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CONTENTS OF INTRODUCTION
1. Presentation
List of topics
2. Language identification
3.
Statistical and geographical data
4. Language corpus
5. Script
and spelling
6. Status
7. Literature
8. Schools
9. Oral channels
10. Language
usage
11. Reference framework
12. General remarks
References
1. Presentation
A descriptive sociology of language with the base line data: what language
varieties (name, linguistic and legal status), spoken by whom (numerical
strength and geographic distribution), are written in what manner (script
and spelling), disseminated in what form (pamphlets, periodicals, books,
etc.) and used for what purposes (education, religion, government, etc.) is
a prerequisite for understanding the overall societal picture of a language
in a multilingual and developing country like India. This volume on India,
the second in the series The Written Languages of the World, thus provides
baseline data on the written languages of India. A second volume on the
spoken but unwritten languages is also in progress outside the purview of
this joint project and is to be brought out independently by the Office of
the Registrar General, India.
The division of languages as written and unwritten is more methodological
than ideological, and perhaps underlines the fact that alphabetization plays
a crucial role in the development of linguistic infrastructures in society.
This does not rule out the possibility that certain languages that are
spoken and not written may, however, show a high degree of refinement in
their oral traditions and may prove more important than written languages in
certain contexts. Yet, the criterion, written languages, as opposed to
spoken ones, was not only the simplest dichotomy but the most productive of
concrete results. This operation naturally presupposes an inventory of all
living languages in India. The Linguistic Survey of India, conducted in the
early part of the 20th century (from 1886 to 1927) under the editorship of
Sir George Abraham Grierson, listed a total number of 179 languages and 544
dialects (Grierson, 1927). This list is of limited use in the present Indian
context mainly because several territories which were included under that
survey no longer form a part of the Indian Union, and others which do form a
part of the Union, did not receive adequate coverage under that survey.
After Independence, an attempt was made in the 1961 census to present the
mother tongue data in the same classification scheme as that of Grierson and
a list of 193 classified languages was prepared corresponding to 1,652
mother tongues actually returned (1961 Census Language Tables). This list
excluded unclassified and foreign mother tongues. The languages were
identified as belonging to four families: Austric- 20, Dravidian - 20,
Indo-European - 54, Tibeto-Chinese - 97 and I of doubtful affiliation.
However, the language list of the 1971 census which provides the frame of
reference for the present study, was found to be more suitable, for it was
the latest as far as language statistics was concerned but more importantly
it defined"language" in terms of broad demo- and geolinguistic units. The
census consists of a list of 105 languages each with a speaker strength of
10,000 and above on the all India level.
Excluding foreign languages and a few others of doubtful linguistic status,
a total number of 96 languages were surveyed, of which 50 were found to be
written and the rest unwritten. This division was based on the following
considerations. The first and most obvious one being the existence of some
sort of script or scripts which appeared in print. It is well known that
writing in a large number of Indian languages was practised from a very
early date and the advent of the printing press in the early 1 9th century
helped in standardizing the existing scripts. It simultaneously provided an
impetus for devising scripts for a number of yet unwritten languages. Thus,
by the end of the 19th century most Indian languages could boast of some
writing or other, albeit not always used by the society as a whole. These
writings fall into two types: I) writings by scholars of various sorts, like
linguists, anthropologists, etc., which strictly speaking are not addressed
to the speakers of the languages themselves and 2) writings by non-native
speakers, such as missionaries, rather than members of the speech community.
We found that existence of both these types of writings did not prove
sufficient to call a language written. Mere transcribed texts in some
scholarly journal or book, of the kind, "Useful Words and Sentences in
Dafla" by I.M. Simon published in 1900, is not enough. In the second
category too, written and printed matter (mainly biblical translations into
native languages) appeared fairly early, as in Malto (1881), Korku (1900),
Kinnauri (1909), Kuvi (1916), Vaiphei (1917), Shina (1929), etc. and
although this literature certainly was addressed to the speakers of the
languages themselves, its advantage to this language community was minimal,
as it is quite doubtful if anything further came out in these languages
after this erstwhile beginning. Without native participation the language
lapsed back to an unwritten state. On the other hand, although a similar
kind of beginning was also made in the case of the Santali language, native
participation enhanced the process, not only in devising a new script, but
by developing it further through various literary activities. There is
little doubt now concerning the established written status of the Santali
language.
A second consideration that was found useful was whether primary education
was or was not offered in a language. Language in education is an obvious
corollary to language expansion. In fact, formal education works as a
catalytic agent in the overall development of a language, that is, in its
elaboration and modernization process. Most importantly, it encourages the
production of popular, refined and learned prose in the form of text books,
which contributes to the reshaping of a language by transfering it from a
preliterate stage to a more advanced stage. Reshaping according to Kloss,
(Kloss, 1978) is done mainly through the realm of information and not of
imagination. Text books, even at a modest level contribute to this realm. It
will be seen that even such small tribal languages like Ho, Bodo/Boro,
Kharia, Kabui, Bhili/Bhilodi, etc. are well on their way to producing
non-narrative (dialectic) prose, which has been taken as a positive
indicator in favour of their written status.
Data on all the 96 languages has been uniformly gathered mainly by means of
a questionnaire (the format of which is included in the section on language
reports in this volume) and secondarily by consulting knowledgeable and
official agencies on any single aspect. For example, the data on school
education was collected through the survey questionnaire and secondarily
from two other published sources: I) the National Council for Educational
Research and Training and 2) the Commission for Linguistic Minorities.
