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List of national languages of India |
The languages of India primarily belong to two major linguistic families, Indo-European, whose branch Indo-Aryan is spoken by about 70% of the population of India and that includes the Dardic languages; secondly, the Dravidian family (spoken by about 22%). Other languages spoken in India come mainly from the Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman linguistic families; in addition there are a few language isolates.1
Individual mother tongues in India number several hundred2; the 1961 census recognized 1,6523 (SIL Ethnologue lists 415). According to Census of India of 2001, 29 languages are spoken by more than a million native speakers, 122 by more than 10,000. Three millennia of language contact has led to significant mutual influence among the four language families in India and South Asia. Two contact languages have played an important role in the history of India: Persian and English.4
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The northern Indian languages from the Indo-European family evolved from Old Indo-Aryan such as Sanskrit, by way of the Middle Indo-Aryan Prakrit languages and Apabhramsha of the Middle Ages. There is no consensus for a specific time where the modern north Indian languages such as Gujarati Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Bengali and Oriya emerged, but AD 1000 is commonly accepted.5 Each language had different influences, with Hindi/Urdu and closely related languages being strongly influenced by Persian. The South Indian (Dravidian) languages had a history independent of Sanskrit. However in later stages all the Dravidian languages had been heavily influenced by Sanskrit. The major Dravidian languages are Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu,
The languages of India may be grouped by major language families. The largest of these in terms of speakers is the Indo-European family, predominantly represented in its Indo-Aryan branch (accounting for some 700 million speakers), but also including minority languages such as Persian, Portuguese or French, and English as lingua franca. The second largest is the Dravidian family, accounting for some 200 million speakers. Minor linguistic families include the Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman families (with some 10 and 6 million speakers, respectively). Kashmiri, considered a Dardic language, has some 4.6 million speakers in India. There is also a language isolate, the Nihali language.
While Tamil and Sanskrit have been studied as classical languages for many years,6 the Government of India, using its own criteria, has also accorded classical language status to Kannada and Telugu.7
In the mid-19th century, Indologists referred to Paninian Sanskrit as "classical Sanskrit," distinguishing it from the older Vedic language.8910 In the second half of the 20th century, academics began to suggest that the Old Tamil poems of the Sangam anthologies were also "classical" in the sense that they shared many features with literatures commonly accepted as classical. This point, first made by Kamil Zvelebil in the 1970s,11 has since been supported by a number of other scholars,121314 and the terminology "classical Tamil" is commonly used in historical literature to refer to texts from that period.15
In 2004, the Government of India declared that languages that met certain requirements could be accorded the status of a 'classical language' in India.16 Tamil was the first language to be declared classical. Experts consulted by the government and the Sahitya Akademi (Literary Academy) of India, recommended against awarding the label to any language. In contrast, Dr. George Hart, a Professor of Tamil and Sanskrit at the University of California - Berkeley, supported classifying Tamil as a classical language; however, he stated that no other modern Indian language can be called classical. According to him, "To qualify as a classical tradition, a language must fit several criteria: it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own not as an offshoot of another tradition, and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature. Unlike the other modern languages of India, Tamil meets each of these requirements."17
In 2005, Sanskrit, which already had special status in Article 351 of the Constitution of India, as the primary source language for the development of the official language Hindi,18 was also declared to be a classical language; this was followed by similar declarations for Kannada and Telegu in 2008, based on the recommendation of a committe of linguistic experts constituted by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.7
In a 2006 press release, Minister of Tourism & Culture, Ambika Soni told the Rajya Sabha the following criteria were laid down to determine the eligibility of languages to be considered for classification as a Classical Language,19
| “ | High antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1500-2000 years; A body of ancient literature/texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers; The literary tradition be original and not borrowed from another speech community; The classical language and literature being distinct from modern, there may also be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots. | ” |
