What are the official languages of India?
Languages with official status in India
Even though the English language is not included in the Eighth Schedule (as it is a foreign language), it is one of the official languages of the Union of India.
Of the 22 official languages, 15 are Indic, four are Dravidian, two are Tibeto-Burman, and one is Munda.
Himachal Pradesh
Hindi is the official language of Himachal Pradesh and is spoken by the majority of the population as a lingua franca. English is given the status of an additional official language. Most of the languages spoken natively belong to the group of the Himachali languages. According to the 2001 Census of India, the languages spoken in the state in descending order of native speakers are Hindi, spoken by 89.01% of the population (including Himachali languages as dialects of Hindi); followed by Punjabi (5.99%), Nepali (1.16%) and Kinnauri (1.06%).
Hindi Divas
Hindi Divas (; ) is an annual day celebrated on 14 September in India to celebrate the popularity of Hindi as an official language of India. Mostly this celebration is a government sponsored event in Central government, but many private organizations and voluntary groups also celebrate the day.
BHIM
BHIM app currently supports 13 languages (including English), though there are 22 official languages of India (excluding English) under 8th Schedule of Constitution of India. In near future BHIM App is expected to support all 22 official languages of India along with other regional languages which were spoken widely next to the scheduled languages.
List of official languages
Sanskrit:
Hindi
Part XVII of the Indian Constitution deals with the official language of the Indian Commonwealth. Under Article 343, the official languages of the Union has been prescribed, which includes Hindi in Devanagari script and English:
Languages of India
According to the most recent census of 2001, there are 1635 rationalised mother tongues, 234 identifiable mother tongues and 22 major languages. Of these, 29 languages have more than a million native speakers, 60 have more than 100,000 and 122 have more than 10,000 native speakers. There are a few languages like Kodava that do not have a script but have a group of native speakers in Coorg (Kodagu).The language-related data results of the 2011 Census have not yet been released by the Government of India.
Bihari culture
Despite of the large number of speakers of Bihari languages, they have not been constitutionally recognized in India, except Maithili which is recognised under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India. Hindi is the language used for educational and official matters in Bihar. These languages was legally absorbed under the subordinate label of Hindi in the 1961 Census. Such state and national politics are creating conditions for language endangerment.
The first success for spreading Hindi occurred in Bihar in 1881, when Hindi displaced Urdu as the sole official language of the province. In this struggle between competing Hindi and Urdu, the potential claims of the three large mother tongues in the region – Bhojpuri, Maithili and Magahi were ignored. After independence Hindi was again given the sole official status through the Bihar Official Language Act, 1950. Urdu became the second official language in the undivided State of Bihar on 16 August 1989. Bihar also produced several eminent Urdu writers including Sulaiman Nadvi, Manazir Ahsan Gilani, Abdul Qavi Desnavi, Paigham Afaqui, Jabir Husain, Sohail Azimabadi, Hussain Ul Haque, Dr. Shamim Hashimi, Wahab Ashrafi etc.
Demographics of India
See Languages of India and List of Indian languages by total speakers. There are 216 languages with more than 10,000 native speakers in India. The largest of these is Hindi with some 337 million, and the second largest is Bengali with 238 million. 22 languages are recognised as official languages. In India, there are 1,652 languages and dialects in total.
Languages of Singapore
Indian languages besides Tamil are managed slightly differently from the Chinese varieties. Even though only Tamil has official language status, there have been no attempts to discourage the use or spread of other Indian languages such as Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Telugu, and Urdu. For one, movies in these languages are shown in some local cinemas, such as Rex and Screens of Bombay Talkies. Furthermore, the local Indian TV channel Vasantham has also allocated specific programme timeslots to cater to the variety of Indian language speakers in Singapore.