Comparative data from all three sources appear in this volume. This
procedure was unavoidable in certain cases, as no single data source was
found fully satisfactory. For the survey fieldwork based on the
questionnaire, languages were alloted to territories on the basis of the
numerical strength of the mother tongue speakers. In the case of scheduled
languages the strength required was 100,000 speakers and above and in the
case of non-scheduled languages 5,000 or above. Thus, in a state like Andhra
Pradesh a total of 14 languages falling within both these limits were
surveyed, namely: Telugu, Urdu, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Oriya and
Gadaba, Jatapu, Konda, Koya, Savara, Gondi and Kolami. On the other hand,
Konkani was surveyed in 5 States or territories i.e. Kerala, Maharashtra,
Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Goa, Daman & Diu, where it satisfied the above
criteria. We have made one exception in the case of Urdu in Jammu and
Kashmir, where although it does not fulfill the population criterion of
100,000 mother tongue speakers, it is the official language of the State,
and hence has been included in the survey.
The questionnaire is designed to draw up sociolinguistic profiles for
individual languages. A primary task of such a design is to juxtapose the
number of speakers with the degree of language elaboration or
implementation. The key variables which have gone into this profile formula
are listed below and are known as the Union List of Topics.
List of Topics
1. Language Identification (QueStions: Q.l*)
2. Statistical & Geographical data (Q.2)
3. Language Corpus (Q.3)
4.
Script & Spelling (Q.4)
5. Status (Q.5)
6. Language
Elaboration (Q.6, 7, 8, 9)
7.
Language in Education (Q.10)
8. Language in Mass Media (Q.11)
9. Language in Administration (Q.12, 13, 14)
10. Language in Courts of Justice (Q.15)
11. Language in Legislature (Q.16)
12. Language in Industries (Q.17, 18)
13. Reference Framework & Promoting Agencies (Q.l9)
14. Summary (Historical and Sociolinguistic Background) (Q.20)
*Q = Question
2. Language Identification
In a geographically vast multilingual country of over six hundred million
speakers like India, language identification is not a simple matter,
particularly in the absence of a definitive inventory of names recognised by
linguists to be languages in their own right, i.e. possessing linguistically
autonomous systems. The main source therefore that is adopted for our
purpose here is the Census of India - a nation-wide operation conducted
every ten years with a history of over one hundred years to its credit. The
census returns in terms of "mother tongues" are usually presented as a
scheme of "languagesn, the spirit of which basically comes from the
Linguistic Survey of India. The editor of the survey, Sir G.A. Grierson, was
himself associated with the language aspects of the Indian census during the
first decades of this century. In more recent times, the 1961 census data
was totally cast in Grierson's language scheme. The 1971 census which
provides the language format for this survey, also presented mother tongue
data in terms of languages but diverged from the Grierson scheme. In all
cases, the principal language names of our survey are taken from the 1971
census (Social & Cultural Tables, 1971).
3. Statistical and Geographical Data
These topics provide data on the numerical strength of a language and its
geographic distribution. Numerical strength is a combined figure of: I)
native speakers of the language and 2) second language speakers (Q.2.2).
Up-to-date data on languages spoken by fewer than 10,000 speakers on the all
India level are not available in print. Individual languages on the basis of
their numerical strength are shown under population ranges like 10- 20,000,
20 - 50,000, 50 - 100,000, 100,000 - 1 million, 1 - 5 million, 10 million
and above. The groupings sometimes characteristically reflect their
linguistic affiliation and status. For example, all languages specified in
Schedule VIII to the Indian Constitution other than Kashmiri, Sindhi and
Sanskrit have a numerical strength of 10 million and above. On the basis of
their native speaker strength alone (Q.2.21), these fifteen constitutional
languages make up an overwhelming 95.37% of the Indian population. On the
other hand, to the lower order speaker blocks between 10 - 100,000, belong
most of the languages of the Tibeto-Burmese sub-family. To the middle order
blocks of 1 - 5 million belong the rest of the languages including Kashmiri
and Sindhi. This gross numerical strength is qualified by the presence or
absence of monolinguality and bilinguality. The question on bilinguality can
be viewed in two ways; I) bilinguals who are part of mother tongue strength
and 2) second language speakers who are added to the strength of a mother
tongue. The above can result in either a stable or replacive bilingualism.
In the Indian context, English sets the highest limit of the second kind,
i.e. 99.24% of English speakers are second language speakers. For other
Indian languages second language strength is marginal. Only fGur languages
viz. Assamese (17.1%), Kannada (17.55%), Tamil (10.39%), and Tulu (19.03%)
could claim a 10% and above addition to their total speaker strength by
second language speakers. For a large number of languages the increase is
almost nil. Therefore, Indian languages in general account for their
strength mainly through native speaker strength. The other dimension of
bilingualism (see I above) can be measured in a three point scale of
high-medium- low.
