Languages of India: Difference between revisions
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See also: [[language movement]], [[Pure Tamil movement]]. |
See also: [[language movement]], [[Pure Tamil movement]]. |
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==Classical languages of India== |
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In 2004, a new category was created by the [[Government of India]] under which languages that met certain requirements could be accorded the status of a 'classical' in India.<ref name="bbcclassical">{{cite web |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3667032.stm |publisher=BBC |title=India sets up classical languages |accessdate=2007-05-01 }}</ref> With the creation of this category, Tamil and a year later, Sanskrit have been accorded the status. More languages are being considered to be added to the list.<ref name="bbcclassical" /> While the experts consulted by the government refused to endorse Tamil's case<ref name="dmkpolitics1"> |
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';">{{cite web |
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| url = http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040928/asp/frontpage/story_3813391.asp |
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| title = Classic case of politics of language |
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| accessdate = 2007-04-20 |
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| publisher = [[The Telegraph]] |
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| quote = ''The government has declared Tamil a classical language despite the objections of experts it consulted and after a committee it had appointed refused to recommend it.'' |
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}} |
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</ref>, the Sahitya Akademi of India, a literary body, felt that political reasons are the underpinnings for the demand of classical tag<ref name="dmkpolitics2" > |
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';">{{cite web |
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| url = http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040928/asp/frontpage/story_3813391.asp |
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| title = Classic case of politics of language |
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| accessdate = 2007-04-20 |
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| publisher = [[The Telegraph]] |
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| quote = ''Members of the committee felt that the pressure was being brought on it because of the compulsions of the Congress and the UPA government to appease its ally, M. Karunanidhi's DMK.'' |
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}} |
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</ref> and recommended against awarding the tag to any language.<ref name="telegraph1"> |
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';">{{cite web |
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| url = http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040928/asp/frontpage/story_3813391.asp |
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| title = Classic case of politics of language |
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| accessdate = 2007-04-20 |
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| publisher = [[The Telegraph]] |
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| quote = ...The government has declared Tamil a classical language despite the objections of experts it consulted and after a committee it had appointed refused to recommend it....The Sahitya Akademi office bearers wrote a second time. In essence, they repeated that it was not the government?s business to declare a language classical. It is a classically foolish move, a source said.... |
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}} |
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</ref> |
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However, several members of the academia had voiced a case for classical status to Tamil, notably Professor [[George L. Hart]], who occupies the Chair in Tamil Studies at the [[University of California, Berkeley|University of California at Berkeley]] and a scholar in Sanskrit and Tamil.<ref name="hart1">';">{{cite web |
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| url = http://tamil.berkeley.edu/Tamil%20Chair/TamilClassicalLanguage/TamilClassicalLgeLtr.html |
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|author = George L. hart |
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|work=University of California, Berkeley |
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| title = Classical Tamil |
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| accessdate = 2007-05-14 |
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|quote =Let me state unequivocally that, by any criteria one may choose, Tamil is one of the great classical literatures and traditions of the world... It seems strange to me that I should have to write an essay such as this claiming that Tamil is a classical literature -- it is akin to claiming that India is a great country or Hinduism is one of the world's great religions. The status of Tamil as one of the great classical languages of the world is something that is patently obvious to anyone who knows the subject. To deny that Tamil is a classical language is to deny a vital and central part of the greatness and richness of Indian culture... |
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}}</ref><ref name="historyofdemand">';">{{cite web |
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| url = http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2122/stories/20041105004310600.htm |
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|work=The Hindu |
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|author=S.S. Vasan |
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| title = Recognising a classic |
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| accessdate = 2007-05-14 |