South India
The largest linguistic group in South India is the Dravidian family of languages, a family of approximately 73 languages The major languages spoken include Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. Tulu is spoken by about 1.5 million people in coastal Kerala and Karnataka and Konkani, an Indo-Aryan language, is spoken by half a million people in the Konkan coast. English is also widely spoken in urban areas of South India. Urdu is spoken by around 12 million Muslims in southern India. Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Urdu and Konkani are listed amongst the 22 official languages of India as per the Official Languages Act (1963). Tamil was the first language to be granted classical language status by the Government of India in 2004. Other major languages declared classical were Kannada (in 2008), Telugu (in 2008) and Malayalam (in 2013)
Languages with official status in India
The Indian constitution draws a distinction between the language to be used in Parliamentary proceedings, and the language in which laws are to be made. Parliamentary business, according to the Constitution, may be conducted in either Hindi or English. The use of English in parliamentary proceedings was to be phased out at the end of fifteen years unless Parliament chose to extend its use, which Parliament did through the Official Languages Act, 1963. In addition, the constitution permits a person who is unable to express themselves in either Hindi or English to, with the permission of the Speaker of the relevant House, address the House in their mother tongue.
Prakash Vir Shastri
Shastri opposed the official designation of English as the national language of India. He instead preferred Hindi.
North India
The languages that have official status in one or more of the states and union territories located in North India are Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and English.
Hindi
It was envisioned that Hindi would become the sole working language of the Union Government by 1965 (per directives in Article 344 (2) and Article 351), with state governments being free to function in the language of their own choice. However, widespread resistance to the imposition of Hindi on non-native speakers, especially in South India (such as the those in Tamil Nadu) led to the passage of the Official Languages Act of 1963, which provided for the continued use of English indefinitely for all official purposes, although the constitutional directive for the Union Government to encourage the spread of Hindi was retained and has strongly influenced its policies.
Assamese language
Assamese is the official language of Assam, and one of the 23 official languages recognised by the Republic of India. The Assam Secretariat functions in Assamese.
Languages of India
Prior to Independence, in British India, English was the sole language used for administrative purposes as well as for higher education purposes.
Indian literature
Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22 officially recognized languages.
Official languages of Puducherry
During the early twentieth century, Tamil has got equal status along with the existing French language. After the merger with India, Telugu and Malayalam also obtained the same status although with some restrictions. Though the status of each languages varies with respect to each district, when communicating in between districts of different languages, generally English is used for convenience. The three official languages are:
P. Subbarayan
Subbarayan Gounder was a member of the First Official Language Commission constituted by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on 7 June 1955, under the chairmanship of B. G. Kher. The commission delivered its report on 31 July 1956. It recommended a number of steps to eventually replace English with Hindi as the sole official language of India. Subbarayan and another member – Suniti Kumar Chatterji from West Bengal – did not agree with its findings and added dissenting notes to the report. Later when the Indian President Rajendra Prasad sought his opinion on making Hindi as the sole official language, Subbarayan Gounder advised against it.
Multiculturalism
Religiously, Hindus form the majority, followed by Muslims. The statistics are: Hindu (80.5%), Muslim (13.4%), Christian (2.3%), Sikh (2.1%), Buddhist, Bahá'í, Jain, Jew and Parsi populations. Linguistically, the two main language families in India are Indo-Aryan (a branch of Indo-European) and Dravidian. In India's northeast, people speaking Sino-Tibetan group of languages such as Meitei (Meitei-lon) recognized by the Indian constitution and Austroasiatic languages are commonly found. India (officially) follows a three-language policy. Hindi (spoken in the form of Hindustani) is the official federal language, English has the federal status of associate/subsidiary official language and each state has its own state official language (in the Hindi "sprachraum", this reduces to bilingualism). Further, India does not have any national language. The Republic of India's state boundaries are largely drawn based on linguistic groups; this decision led to the preservation and continuation of local ethno-linguistic sub-cultures, except for the Hindi "sprachraum" which is itself divided into many states. Thus, most states differ from one another in language, culture, cuisine, clothing, literary style, architecture, music and festivities.
Hindi
On 14 September 1949, the Constituent Assembly of India adopted Hindi written in the Devanagari script as the official language of the Republic of India replacing Urdu's previous usage in British India. To this end, several stalwarts rallied and lobbied pan-India in favor of Hindi, most notably along with Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, Kaka Kalelkar, Maithili Sharan Gupt and Seth Govind Das who even debated in Parliament on this issue. As such, on the 50th birthday of Beohar Rajendra Simha on 14 September 1949, the efforts came to fruition following the adoption of Hindi as the official language. Now, it is celebrated as Hindi Day.