Table 1
High, Medium and Low Bilingualism by Mother Tongue Groups
HIGH MEDIUM LOW
(30 - 50% and
above) (10 - 30%) (10% & below)
Bishnupuriya (52.38) Assamese (13.20) Angami (negligible)
Bodo/Boro (54.62) Bengali (12.01) Ao (negligible)
Dimasa (31.00) Dogri (21.88) Bhili/Bhilodi (5.21)
Gondi (41.93) Garo (13.26) Bhotia (negligible)
Kharia (51.72) Gorkhail/Nepali (28.69) Hindi (6.41)
Konkani (57.49) Gujarati (13.05) Hmar (negligible)
Kurukh/Oraon (46.69) Ho (22.27) Kabui (negligible)
Lepcha (52.25) Kannada (17.11) Khasi (9.35)
Mikir (30.07) Kashmiri (16.00) Kheza (negligible)
Mundari (36.33) Lushai/Mizo (11.62) Konyak (negligible)
Santali (31.72) Malayalam (18.67) Ladakhi (negligible)
Sindhi (42.95) Manipuri/Meithei Lotha (negligible)
(19.03)
Tangkhul (43.46) Marathi (14.66) Nicobarese (negligible)
Thado (40.01) Punjabi (20.97) Oriya (8.46)
Tripuri (30.48) Tamil (13.85) Phom (negligible)
Tulu (45.09) Telugu (17.00) Sangtam (negligible)
Urdu (27.92) Sema (negligible)
This scale has no rationale behind it except for the fact that most of the
scheduled languages show a rate of bilingualism between 10 - 30%. Although,
second language-preference data (Q.2.215) are given, it is hazardous to
conclude if the said bilingualism is stable or replacive. However, there is
compelling evidence regarding the Indian linguistic situation that it is
maintenance-prone, and that bilingualism is likely to be stable rather than
replacive (Pandit, 1971). The ethnicity data (Q.2.1), which is available for
comparison with mother tongue data in a limited number of cases only
(scheduled tribes), might serve as an exception to the case in point. For
example, only 15.12% of the people belonging to the Mundari tribe, and
14.92% of the Ho tribe in Orissa claim Mundari and Ho respectively to be
their languages. The rest of the 17,813 Mundari population and 31,916 of the
Ho have switched over to other languages. Questions 2.213 and 2.214 add
another dimension to bilingualism, i.e. whether the phenomenon is largely
male-based and more connected with the economic activities of the community
rather than the home, thereby playing a major role in the language
socialization of the child. Female bilingualism has a significant bearing on
the linguistic environment of the society. In a large number of groups,
particularly tribes like Gondi (47.25), Kurukh/Oraon (48.23), Mundari
(44.06), Santali (40.54), Kharia (52.94), etc. female bilingualism is
appreciable. It is also on the high side among some groups like Konkani
(45.76), Sindhi (43.04), Tulu (43.63), etc.
The other dimension in addition to numerical strength, is location,
(Q.2.216), which is divided into rural/urban. Locality as a demolinguistic
dimension, particularly urbanisation is yet to be appreciated fully. Urban
centres serve a very important role in language standardization, as they act
not only as melting pots but also as prestige centres or trend-setters.
These centres also turn out to be important for mass communication, like
media, broadcasting, etc. At least two major cities like Calcutta and Delhi
have played singular roles in the processes of standardization of Bengali
and Hindi respectively. Generally speaking, most Indian languages are
totally rural. Barring Sindhi (74.42), Urdu (44.84) and Konkani (43.54), in
all other cases the percentage of urban speakers is 30% or below. Even the
scheduled languages do not show a uniform percentage of urban population and
vary between 5 to 30%. There are only a few non-scheduled languages like
Angami (7.72), Ao (11.39), Bhotia (8.22), Dogri (4.48), Gorkhali/Nepali
(18.83), Kabui (9.70), Khasi ( 12.15), Ladakhi (9.69), Lushai/Mizo ( 14.87),
Manipuri/Meithei (16.10) and Tulu(20.91), which come within this range.
The geographical distribution of languages (Q.2.4) is primarily based on
figures within India only, although many Indian languages are spoken across
the borders in neighbouring countries and beyond. It has been possible in a
limited way to get data on Indian languages spoken outside the country.
Their distribution within India is shown in terms of States and Union
Territories as demarcated by the Government of India. Taken from the
linguistic composition of each territory, a particular language may be
overwhelmingly concentrated in a State or States, and other languages spoken
therein constitute minority languages. For example, Orissa State has 84.15%
Oriya language speakers, the rest are other language speakers of which 6.91%
belong to other scheduled languages and 8.94% to non-scheduled languages.
This linguistic distribution has not only been decisive in carving out
linguistic states but also in identifying particular languages as
predominant, official, state languages. Thus, Orissa State is a distinct
geo-political unit of the Indian Union and Oriya is the official language of
that state. However, the linguistic composition of states clearly shows that
no state is totally unilingual, and this therefore gives rise to linguistic
minorities. Although both scheduled and non-scheduled languages as minority
languages, stand on a par with each other, their traditions and experiences
are not the same. Also their patterns of distribution are of two types:
1. A minority scheduled language in one state may be the language of the
majority in another state (or states). For example, Hindi in Orissa
vis-a-vis Hindi in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana etc.
2. A minority non-scheduled language is nowhere the language of a majority.
For example, Santali in Orissa, Bihar and West Bengal, etc.
Thus geographical distribution of languages has been not only decisive in
demarcating linguistic states but also deciding upon the language policies
to be adopted within the states.
4. Language Corpus
This section provides only the basic linguistic facts concerning the
language corpus and is therefore indicative rather than exhaustive. The
items included are family affiliation (Q.3.1.), immediate cognate languages
(Q.2.3.) major named regional variants (Q.3.3.) and grammatical features
(Q.3.2.). All the information is based upon existing published works of a
fairly established and complete nature. In a few cases regarding grammatical
information, we have used materials from unpublished sources based upon
their intrinsic merit. These data complement and complete the
sociolinguistic data in an important way without pretending to be of focal
interest to the survey.
