Languages in India

In different parts of India, different languages are spoken. Most of the languages of India belong to two families, Aryan and Dravidian. Languages spoken in the five states of south India belong to the Dravidian family and most of the languages spoken in the north are of Aryan family. The general script of the Aryan languages is different from the general script of Dravidian languages. The Indians also distinguish between the general north Indian accent and general south Indian accent. Along with these two main language families, there are other languages from the Sini - Mongoloid family spoken in east India.

The languages spoken in present India, evolved in different phases of Indian history. In the earlier stage of Indian history other languages were spoken. The holy books of different religions that developed in ancient India are written in different languages. The holy books of Hinduism were written Sanskrit. The holy books of Buddhism were written in Pali. The holy books of Jainism were written in Ardhamaghadi. These three languages aren’t spoken fluently in India today, but Sanskrit is recognized as one of the official languages of India. The modern Aryan languages are considered to have evolved from Sanskrit. The evolvement of south Indian languages isn’t clear. Many believe that before the arrival of the Aryans, Dravidian languages were spoken over all India. Some of the tribes of north India speak (or spoke in the near past) in dialects similar to Dravidian languages. Among the present Dravidian languages of south India, Tamil language had exerted its greatest influence on other Dravidian languages.

Languages and Dialects

Language is one of the main seeds of a person’s ethnic identity. The Indian constitution recognizes, for now, 18 official Indian languages. But, almost each of these 18 languages, include different dialects or variations of that language. Besides these 18 languages, there are other languages which are recognized by the central government, but not as official languages. There are other languages which aren’t recognized by the central government. Some of the present India’s states boundaries created were based on the boundaries of the main Indian languages as recognized by the Indian constitution.

The process of creating Indian states began after India’s independence in 1947. During the British rule of India, there were two types of British India states, princely states and provinces. With India’s independence, provinces like Bombay and Bengal became Indian states and the small princely states adjoining the big provinces were added to the provinces. In some cases some small adjoining princely states were joined together to make a new state like Rajasthan. Big princely states like Hyderabad, Mysore and others were also made states. But many local leaders demanded states for their culture and identity. The main demand was to create states based on language boundaries. This process of creating states based on languages began in 1953 and even today there are demands for new states for different language speakers.

States whose boundaries are based on languages are Kerala for Malyalam speakers. Tamil Nadu for Tamil speakers. Karnataka for Kanadda speakers. Andra Pradesh for Telugu speakers. Maharashtra for Marathi speakers. Orissa for Oriya speakers. West Bengal for Bengali speakers. Gujarat for Gujarati speakers. Punjab for Punjabi speakers. Assam for Assami speakers. Some of these states like Bengal and Orissa were provinces during British rule. Though many states were created based on language boundaries, there are other states which weren’t created based on language boundaries and there are many language speaker who don’t have their own state.

To name a few other languages spoken in India, one can name Dogri, Ladacki and Kashmiri which are spoken in different parts of Jammu and Kashmir state. In Sikkim, different languages are spoken. The main language there is Nepali. In Manipur the main language is Manipuri. In Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh the main language is Hindi, which is also become the national language of India. Some languages of India aren’t specific to a region of India, like Sindhi whose speakers came to India from Sindh (in present day Pakistan), but are scattered all over India. Urdu is spoken by many Muslims all over India. The different tribes of India (some of them only a few hundreds) also have their own languages.

As stated earlier most of the main Indian languages have different dialects and variations, sometimes very different from each other. Hindi has more than ten variations. Hindi spoken in Rajasthan is different from Hindi spoken in Bihar or Hindi of Himachal Pradesh. Sometimes the different variations of a language are considered as separate language with their own literature. One of Hindi dialects spoken in east India is Maithali. Many Maithali speakers regard their language as a different language from Hindi. Also Rajasthani from Rajasthan is considered sometimes as a different language and not as Hindi. But, actually Rajasthani also isn’t one language but different tribal languages spoken by the people of Rajasthan and they all call their languages after the name of their region.

Another language named after its region is Konkani spoken in Goa and named as such because of the Konkan coast. To the north of Goa in the Konkan coast of Maharashtra there is another ‘Konkani’ language which is considered a dialect derived from the Marathi language and is different from Goa’s Konkani language.

The Indian constitution uses the term ‘mother tongue’ instead of language or dialect. Officially the central government recognizes 18 languages, but each language includes in it many mother tongues. The Indian census records over 200 different mother tongues.

