Hindi, is in a terminal condition.
This makes India’s promotion of Sanskrit abroad intriguing. Given its indifferent embrace at home, what explains this branding initiative? A clue is the trumpeting of “the world’s first Gamified Sanskrit Learning app”. Developed by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, the app is called “Little Guru”.
Gamification induces us with online rewards and competition. The metric of success: engagement. Facebook shows us more of what we click. YouTube suggests versions of what we saw. Spotify pushes songs like what we have heard.
The hearts and smileys become algorithmic icons of influence. Like sponges, they absorb our attention. At the same time, they goad screen gladiators into affinity and embattlement. We seem the agents of the game; quite possibly, we are being gamed.
Little Guru – which announces itself as addictive – follows this formula. You get an Arjuna card after chanting shlokas or memorising yoga gurus. While mastering the Bhagavad Gita, you receive an Om badge.
That language learning is folded into gaming logics seems inevitable....