Telangana
Telugu, one of the classical language of India is the official language of Telangana and Urdu is the second official language of the state. About 77% of the population of Telangana speak Telugu, 12% speak Urdu, and 13% speak other languages. Before 1948, Urdu was the official language of Hyderabad State, and due to a lack of Telugu-language educational institutions, Urdu was the language of the educated elite of Telangana. After 1948, once Hyderabad State joined the new Republic of India, Telugu became the language of government, and as Telugu was introduced as the medium of instruction in schools and colleges, the use of Urdu among non Hyderabadi Muslims decreased. Both Telugu and Urdu are used in services across the state, such as the Telangana Legislature website, with Telugu and Urdu versions of the website available, as well as the Hyderabad Metro, wherein both languages are used on station names and signs along with English and Hindi. The Urdu spoken in Telangana is called Hyderabadi Urdu, which in itself is a dialect of the larger Dakhini Urdu dialects of South India. Although the language is orally spoken by most Hyderabadi Muslims, the language in a literary context has long been lost, and standard Urdu is used.
Languages of India
The Constitution of India does not give any language the status of national language.
Hindi in Bihar
Despite the large number of speakers of Bihari languages, these languages have not been constitutionally recognised in India. Hindi is the language used for educational and official matters in Bihar, with English occasionally used in education and government. These languages was legally absorbed under the subordinate label of HINDI in the 1961 Census. Such state and national politics are creating conditions for language endangerments.
Languages of India
According to the Census of India of 2001, India has 122 major languages and 1599 other languages. However, figures from other sources vary, primarily due to differences in definition of the terms "language" and "dialect". The 2001 Census recorded 30 languages which were spoken by more than a million native speakers and 122 which were spoken by more than 10,000 people. Two contact languages have played an important role in the history of India: Persian and English. Persian was the court language during the Mughal period in India. It reigned as an administrative language for several centuries until the era of British colonisation. English continues to be an important language in India. It is used in higher education and in some areas of the Indian government. Hindi, the most commonly spoken language in India today, serves as the "lingua franca" across much of North and Central India. However, there have been anti-Hindi agitations in South India, most notably in the state of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Maharashtra, West Bengal, Assam, Punjab and other non-Hindi regions have also started to voice concerns about Hindi.
Languages of India
As the date for changeover approached, however, there was much alarm in the non Hindi-speaking areas of India, especially in Kerala, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, West Bengal, Karnataka, Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh. Accordingly, Jawaharlal Nehru ensured the enactment of the , which provided that English "may" still be used with Hindi for official purposes, even after 1965. The wording of the text proved unfortunate in that while Nehru understood that "may" meant shall, politicians championing the cause of Hindi thought it implied exactly the opposite.
Ethnic groups in Kerala
Kannada is one of the major languages of India, spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka. The Kannada people number roughly 50 million, making it the fifteenth-most spoken language in the world. It is one of the official languages of India and the official and administrative language of the state of Karnataka. Kannada people constitute a significant portion of the population of the district of Kasargod in North Kerala. Kannada is also an administrative language in the district.
Anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu
The adoption of an official language for the Indian Republic was a hotly debated issue during the framing of the Indian Constitution after India's independence from the United Kingdom. After an exhaustive and divisive debate, Hindi was adopted as the official language of India with English continuing as an associate official language for a period of fifteen years, after which Hindi would become the sole official language. The new Constitution came into effect on 26 January 1950. Efforts by the Indian Government to make Hindi the sole official language after 1965 were not acceptable to many non-Hindi Indian states, who wanted the continued use of English. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), a descendant of Dravidar Kazhagam, led the opposition to Hindi. To allay their fears, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru enacted the Official Languages Act in 1963 to ensure the continuing use of English beyond 1965. The text of the Act did not satisfy the DMK and increased their skepticism that his assurances might not be honoured by future administrations.
Hindi Belt
The Hindi Belt or Hindi Desh, sometimes referred to as the Hindi-Urdu Region, is a linguistic region in north-central India where Hindi (and the various languages/dialects grouped under it) and Urdu are widely spoken. Hindi belt is sometimes also used to refer to nine Indian states whose official language is Hindi and have a Hindi-speaking majority, namely Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand , Uttar Pradesh and National Capital Territory of Delhi.