The languages spoken in India belong to four distinct language families or
their sub-families: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burmese,
barring a few languages like Andamanese, Onge etc. which are yet to be
identified. None of these unidentified languages appear in the list of
written languages. The classification scheme adopted for the Indo-European
family of languages is that of G.A. Grierson (Grierson, 1927). This is the
single largest family of languages comprising 73.93% of the Indian
population. A total number of 15 languages of our list belong to this family
or more particularly to its sub-family, Indo-Aryan i.e. Assamese, Bengali,
Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sindhi, Urdu, Konkani,
Bishnupuriya, Bhili/Bhilodi,Gorkhali/Nepali and Dogri. The second largest is
the Dravidian family spoken by 23.95% of the total population. The
classification scheme adopted for Dravidian is from Bh. Krishnamurty
(Krishnamurty, 1969): a total number of 7 languages of our list belong to
this family i.e. Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Kurukh/Oraon, Gondi and
Tulu. Austric is the third most populous family of languages spoken by 1.27%
of India population. A total number of 6 languages in our list belong to
this family or more specifically to its sub-family Austroasiatic.
Austroasiatic in India is mainly divided into Munda and non-Munda languages.
Of the 6 languages in our list Khasi and Nicobarese belong to the non-Munda
group and the rest to the Munda group. For the purpose of classification of
the Munda languages, the scheme adopted is from N.H. Zide (Zide, 1969), viz.
Khasi, Nicobarese, Kharia, Santali, Mundari and Ho. The other language
sub-family is the Tibeto-Burmese branch to which 22 languages belong
following Grierson's scheme (Grierson, 1927). The speakers comprise 0.79% of
the total population i.e. Tripuri, Ladakhi, Bodo/Boro, Bhotia,
Manipuri/Meithei, Kabui, Konyak, Tangkhul, Mikir, Sema, Khezha, Sangtam,
Phom, Angami, Ao, Lotha, Thado, Hmar, Garo, Lushai/Mizo, Dimasa, Lepcha. In
determining the immediate cognate languages (Q.2.3.), the above mentioned
classifications are also followed.
The grammatical features for all the languages (Q.3.2.) are compiled from
descriptions which are both the latest and linguistically succinct in their
treatment. In a few cases we have fallen upon works of less substance, but
these were the most readily available.
The presentation of regional variants of a language (Q.3.3.), which
preferably could have been given in terms of "dialects", presupposes a
matrix of its own and even puts the whole list of written languages to a
very different sort of test. Earlier linguistic surveys have done so and
have succeeded in producing a list of languages and their variants which are
strictly speaking "dialects". This operation has never been fool-proof i.e.
by using a single set of criteria, preferably linguistic. It became a mixed
bag of many criteria ranging from linguistic, to sociological, to juridical.
Without disowning these attempts, we merely accept the fact that languages
and dialects are demarcated in a number of ways, which Heinz Kloss
conceptualizes as Abstand and Ausbau corresponding to what he calls
"language by distance"-a linguistic one, and "language by development" - a
sociological one (Kloss, 1972). This does not mean that specific area
surveys, particularly "dialect surveys" were not carried out in specific
language areas in recent times in India. Many of these surveys are quite
rigorous and the results are dependable. The main obstacle in our not
incorporating the findings of some of these "dialect surveys" is that these
have not been carried out for all languages included in this survey. It is
often the case in the field of dialectology that more mis-information seems
to exist than facts. The present volume lists the names of "language
variants" which may or may not have strict dialect reference, but their
mother tongue status is unquestionable and they appear under languages in
the census with a bond of relationship which is more functional than
linguistic. However, their relevance is not to be denied in drawing up the
sociolinguistic portrait of the language in question under which these
"variants" are patently active.
5. Script and Spelling
Against this background data the information on literature, a primary index
of language unfolding, is of focal importance. These have been divided into
five subcategories:
a. Script and Spelling (Q.4)
b. Background of Literature (Q.6)
c. Religious and Ideological Writings (Q.7)
d. Categories of Literature (Q.8)
e. Periodicals (Q.9)
The number of scripts in the case of written Indian languages are many; some
belonging to distinct origins and others to a common original source. There
are three main kinds; I) derivatives of Brahmi, 2) Arabic and 3) Roman. The
Brahmi script which is syllabic, is considered indigenously Indic and gave
birth to a number of distinct but related scripts both in and outside India,
whereas Arabic and Roman entered the sub-continent with the advent of the
Muslim and Christian religions respectively. Most major Indian languages
across families have either independently developed this Brahmi variety
(e.g. Tamil, Oriya, Punjabi, Gujarati, Manipuri, etc.) for writing their
languages, or used partially modified varieties to suit their particular
genres (e.g. Assamese-Bengali, Hindi-Marathi, Kannada-Telugu,
Tibetan-Ladakhi, etc.). Arabic has been adopted to write Urdu. A vast number
of smaller languages, emerging of late as written languages through the
efforts of the Christian missionaries are written in Roman script, which is
an alphabetic system. There may be a rare case of alphabetization, as in the
case of the Santali language, where a whole new script called Olchiki was
invented to write the language. The creator claimed that the shapes of the
letters were partly a revelation and partly determined by the flora and
fauna, personalities and other familiar objects of the Santal culture
(Mahapatra, 1987). One would not be too surprised if the Santali experiment
turns out to be a trend-setter in the process of alphabetization at least
for some, when the script is later made to play a much bigger role in the
socio-political and cultural identity of the group. For a number of language
groups in the Chotanagpur area, the question of script has become an issue.