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|quote =...Parithimaal Kalaingar (1870-1903) was a Professor of Tamil in Madras Christian College, in what is now Chennai, from 1895 to 1903. He was the first to stake Tamil's claim for the status of classical language, at the academic level. A scholar in both Tamil and Sanskrit, he was so devoted to Tamil that he changed his Sanskrit name, (V.G.) Sooryanarayana Shastri, into Tamil...In 1918, the Saiva Siddhanta Samajam passed a resolution demanding that Madras University grant classical language status to Tamil. This was done at the initiative of Maraimalai Adigal (1876-1950), Professor of Tamil in Madras Christian College and a proponent of the Pure Tamil Movement, whose original name was Vedachalam...The 1970s again saw a champion of the cause in Manavai Mustafa, who was then Editor, UNESCO Courier (Tamil), but he did not have much organisational backing. Since 1975 he has been writing consistently in newspapers and magazines pressing the demand. Mustafa, who is now the Editor of Encyclopaedia Britannica-Tamil, told Frontline that he had the first opportunity to take the issue to a different plane when he addressed one of the sessions of the World Tamil Conference in Madurai in 1980...THE movement to classify Tamil a classical language gained momentum about 10 years ago when major political parties took up the issue. A few months before the 1996 general elections, the DMK adopted a resolution at its Tiruchi conference demanding that Tamil be made one of the official languages of the Union government... |
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}}</ref> According to him, the reason that Tamil was not declared classical language for so long was political. Ironically it is the politics of [[DMK]] that helped in correcting the historical prejudice.<ref>';">{{cite web |
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| url = http://www.hindu.com/2004/06/09/stories/2004060903251500.htm |
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| title = Historical prejudice |
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| accessdate = 2007-05-14 |
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|quote = And indeed it has taken all the arm-twisting charm of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to correct this historical prejudice, a prejudice that has deep roots in our history and psyche... |
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}}</ref> |
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== Writing systems == |
== Writing systems == |
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Revision as of 11:36, 5 June 2007
The languages of India primarily belong to two major linguistic families, Indo-European (whose branch Indo-Aryan is spoken by about 74% of the population) and Dravidian (spoken by about 24%). Other languages spoken in India come mainly from the Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman linguistic families, as well as a few language isolates.[1] The number of mother tongues in India is as high as 1,652[2], of which 24 languages are spoken by a million or more people. Three millennia of language contact situation have led to a lot of 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.[3] In 2004, the government elevated Tamil.[4][5][6] to the newly created official status of "Classical Language", followed by Sanskrit[7] in 2005.
Article 343 of the Indian Constitution recognises Hindi in Dēvanāgari script as the official language of the union government[8]; 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 language adopted by a state legislature as the official language of that state. In effect, there are "Official Languages at the state and center level but no one "national language". 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 18 [9]. 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 recognises 22 "regional languages", spoken throughout the country, namely Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Meitei, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. Hindi is the official language of the states Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttaranchal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. English is the co-official language of the Indian Union, and that each of the several states mentioned above may also have another co-official language.
Language families
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 Munda and Tibeto-Burman families (with some 9 and 6 million speakers, respectively). There is also a language isolate, the Nihali language.
History
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 Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, and Bengali emerged, but c. AD 1000 is commonly accepted.[10] Each language had different influences, with Hindi/Urdu and closely related languages being strongly influenced by Persian and Arabic. 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 Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam.
Language Conflicts
 | This article possibly contains original research. |
There are some significant conflicts over linguistic rights in India.
The first major linguistic conflict took place in Tamil Nadu against the implementation of Hindi as the official language of India, known as Anti-Hindi agitations. This movement brought DMK to power and lead to the ousting and nearly total elimination of the Congress party in Tamil Nadu.[1] Strong regional language pride is also found in other Indian states such as Bengal, Maharashtra, Karnataka.[citation needed] Fears of local languages being wiped out[citation needed] has forced Maharastra and Karnataka Governments to make the local languages compulsory in educational institutions [2].
The Government of India attempts to assuage these conflicts with various campaigns, coordinated by the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore, a branch of the Department of Higher Education, Language Bureau, Ministry of Human Resource Development. After several attempts to help them realize the real history of Tamil, the union government in 2004 elevated Tamil to a newly created official status of "classical language" together with Sanskrit.
See also: language movement, Pure Tamil movement.
Classical languages of India
In 2004, a new category was created by the Government of India under which languages that met certain requirements could be accorded the status of a 'classical' in India.[11] With the creation of this category, Tamil and a year later, Sanskrit have been accorded the status. More languages are being considered to be added to the list.[11] While the experts consulted by the government refused to endorse Tamil's case[12], the Sahitya Akademi of India, a literary body, felt that political reasons are the underpinnings for the demand of classical tag[13] and recommended against awarding the tag to any language.[14]
However, several members of the academia had voiced a case for classical status to Tamil, notably Professor George L. Hart, who occupies the Chair in Tamil Studies at the University of California at Berkeley and a scholar in Sanskrit and Tamil.[15][16] According to him, the reason that Tamil was not declared classical language for so long was political. Ironically it is the politics of DMK that helped in correcting the historical prejudice.[17]
Writing systems
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 alphabet, although there are differing opinions.
Romanization
| 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 |
List of Indian Languages
There are a large number of languages in India; 216 of them are spoken by a group of 10,000 persons or more.
