28th February 2025 (11 Topics)
India’s Language Diversity and Marginalisation
Context
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin recently made a significant statement, claiming that several north Indian languages, including Maithili, Brajbhasha, Bundelkhandi, and Awadhi, have been "destroyed by the hegemonic Hindi." This statement touches upon several key issues concerning language politics in India, especially in relation to linguistic diversity and the dominance of Hindi in the country.
India’s Linguistic Diversity
- India is renowned for its remarkable linguistic diversity, having diverse languages and dialects with its distribution influenced by historical, geographical, and cultural factors.
- Inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent spoke proto-Dravidian languages in the 4th century BCE. These languages started to become more distinct from one another about 1,000 years later.
- The native languages of India fall into the following language families: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Tai-Kadai, and Sino-Tibetan.
- Indo-Aryan and Dravidian language families constitute the majority of native tongues spoken in India.
- According to the Census of India of 2001, India has 122 major languages and 1599 other languages.
- As of 2024, India has about 453 living languages; the Constitution of India recognises 22 official languages, known as “scheduled languages,” listed in the Eighth Schedule.
Constitutional Provisions Related to Languages in India
Major Linguistic Families of India
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PYQQ. With reference to India, the terms ‘HaIbi, Ho and Kui’ pertain to (2021)
Solution: (d) Q.2 Under which one of the following Constitution Amendment Acts, four languages were added to the languages under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, thereby raising their number to 22? (2008)
Solution: (c) |
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