Another trend-setter is the progressive "Nagarization", or the adoption of
the Devanagari script for some languages, which were not totally
preliterate. Languages like Konkani, Santali, Bodo/Boro, etc. continue to be
written in more than one script, due to their geographical distribution
across several states, where there is pressure to adopt the script of the
majority language. A large number still, are either totally unwritten or
have reached only an incipient stage of alphabetization. In some cases there
may exist a few specimens of transcribed texts but that is no proof of true
graphization. Incipient graphization is generally restricted; a) to
compilation of a dictionary or a grammar and b) to the preparation of
transcribed texts, of orally transmitted traditions like songs, legends,
tales, etc., for purely scholarly purposes. These may eventually lead to an
occasional publication of a manual or a primer and ultimately lead to
further literary achievements. Literacy campaigns are closely connected with
the process of graphization.
6. Status
The status (Q.5) of a language accrues from two main sources: linguistic
(Q.5.1.) and legal (Q.5.3.).
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The linguistic autonomy of a language is
established by its intrinsic distance or Abstand from all other systems or
by its development through oral and literary activities or Ausbau. India
being viewed as a comprehensive linguistic area, there exists many
linguistic zones of high intensity communication and contact. As a result,
intrinsic distance between languages may not prove definitive, as in the
case of Bengali/Assamese, Hindi/Punjabi, Marathi/Konkani, Tamil/Malayalam,
etc. Most major languages of India are established more as tools of advanced
societies and cultures, rather than by distinctive linguistic
characteristics. Many of these languages have independent histories going
back several centuries. The attitude of speakers reinforce the distinct
ethnolinguistic communities, which are built around this experience.
However, in a number of less established languages, where Ausbau has set in
with a fair to good indication of language elaboration, it is natural that
many languages face growing problems. In the beginning stage of
modernisation every language is deficient. It is in this context, that the
process of standardization has to be viewed as a part of over all language
planning. It is to be noted that various standardizing products such as:
text books, news sheets and other expository prose for a written norm, and
radio and television etc., for a spoken norm, are already present in all
language areas. It is only a question of time that the subdialects will give
way to the printed page and to normative broadcasts, i.e. to standardized
written and spoken norms.
The other dimension through which status accrues to a language is legal. The
Indian Constitution, which is the fountain-head of official language policy,
defines the primary, status-oriented, juridical role of the Indian
languages. The specific provisions contained in the Constitution of India on
the language question are to be found in part XVII, entitled, Off icial
Language. These provisions, articles 343 to 351, are organised in four
chapters: Chapter I, Language of the Union (Articles 343, 344); Chapter II,
Regional Languages (Articles 341-347); Chapter III, Language of the Supreme
Court, High Courts, etc. (Articles 348, 351), and Chapter IV, Special
Directives (Articles 350, 351). To articles 344(1) and 355 has been appended
the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. This classification is a two tiered
system prescribing Hindi in Devanagari script as the official language of
the Union of India, subject to the continuance of English for official
purposes for a limited period of fifteen years from the commencement of the
Constitution (Article 343). Secondly, article 345 allows the legislature of
a State to adopt any one or more languages in use in the State (or Hindi)
for use for all official purposes in place of English. In view of this
provision, most states have passed specific legislation declaring State
languages as official. However, it should be noted that, except for Bhotia,
Lepcha and Nepali in Sikkim; Lushai/Mizo in the districts of Aizwal and
Lunglei in Mizoram; Manipuri/Meithei in Manipur and Nepali in the three
sub-divisions of the district of Darjeeling in West Bengal, regional
official status is restricted to Schedule VIII languages. Sanskrit, Sindhi
and Kashmiri are the three exceptions. The following Table 2 gives the legal
status of the Indian Languages:
Table 2
The Legal Status of
Indian Languages
NAME OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL REGIONAL SUB-REGIONAL
LANGUAGE STATUS OFFICIAL OFFICIAL
LANGUAGE LANGUAGE
Assamese VIII Schedule Assam
Bengali VIII Schedule West Bengal Cachar district
Tripura of Assam
Gujarti VIII Schedule Gujarat
Hindi (Official
language of the
Union of India)
VIII Schedule Uttar Pradesh Some regions of
Karnataka
Bihar
Madhya Pradesh
Rajasthan
Haryana
Himachal Pradesh
Delhi
Chandigarh
Gujarat
Kannada VIII Schedule Karnataka
Kashmiri VIII Schedule ---
Malayalam VIII Schedule Kerala Mahe of Pondi-
cherry, some
regions of
Karnataka
Marathi VIII Schedule Maharashtra
Oriya VIII Schedule Orissa
Punjabi VIII Schedule Punjab
Sanskrit VIII Schedule ---
Sindhi VIII Schedule ---
Tamil VIII Schedule Tamilnadu, Some regions of
Pondicherry Karnataka
Telugu VIII Schedule Andra Pradesh Some regions of
Karnataka,
Yaman of
Pondicherry,
Ganjam and
Koraput dis-
tricts of Orissa
Urdu VIII Schedule Bihar, Jammu & Some regions of
Kashmir Karnataka
7. Literature
As we have said earlier, literature or achievements in the realm of written
tradition has an important bearing on building up the socio-cultural
strength of a language. This broad area includes five categories, but script
and spelling have already been discussed. These categories are:
a Background of Literature (Q.6)
b Religion and Ideological Writings (Q.7)
c Categories of Literature (Q.8)
d Newspapers (Q.9)
It is imperative that the bulk of any literature be produced mainly by the
native speakers of a language and that these be original writings and not
translations. In the survey the total publications in the language cover a
period of twenty years divided into three time blocks, namely: 1961-71,
1971-80 and 1981 The block-wise presentation of statistics adds depth to the