Despite the different languages and dialects, most of the official languages speakers have developed a standard of speaking language which has become the accepted style of speaking for that language. Sometimes, like in the case of Hindi this language is completely different from some of its dialects.

Languages recognized by the Indian constitution

1. Assamese.

2. Bengali.

3. Gujarati.

4. Hindi.

5. Kannada. (Dravidian)

6. Kashmiri.

7. Konkani.

8. Malayalam. (Dravidian)

9. Manipuri.

10. Marathi.

11. Nepali.

12. Oriya.

13. Punjabi.

14. Sanskrit.

15. Sindhi.

16. Tamil. (Dravidian)

17. Telugu. (Dravidian)

18. Urdu. (which is very closely related to Hindi but uses Arabic script)

Official language

One of the main political issues in Indian politics is connected to language problem. After India’s independence the government decided that the official language of India will be Hindi. Hindi belongs to the family of Aryan languages. Speakers of other languages, especially the Dravidian languages, saw in this decision an attempt to erase their language cultures. But the Indian constitution has declared that English can also be used for official purposes. Hindi has at least 13 different dialects and she is the most commonly spoken language in India. But the reason Hindi was chosen to be the official language of India wasn’t because it is the most commonly spoken language in India, but it has connection with India history before it’s independence.

Before its independence, most of India was a British colony. Before the British the most dominant Empire of north India was the Moghul Empire. The Moghuls were Muslim invaders who arrived in India from the present day Afghanistan. The official language of the Moghul courts was Persian. The Moghuls, like other residents who lived to the west of the Indian sub-continent named India as ‘Hind’ or ‘Hindustan’, after the river Indus which flows in the present day Pakistan. The language spoken in ‘Hind’ was called by them Hindi or Hindustani. This language and its script were based on an ancient Indian language called Sanskrit. Most of the sacred books of Hinduism are written in Sanskrit and the script is called Devanagiri.

Some of the Moghul family members were great patrons of poetry and music. Slowly there developed a ‘Hindustani’ poetry, based on Hindustani language which used words from Arabic and Persian and was written in Perso-Arabic script. This language was called Urdu. Urdu also replaced Persian as the language of the Moghul courtyards. And so there developed two languages with different writings but were actually one language when spoken except for their higher vocabularies. For example, rulers were titled in Urdu language as Shah, Nawab or Nizam. While in Hindi they were called Raja or Maharaja. Among the Hindustani speakers of north India, Urdu became the language of the Muslims while Hindi became the language of others.

After the collapse of the Moghuls the British became the rulers of north India. The British introduced English to India and continued using Urdu for official purposes. But nationalist Hindus demanded from the British to change the official language from Urdu to Hindi which is written in Indian script. Even Hindus whose mother tongue were not Hindi supported this argument. This debate between the Hindus and the Muslims continued right up to the independence of India. Against this stand of two different languages two of India’s notable leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, supported the idea of one Hindustani language which could be written in both forms. But when British India was divided in two countries, India and Pakistan. Muslims who got Pakistan made Urdu their official language and Indians made Hindi with Devanagiri script as their official language. But the debate over the official language didn’t end up with choosing Hindi with Devanagiri script as the official language. New debates occurred because of this decision.

One problem was connected to the different dialects of Hindi and the second problem was connected to other languages which exist in India. The first problem was which dialect of Hindi is the right Hindi. Hindi has at least 13 dialects, some of them completely different from each other. Two reasons caused to it that Hindi language includes in it so many different dialects. One reason was related to the fact that India is called Hind in many languages spoken west from it up to the Middle East. Muslim invaders of India like the Moghuls came from these regions and called the language spoken in ‘Hind’ as Hindi. The Indians also began calling their different languages as ‘Hindi’. The other reason which concerns to the fact that Hindi has so many different dialects is related to the independence period of India and the debate of the official language of India.