Article 343 of the Indian Constitution recognizes Hindi in Devanāgarī script as the official language of the Union. The states have their own official languages, depending on their linguistic demographics. For example, the state of Tamil Nadu has Tamil as its sole official language, while the state of Jammu and Kashmir has Kashmiri, Urdu and Dogri as its official languages. The Constitution also allows for the continuation of use of the English language for official purposes. Article 345 provides constitutional recognition to "official languages" of the union to include any one or more of the languages in use in the state or Hindi language adopted by a state legislature as the official language of that state. Until the Twenty-First Amendment of the Constitution in 1967, the country recognised 14 official regional languages. The Eighth Schedule and the Seventy-First Amendment provided for the inclusion of Sindhi, Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali, thereby increasing the number of official regional languages of India to 1820. Individual states, whose borders are mostly drawn on socio-linguistic lines, are free to decide their own language for internal administration and education. The Constitution of India recognizes 22 languages, spoken in different parts the country, namely:
Hindi is an official language of the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and the National Capital, the Territory of Delhi. Bengali is the official language of West Bengal and certain parts of the North-east. Marathi is the official language of Maharashtra. Punjabi is the official language of Punjab, Haryana. Gujarati is the official language of Gujarat. Tamil is the official language of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Malayalam is the official language of Kerala and Lakshadweep. Kannada is the official language of Karnataka. Telugu is the official language of Andhra Pradesh. Oriya is the official language of Orissa. Assamese is the official language of Assam; it's spoken widely in many of the seven northeastern states. English is the co-official language of the Indian Union, and each of the several states mentioned above may also have another co-official language.
Indian languages have corresponding distinct alphabets. The two major families are those of the Dravidian languages and those of the Indo-Aryan languages, the former largely confined to the south and the latter to the north. Urdu and sometimes Kashmiri, Sindhi and Panjabi are written in modified versions of the Arabic script. Except for these languages, the alphabets of Indian languages are native to India. Most scholars consider these Indic scripts a distant offshoot of the Aramaic alphabetcitation needed, although there are differing opinions.
| unvoiced consonants | voiced consonants | nasals | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unaspirated | aspirated | unaspirated | aspirated | ||
| velar plosives | k | kh | g | gh | ṅ |
| palatal affricates | c | ch | j | jh | ñ |
| retroflex plosives | ṭ | ṭh | ḍ | ḍh | ṇ |
| dental plosives | t | th | d | dh | n |
| bilabial plosives | p | ph | b | bh | m |
| glides and approximants | y | r | l | v |
| fricatives | ś | ṣ | s | h |
Linguists generally distinguish the terms "language" and "dialects" on the basis of 'mutual comprehension'. The Indian census uses two specific classifications in its own unique way: (1)'language' and (2) 'mother tongue'. The 'mother tongues' are grouped within each 'language'. Many 'mother tongues' so defined would be considered a language rather than a dialect by linguistic standards. This is especially so for many 'mother tongues' with tens of millions of speakers that is officially grouped under the 'language' Hindi.
The Indian census of 1961 recognised 1,652 different languages in India (including languages not native to the subcontinent). The 1991 census recognizes 1,576 classified "mother tongues"21 SIL Ethnologue lists 415 living "Languages of India" (out of 6,912 worldwide).
According to the 1991 census, 22 'languages' had more than a million native speakers, 50 had more than 100,000 and 114 had more than 10,000 native speakers. The remaining accounted for a total of 566,000 native speakers (out of a total of 838 million Indians in 1991).22
According to the most recent census of 2001, 29 'languages' have more than a million native speakers, 60 have more than 100,000 and 122 have more than 10,000 native speakers.
The government of India has given 22 "languages of the 8th Schedule" the status of official language. The number of languages given this status has increased through the political process. Some languages with a large number of speakers still do not have this status, the largest of these being Bhili/Bhiladi with some 9.6 million native speakers (ranked 14th), followed by Santali with 6.5 million speakers (ranked 15th), Gondi with 2.7 million speakers(ranked 18th) and Khandesi with 2.1 million speakers (ranked 22nd). On the other hand, 2 languages with fewer than 2 million native speakers have recently been included in the 8th Schedule for mostly political reasons: Manipuri/Maithei with 1.5 million speakers (ranked 25th) and Bodo with 1.4 million speakers (ranked 26th). For cultural/historical reasons Sanskrit is on the official schedule, though only 14 thousand people claim it to be their language, but many more study it in school as the classical language of India.
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