achievement of providing a comparative picture over time. If we take the
publication of biblical literature as a convenient point for the onset of
publication in the Indian languages, it would seem that first publications
go back to the early 18th century as in Tamil (1714) or Urdu (1747) A vast
number of languages could claim some printed materials by the middle of the
19th century. A number of other languages that also went through a similar
beginning, however, could not sustain this achievement and relapsed into a
non-literate stage, for example, Malto, Sora, etc. Nevertheless, publication
and biblical literature continued to remain related for a fairly long period
of time, particularly in the case of small languages. With the decline of
missionary activities in India and the spread of mother tongue education,
school text-books began to form the bulk of language publications. Our
survey covering this twenty year period shows that the scale of publication
(frequent, occasional, lacking) could be more profitably asked in a
four-point scale like (highly frequent-frequent-occasional-lacking), lest we
group for example, Assamese, Lushai/Mizo and Khasi as "frequent" in terms of
total publications, viz. publications in the case of Assamese (3,519),
Lushai/Mizo (913) and Khasi (1,886) We have no doubt that the achievements
in the case of Lushai/Mizo or Khasi is the result of a fairly sustained
movement, but although more frequent than Mikir (53) and Kurukh/Oraon (35)
these languages are less highly prolific than Hindi (37,034) or Bengali
(19,949). The 1981 statistics will show that the scheduled languages other
than perhaps Kashmiri add 100 - 1,500 titles a year to their total, while
there are other languages that may add few or more. Therefore, in a number
of cases like Lushai/Mizo, Hmar, Manipuri/Meithei, Konkani, etc., where
production efforts may be on a much more modest scale, they nevertheless
cannot be viewed as unimportant. Between the unwritten and the scheduled
languages, there falls a large number of languages where the frequency and
quantum of publication may not be uniform.
The process of language elaboration is a deliberate but slow process. Also,
achievements may not be manifested by literature alone. There are other
means like the printed media which keep the involvment of people alive to
the literacy tradition. For example, even small languages like Bishnupuriya,
Garo, Hmar, Khasi, Ladakhi, Lepcha, Lushai/Mizo, Nicobarese, Santali,
Tangkhul, Tripuri, Thado, etc. publish their own news sheets and magazines.
As Kloss (Kloss, 1978) has pointed out, it is not the absolute number of
such publications that matters. Three periodicals may mean a lot in the case
of a speech community numbering 10,000 persons, while six periodicals or
other publications would hardly be impressive in the case of a speech
community with more than five million speakers. The achievement should be
put into proportion to the relative size of the community. But by any
standards, the scheduled languages other than Sindhi and Kashmiri are highly
prolific in the matter of publication within the given time span of twenty
years. These languages can be divided into two groups: languages having more
than 10,000 publications, i.e. Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam,
Telugu, Gujarati and Kannada and languages having between 3,000 and 10,000
i.e. Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese and Urdu. Other languages having a range
between 100 and 2,000 publications are: Bodo/Boro, Dogri, Lushai/Mizo,
Khasi, Thado, Hmar, Ladakhi, Manipuri/Meithei, Garo, Gorkhali/Nepali,
Konkani, Tulu and Santali. The rest of the 50 languages have less than 100
publications. In the matter of periodicals like newspapers, news sheets and
magazines, although the scheduled languages may show a fewer number of
newspapers, magazines, etc. than other languages, sheer number is not the
only indication of their superiority, rather circulation and frequency also
count. We have not been able to give the circulation figures due to an
unevenness in the data returns. There are still some languages like
Bhili/Bhilodi, Bhotia, Gondi, Kheza, Konyak, Kurukh/Oraon, Lotha, Sangtam,
which have no periodicals to their credit.
The literary growth of a language and its use in an increasing number of
domains can evolve along three major directions: I) poetry and fiction, 2)
non-narrative (expository) prose and 3) oral channels such as speeches,
broadcasts, etc. It is also true that the demarcation line between fiction
and expository prose is not always clear, but it is the latter type of
literature which is said to have a greater impact upon newly literate
speakers. The dichotomy is between imaginative versus informative
literature. In written literature, prose stands more in need of language
standardization than poetry, expository prose more than fiction.
Standardization becomes urgent at the refined level and indispensable at the
learned level of non-narrative prose. Therefore, for purposes of the survey,
literature has been divided into two broad categories, narrative and
non-narrative.
The sub-categories of narrative literature are provided in two sections that
of Iyrics and fiction. The non-narrative prose which ranges from devotional
or ideological writings to school textbooks, has the sub-categories
(popular, refined and learned) corresponding to the three levels of
education (primary, secondary and university). Textbooks produced for these
three levels automatically contribute to the progressive standardization of
the language. It may be seen from the data, that in the case of most major
languages, it is the non-narrative literature that exceeds the narrative. As
a language grows, its interest no longer remains confined to narratives but
becomes more and more refined in the sense that information transfer of a
higher order becomes more imperative. In the case of smaller languages,
particularly the ones which are still struggling to acquire a written
tradition, achievements are limited to production of school textbooks. The
questions of language standardization and the overall development of
languages have remained unsatisfactory as they are, but can now perhaps be
measured fairly objectively according to the dimension of language
elaboration, i.e., the level of standardization a language has reached
through the development of its non-narrative prose, or for that matter all
its written and oral channels.