Most of the Indians belong religiously to Hinduism and they perceive Urdu, written in Perso-Arabic script as Muslim language. Before the independence of India the Muslims supported the continuation of Urdu as the official language of India, while the Hindus supported Hindi. In order to secure Hindi’s position as the sole official language of India the political leaders convinced the north Indians to claim that they speak a Hindi dialect and so different dialect speakers were put together in the Hindi speaking category by the British bureaucrats. After India’s independence when Hindi was chosen as the official language of India, different ‘Hindi’ language speakers began demanding official recognition of their languages. Maithali and Punjabi speakers also demanded to recognize their languages as separate languages from Hindi. Of the different ‘Hindi’ languages, only Punjabi got this recognition. Other ‘Hindi’ languages are considered dialects of Hindi and their status in the different states of India isn’t clear and is interpreted differently by different parties. The official Hindi is based on the dialect which was spoken in the Delhi-Agra region with a Sanskrit vocabulary. While the popular Hindi spoken by majority of Indians is based on this dialect, it is also affected by the different cultures of India mainly the Hindi cinema based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in west India and it includes many English words.

Among the other language speakers of India, the decision to choose Hindi as the official language was seen as an attempt to erase their cultures. After different struggles – political, violent and passive – the central government decided to allow the state governments to pick their official languages and recognized constitutionally other languages of India. For now the Indian constitution recognizes 18 Indian languages. One of meanings of the constitutional recognition is the right to use any of these languages for government service examinations. But, in reality this possibility isn’t always given to the examinee.

The different states of India have different official languages, some of them not recognized by the central government. Some states have more then one official language. Bihar in east India has three official languages - Hindi, Urdu and Bengali – which are all recognized by the central government. But Sikkim, also in east India, has four official languages of which only Nepali is recognized by the central government. Besides the languages officially recognized by central or state governments, there are other languages which don’t have this recognition and their speakers are running political struggles to get this recognition. Anyway as stated earlier the central government decided that Hindi is the official language of India and therefore it has also the status of official language in the states. Another language that has a official status in all states is English.

English in India

Officially English has a status of assistant language, but in fact it is the most important language of India. After Hindi it is the most commonly spoken language in India and probably the most read and written language in India. Indians who know English will always try to show that they know English. English symbolizes in Indians minds, better education, better culture and higher intellect. Indians who know English often mingle it with Indian languages in their conversations. It is also usual among Indians to abruptly move to speak fluent English in the middle of their conversations. English also serves as the communicator among Indians who speak different language. English is very important in some systems – legal, financial, educational, business – in India. Until the beginning of 1990s, foreign movies in India weren’t translated or dubbed in Indian languages, but were broadcast in English and were meant for English speakers only. The reason Indians give such importance to English is related to the fact that India was a British colony.

When the British started ruling India, they searched for Indian mediators who could help them to administer India. The British turned to high caste Indians to work for them. Many high caste Indians, especially the Brahmans worked for them. The British policy was to create an Indian class who should think like the British, or as it was said then in Britain “Indians in blood and color but English in taste, in opinions and morals and intellect”. The British also established in India universities based on British models with emphasis on English. These Indians also got their education in British universities. The English Christian missionaries came to India from 1813 and they also built schools at primary level for Indians in which the language of instruction was local language. Later on the missionaries built high schools with English as the language of instruction which obliged the Indians who wanted to study to have a good knowledge of English. The British rulers began building their universities in India from 1857. English became the first language in Indian education. The ‘modern’ leaders of that era in India also supported English language and claimed it to be the main key towards success. Indians who knew good English were seen as the new elite of India. Many new schools were established in which the language of instruction was English. According to the British laws the language of instruction at university level was English and therefore schools that emphasized English were preferred by ambitious Indians. Even after India’s independence, English remained the main language of India. Officially it was given a status of an assistant language and was supposed to terminate officially after 15 years of India’s independence, but it still remains the important language of India.

Even today schools in India that emphasis English are considered better schools and the same is the case at university levels, even though there is a trend towards Indianisation. In the 1970s and 1980s about one third of the Indian schools had English as their first language. For most of these students, English is their first language and it is easier for them to communicate, read and write in English than in Indian languages, including their mother tongues.

Just like the Americans, Australians or even the British who have their unique English words and phrases, the Indians also have their own unique English. The Indians and the Indian English language press uses many words derived from Indian languages, especially from Hindi. Other than that, the Indian accent is sometimes difficult for non-Indians to understand. There are some Indian pronunciations that don’t exist in non Indian languages. The British also had problems with that and they caused some changes in Indian words so that they could pronounce them. Even the Indians started using these changed words and made them part of their English. Two examples of such changed words are curry and sari.

Back To Home Page

Back to Civilisation Page