India has the second largest number of languages in the world: 740. Most people would not know or be able to guess the country that is at the top of the linguistic chart. It is Papua New Guinea with 860!
India’s linguistic heritage is nothing short of remarkable. According to the 2011 National Census, there are 122 major languages in our country and 1599 dialects. The 22, officially recognised in the eighth schedule of the Constitution are known as ‘scheduled languages’. In addition, six languages --- Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu --- are listed as 'classical’, for their antiquity, and having a developed script and an independent and vast corpus of literature.
Hindi does not figure among the classical languages, as it is a by-product of Sanskrit and is of more recent origin having evolved from khari boli. But Hindi is the most widely spoken language and the fastest growing one. According to the national census, 43.69% of people speak, write and understand Hindi. If you add to this those who just speak and understand it, the figure goes up to 57.1%. The second most spoken language is Bengali, with 8.3%speakers followed by Marathi (6.86%), Telegu (6.7%) and Tamil (5.7%).
When the Constitution was being drafted, there were prolonged discussions in the Constituent Assembly on whether Hindi should be declared the national language. Given the opposition from non-Hindi speaking regions, it was decided that Hindi should be given the status of official language. It was decided too that English would continue for 15 years after 1947 as an additional official language. However, after 15 years, with the continuing opposition of non-Hindi speaking states, the Official Languages Act of 1963 allowed English to continue indefinitely until legislation to the contrary.
The fact that India is such a rich country where languages are concerned is a strength—and a window to our great civilizational heritage—but it comes with some pitfalls too. Firstly, it can lead to clashes on the question of primacy of one language over another. The attempt to impose Hindi—even if it is the most spoken language in the country—on non-Hindi speaking states is fraught with danger. It can lead to fissures and regional chauvinisms that can have dangerously unforeseeable consequences.
We have to remember that even if other languages are numerically smaller, they have a great past and an extremely rich literary legacy. For instance, Tamil is considered to be one of the oldest languages in the world, older even than Sanskrit on which most other languages in the country are based. Tamil has some 100 million speakers, a highly developed vocabulary and a vast corpus of literature. Some 2,000 newspapers in Tamil are published every day! It would be much better not to force Hindi as the national language, especially since its reach has grown exponentially any way. In fact, by some accounts, the largest number of coaching institutes to teach Hindi in the country are in Tamil Nadu.
The second concern is the tendency to link language with religion. Some people consider Urdu to be the language of Muslims, and only a pure Hindi devoid of Urdu words is representative of our ‘national’ culture. This is, to my mind, utter rubbish. Urdu evolved in India --- it is a mixture of Persian, Arabic, and Hindi --- and some of the best works in this language have been written by Indians. In fact, as Gulzar Saheb and Javed Akhtar often say, it is almost impossible to speak one sentence in Hindi which doesn't contain an Urdu word. Languages are a thing of beauty in themselves, not the extension of religion. Hindi and Urdu are often considered to be like the Ganga and the Yamuna, sister rivers which ultimately merge with one another.
Lastly, there is the question of the role of English. It has become an indispensable part of our communication, and in many ways, this is good since we need to know an international language. But English cannot be a reason to consider our own languages inferior, or to neglect their development. Sheldon Pollock, professor of Sanskrit and Indian studies at Columbia, has written that in India ‘the house of Indian classical language study is not only burning, it lies almost in ashes’. We also need far more competent translators from one Indian language to another, so that the outstanding literature coming out in one language can be shared with others and not be confined to silos.
Moreover, in my view, English, while valuable as a communication tool, can never really become the language of our culture, for the simple reason that languages are much more than mediums of communication. They are rooted in our culture, and have the fragrance of our history, folklore, lullabies, stories and so much more.
For a country which is arguably the world’s biggest treasure trove of languages, badly spoken English can hardly become the lingua franca of our country. As Atal Bihari Vajpayee once quipped: "It is a myth that the British left as a result of the freedom movement. They left because they could not bear any more the massacre of the English language!"
Pavan K Varma is author, diplomat, and former Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). Just Like That is a weekly column where Varma shares nuggets from the world of history, culture, literature, and personal reminiscences with HT Premium readers. The views expressed are personal
Just Like That | The thousand tongues that bind us
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23.12.2023
India has the second largest number of languages in the world: 740. Most people would not know or be able to guess the country that is at the top of the linguistic chart. It is Papua New Guinea with 860!
India’s linguistic heritage is nothing short of remarkable. According to the 2011 National Census, there are 122 major languages in our country and 1599 dialects. The 22, officially recognised in the eighth schedule of the Constitution are known as ‘scheduled languages’. In addition, six languages --- Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu --- are listed as 'classical’, for their antiquity, and having a developed script and an independent and vast corpus of literature.
Hindi does not figure among the classical languages, as it is a by-product of Sanskrit and is of more recent origin having evolved from khari boli. But Hindi is the most widely spoken language and the fastest growing one. According to the national census, 43.69% of people speak, write and understand Hindi. If you add to this those who just speak and understand it, the figure goes up to 57.1%. The second most spoken language is Bengali, with 8.3%speakers followed by Marathi (6.86%), Telegu (6.7%) and Tamil (5.7%).
When the Constitution was being drafted, there were prolonged discussions in the Constituent Assembly on whether Hindi should be........
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