8. Schools
If a language could be gainfully employed in education it also stands to
lose when the language is not used in this domain. The domain of education
is dealt with under three basic headings; primary (Q.10.1), secondary
(Q.10.3) and university (Q.10.6). A second dimension is added to this data
by asking whether the employment is exclusive, i.e. as the only teaching
medium or inclusive, i.e. teaching medium along with another language.
Inclusive education propagates institutional bilingualism inherent to the
system and produces as a result group bilingualism. The data on schools in
terms of parameters provided in the questionnaire was not easy to collate as
education is primarily a state jurisdiction, so that statistics have to be
collected through numerous state agencies. Secondly, education is not wholly
run by governments and there are many non-governmental agencies who run
their own private schools. However, due to the complexity of the private
school dimension, it had to be excluded from the survey. In the case of many
smaller languages and minorities, data collected through the survey was not
exhaustive. However, to counterbalance this weakness we have given
information from two other sources, but the one that we value more from the
point of dependability, is the present survey source, collected through
various state Directorates of Education, on both primary and higher levels.
Only Punjab state is an exception and could not give us the necessary data
in time. Although quantitative data on the number of schools and number of
students enrolled in these schools, or the number of literates produced in
the language in a year are very relevant, it is no less important to know
first whether the domain of education is uniformly occupied by all languages
on all levels.
The school level may be further divided into languages which have reached
secondary level and others which are only at primary level and then into the
production of literature corresponding to these two levels. These can be
termed "popular non-narrative prose" and "refined non-narrative prose"
respectively, as opposed to "learned non-narrative prose", which corresponds
to the University level of education. Thus, the schools are not just centres
for education but also trigger off activities related to language
development. Without this text-level linkage, evaluating texts would be a
difficult proposition.
9. Oral Channels
Oral channels refer to three major media of language usage: 1) use on radio
(Q.l1.1), 2) use on television (Q.l1.2) and 3) use in movies (Q.11.3). It
may perhaps be conceded that the spoken word does not require the same
degree of unification and codification as the printed page. The script and
spelling which so often hampers the growth of language in writing, is
non-extant when spoken. A largely unwritten language may be standardized and
modernised to a very high degree chiefly through established oral media like
radio broadcasts, television or movies. Of course, oral deliveries may be at
different levels, starting from regional to reasonably sophisticated styles.
With reference to broadcasts four such levels have been identified: a)
folklore, poems, etc., b) reports, announcements, etc., c) lectures,
sermons, etc. and d) scholarly programmes (Kloss, 1978). It must be noted
that in India, radio and television are fully controlled by the Government
and a large share of movie production is also Government controlled. In
broadcasts, programmes are divided into three categories by the All India
Radio: I ) music, 2) spoken words and 3) news, and apparently there is no
order in the choice of the programmes corresponding to the developmental
stage reached by the language. Except Bishnupuriya, all other languages
appearing in our list of written languages, have some amount of radio
programmes in them.
Languages can be broadly divided into two groups, those which have regular
daily programmes, and those which have irregular programmes spread over a
week to a month. Languages which have occasional programmes are
Bhili/Bhilodi, Gondi, Ho, Kharia, Mundari, Kurukh/Oraon and Tulu. Among the
languages which have a regular daily programme, ranging from a few minutes
to almost round the clock, some are limited to a single station while others
are multi-station languages. The languages which are heard in single
stations only are: Angami, Bhotia, Bodo/Boro, Dimasa, Dogri, Garo, Hmar,
Kheza, Khasi, Kabui, Mikir, Konyak, Lotha, Manipuri/Meithei, Nicobarese,
Phom, Sangtam, Sema, Tangkhul, Tripuri and Thado. Multi-station languages of
which Hindi is the most important (44 stations) also have daily national
programmes, daily programmes on external services and are broadcast from
foreign stations. These programmes are enriched by many features
accompanying a generally sophisticated and demanding programme.
In 1981, the year of reference for this survey, television was just being
introduced in India. Therefore, the data on the use of language in T.V. does
not give a picture of the current position, which has grown multifold in
India since the year 1983.
A third and very important category of oral channel are the movies. Films
fall into two types: I) feature abd 2) short. Although feature films are
produced mainly by private agencies based on commercial considerations,
short films, including documentaries and other publicity oriented matters,
are produced mainly by the governments. As a result, short films are also
produced now in quite a few languages other than the scheduled ones. In
comparison to the position in 1961 when hardly a handful of languages like
Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi could truely claim exploitation in
this channel, the position in 1981 is remarkable from the point of view of
the number of languages involved and the quantum of production. Our 1981
data show that a number of non-schedule languages are still on the threshold
of production like Dogri, Garo, Gondi, Mikir, while others are well in
advance like Gorkhali/Nepali, Konkani, Manipuri/Meithei and Tulu. Similarly,
all the scheduled languages have uniformly succeeded in producing a large
number of films, particularly short films. Nevertheless, production of films
is an expensive proposition and needs commercial viability, which is still
beyond the reach of many small languages. Less expensive means of
circulation of oral literature are the production of records (Q.l1.4) and
tapes and cassettes (Q.l1.5). Again, both these media are exploited by
private agencies commercially or by the government for developmental or
welfare purposes. It is natural, that many of the smaller languages cannot
compete with the former and solely depend upon governmental efforts. This is
clear from the types of agencies which are mainly responsible for the
production of these materials.