Footnotes and References
- ^ see: Nihali language, Burushaski language, Andamanese languages
- ^ Mother Tongues of India According to the 1961 Census
- ^ Bhatia, Tej K and William C. Ritchie. (2006) Bilingualism in South Asia. In: Handbook of Bilingualism, pp. 780-807. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
- ^ Item 41 of President Kalam's address to a joint sitting of both houses of Indian Parliament
- ^ BBC news item on the formal approval by the Indian Cabinet
- ^ "Tamil as a classic language: Report to Central Government by Tamil Nadu Government", report submitted by Tamil Nadu State Government to Central Government of India to claim the Classic Language status.
- ^ News item that appeared in "The Hindu" on the Cabinet decision to declare Sanskrit as a classical language.
- ^ "Part XVII, Chapter 1. Article 343". Constitution of India. Government of India.
- ^ "Legislation: Legislation dealing with the use of languages". Constitution of India. Articles 29, 30, 120, 210, 343-351 as amended in the 21st and 71st Amendments.
- ^ Shapiro, M: Hindi.
- ^ a b "India sets up classical languages". BBC. Retrieved 2007-05-01.
- ^
';">"Classic case of politics of language". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
The government has declared Tamil a classical language despite the objections of experts it consulted and after a committee it had appointed refused to recommend it.
- ^
';">"Classic case of politics of language". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
Members of the committee felt that the pressure was being brought on it because of the compulsions of the Congress and the UPA government to appease its ally, M. Karunanidhi's DMK.
- ^
';">"Classic case of politics of language". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
...The government has declared Tamil a classical language despite the objections of experts it consulted and after a committee it had appointed refused to recommend it....The Sahitya Akademi office bearers wrote a second time. In essence, they repeated that it was not the government?s business to declare a language classical. It is a classically foolish move, a source said....
- ^ ';">George L. hart. "Classical Tamil". University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 2007-05-14.
Let me state unequivocally that, by any criteria one may choose, Tamil is one of the great classical literatures and traditions of the world... It seems strange to me that I should have to write an essay such as this claiming that Tamil is a classical literature -- it is akin to claiming that India is a great country or Hinduism is one of the world's great religions. The status of Tamil as one of the great classical languages of the world is something that is patently obvious to anyone who knows the subject. To deny that Tamil is a classical language is to deny a vital and central part of the greatness and richness of Indian culture...
- ^ ';">S.S. Vasan. "Recognising a classic". The Hindu. Retrieved 2007-05-14.
...Parithimaal Kalaingar (1870-1903) was a Professor of Tamil in Madras Christian College, in what is now Chennai, from 1895 to 1903. He was the first to stake Tamil's claim for the status of classical language, at the academic level. A scholar in both Tamil and Sanskrit, he was so devoted to Tamil that he changed his Sanskrit name, (V.G.) Sooryanarayana Shastri, into Tamil...In 1918, the Saiva Siddhanta Samajam passed a resolution demanding that Madras University grant classical language status to Tamil. This was done at the initiative of Maraimalai Adigal (1876-1950), Professor of Tamil in Madras Christian College and a proponent of the Pure Tamil Movement, whose original name was Vedachalam...The 1970s again saw a champion of the cause in Manavai Mustafa, who was then Editor, UNESCO Courier (Tamil), but he did not have much organisational backing. Since 1975 he has been writing consistently in newspapers and magazines pressing the demand. Mustafa, who is now the Editor of Encyclopaedia Britannica-Tamil, told Frontline that he had the first opportunity to take the issue to a different plane when he addressed one of the sessions of the World Tamil Conference in Madurai in 1980...THE movement to classify Tamil a classical language gained momentum about 10 years ago when major political parties took up the issue. A few months before the 1996 general elections, the DMK adopted a resolution at its Tiruchi conference demanding that Tamil be made one of the official languages of the Union government...
- ^ ';">"Historical prejudice". Retrieved 2007-05-14.
And indeed it has taken all the arm-twisting charm of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to correct this historical prejudice, a prejudice that has deep roots in our history and psyche...
See also
External links
- List of Languages of India
- Languages and Scripts of India
- Words and phrases in 26 Indian languages
- Titus - Languages of India
- Diversity of Languages in India
- KeyTrans Hindi intelligent transliteration email and spell check
- CommunityWhitePages.NET – Community White Pages is a database of all Indians across the globe categorized by Language, Community and Geographical location. The goal of this listing is to Connect All Indians.