10. Language Usage
The present survey introduced an important set of key domains to ascertain
the range and intensity of language usage or functions. These domains are:
Administration (Q.14) at the national, state and local levels; Judiciary
(Q.15) - at the national, state and local levels, and Legislature (Q.16) at
the national and state levels. Industries subdivided into manufacturing
(Q.17) and sales and services (Q.18) were also surveyed to provide a
function-based portrait of individual languages. Although the results are
compiled on a scale of frequent - occasional - lacking, the data is
generally normative rather than statistical. Needless to say in a macro
level survey such as this, data on language functions are likely to suffer
from some amount of tentativeness leading to over or under generalization,
until a number of these languages with reference to their functions in key
domains are further substantiated by micro level studies.
However, certain major trends of language usage are still discernible, i.e.
most languages other than the scheduled languages have very few functions
outside their immediate local environment and that too in informal milieu
and in oral communication. The industries, including sales and services, may
turn to Indian languages in a very restricted way, such as: in publicity or
labeling of products. The larger the industry the more restrictive is the
language choice. It is also probably true that industries like sales and
services and those which produce consumer goods as against capital goods,
are more open to utilize various languages, as they have a vested interest
in reaching out to the general public. Yet, their involvment with Indian
languages is still hesitant and is based more on trial and error than on a
committed policy. The general picture of language usage that emerges, mainly
points to a pyramidal structure, where a large number of languages operate
at the base or local level. On the higher level, i.e. through state to
national levels the competing languages turn out to be Hindi and English.
Only more intensive studies based on the format as developed for this
project can give a sharper picture of the character of the changing
linguistic situation in India. But what is important is that the present
survey has staked out a clear path for further investigation.
11. Reference Framework
This section (Q.l9) provides a selected bibliography of reference works,
such as: dictionaries, grammars and language teaching aids available in the
language, which usually serve as tools for language standardization. It also
gives a list of specialists and agencies, which can be consulted with regard
to efforts made in language planning activities.
12. General Remarks
This section (Q.20) gives an overview of the languages of the survey tracing
their history and growth through time. It also provides some initial
conclusions regarding the findings of the survey.
In conclusion, the project has a number of bearings on the language
situation of India. It provides a descriptive grid of language development
processes, which should act as a stimulus to language planning activities in
India ranging from Hindi to other scheduled and non-scheduled languages.
This will enable us to provide a measurement of language development in
terms of a "vitality rating" (McConnell, 1988; - McConnell-Gendron, 1988; -
Lieberson, 1981; - Mahapatra, 1986), which can be monitored over time to
observe the course of language development and then compared to such
variables as speaker strength. Considering the fact that literacy is one of
the major problems of India, the survey provides insights into the situation
in terms of what language is taught to how many, where and when for
maximising the benefits. To the social and cultural diversity of India, to
which languages contribute in no small way, this survey will provide a
systematic approach to understanding the sociolinguistic reality of the
country. This is another major step forward in designing nation-oriented
language profiles (Ferguson, 1966).
B.P. MAHAPATRA
Deputy Registrar
General (Languages)
Calcutta,
1988
[Image]
REFERENCES
CENSUS OF INDIA, 1961 - 1964: Vol. I, Part II-C(ii), Language Tables, Delhi.
CENSUS OF INDIA, 1971 - 1977: Part-II-C(ii) Social and Cultural Tables,
Delhi.
FERGUSON, Charles A., 1971: "National Sociolinguistic Profile Formulas" in
Sociolinguistics, Bright, William (Ed.), Mouton & Co.
GRIERSON, G.A., 1927: Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. I, Pt. I, Motilal
Banarasi Dass, Delhi, (Reprint, 1967).
KLOSS, H., 1978: Introduction to the Written Languages of the World, Vol. I.
The Americas, Kloss, H. and G.D. McConnell (Eds), Les Presses de
l'Université Laval, Québec.
KLOSS, H., 1972: Moderator's Statement in Indian Census Centenary Seminar,
Registrar General of India, New Delhi.
KRISHNAMURTI, Bhadriraju, 1969: "Comparative Dravidian Studies" in Current
Trends in Linguistics, Vol. 5, Sebeok, T.A. (Ed.) Mouton, The Hague, pp.
309-333.
LIEBERSON, S., 1981: "Language Shift in the United States: Some Demographic
Clues" in Language Diversity and Language Contact, Introduced by Anwar S.
Dil, Stanford University Press.
MAHAPATRA, B.P., 1986: "Language Maintenance and Shift in Bihar", Bhasha
Anurakshan ebam Visthapan, Central Institute of Hindi, Agra, pp. 89-101.
MAHAPATRA, B.P., 1987: "Tribal Language Pedagogy: A Case for Santali Guru",
Indian Linguistics, Vol. 47, No. 1-4.
McCONNELL, G.D., 1988: "A Model of Language Development and Vitality" -
Unpublished, paper presented at the International Conference on Language and
National Development: The Case of India, Hyderabad.
McCONNELL, G.D. & Jean-Denis GENDRON, 1988: Dimensions et mesure de la
vitalité linguistique, Volume 1, CIRB, #G-9, 170 p.
PANDIT, P.B., 1971: "Tamil-Saurashtri Bilingualism - a Case study",
Department of Linguistics, University of Delhi, Delhi (Mimeographed).
THE 16th REPORT, 1973-1974: The Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities in
India, Delhi.
ZIDE, Norman H., 1969: "Munda and Non-Munda Austro-Asiatic Languages" in
Current Trends in Linguistics, Vol. 5, Sebeok, T.A. (Ed.), Mouton, The
Hague, pp. 53-80.
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