OCR in Indian languages
In India, there are 22 officially recognized languages. Among these Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi are most spoken languages in India and fourth, seventh and tenth most popular languages in the world. Two or more languages can be written with same script. For example, Devanagiri is used to write Hindi, Marathi, Rajasthani, Bhojpuri and many more. While Bengali Script is used to write Sanskrit, Manipuri etc.
Bible translations into the languages of India
Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 75% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 20% of Indians. Other languages belong to the Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai, and a few other minor language families and isolates. India has the world's second-highest number of languages (780), after Papua New Guinea (839).A Gujarati translation of the Bible had been issued by the Serampore Mission Press in 1820, and William Carey had contributed to it. James Skinner and William Fyvie of the London Missionary Society continued the work. These were all superseded by J. V. S. Taylor's 1861 "Old Version" which remains the standard version today.
Languages of India
In addition to states and union territories, India has autonomous administrative regions which may be permitted to select their own official language – a case in point being the Bodoland Territorial Council in Assam which has declared the Bodo language as official for the region, in addition to Assamese and English already in use. and Bengali in the Barak Valley, as its official languages.
Hindi language school
Modern Standard Hindi (मानक हिन्दी) is the native language of most people living in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan. Modern Standard Hindi is one of the official languages of India. Hindi schools promote Hindi by teaching children the importance of Hindi in both an economic and geographic perspective. Since 2008, there has been a demand for Hindi teachers particularly in New Jersey and Connecticut to fill teaching positions aimed at competitiveness. It is said that Hindi "... is the new Mandarin ..." in light of global competitiveness with China. The study found that Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, Persian and Hindi are all important languages in the new millennium.
Hindi
Linguistically, Hindi and Urdu are two registers of the same language and are mutually intelligible. Hindi is written in the Devanagari script and uses more Sanskrit words, whereas Urdu is written in the Perso-Arabic script and uses more Arabic and Persian words. Hindi is the most commonly used official language in India. Urdu is the and "lingua franca" of Pakistan and is one of 22 official languages of India.
Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India
The Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India lists the official languages of the Republic of India. At the time when the Constitution was enacted, inclusion in this list meant that the language was entitled to representation on the Official Languages Commission, and that the language would be one of the bases that would be drawn upon to enrich Hindi, the official language of the Union. The list has since, however, acquired further significance. The Government of India is now under an obligation to take measures for the development of these languages, such that "they grow rapidly in richness and become effective means of communicating modern knowledge". In addition, a candidate appearing in an examination conducted for public service is entitled to use any of these languages as the medium in which he or she answers the paper.
Languages of India
Hindi, written in Devanagari script, is the most prominent language spoken in the country. In the 2001 census, 422 million (422,048,642) people in India reported Hindi to be their native language. This figure not only included Hindi speakers of Hindustani, but also people who identify as native speakers of related languages who consider their speech to be a dialect of Hindi, the Hindi belt. Hindi (or Hindustani) is the native language of most people living in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan.
List of languages by number of native speakers in India
India is home to several hundred languages. Most Indians speak a language belonging to the families of the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European (c. 77%), the Dravidian (c. 20.61%), the Austroasiatic (Munda) (c. 1.2%), or the Sino-Tibetan (c. 0.8%), with some languages of the Himalayas still unclassified. The SIL Ethnologue lists 415 living languages for India.
Languages with official status in India
The constitution provides, and the Supreme Court of India has reiterated, that all proceedings in the Supreme Court (the country's highest court) and the High Courts shall be in English. Parliament has the power to alter this by law, but has not done so. However, in many high courts, there is, with consent from the president, allowance of the optional use of Hindi. Such proposals have been successful in the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar.
Biharis
Despite of the large number of speakers of Bihari languages, they have not been constitutionally recognized in India, except Maithili which is recognised under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India. Hindi is the language used for educational and official matters in Bihar. These languages was legally absorbed under the subordinate label of Hindi in the 1961 Census. Such state and national politics are creating conditions for language endangerment.
The first success for spreading Hindi occurred in Bihar in 1881, when Hindi displaced Urdu as the sole official language of the province. In this struggle between competing Hindi and Urdu, the potential claims of the three large mother tongues in the region – Bhojpuri, Maithili and Magahi were ignored. After independence Hindi was again given the sole official status through the Bihar Official Language Act, 1950. Urdu became the second official language in the undivided State of Bihar on 16 August 1989. Bihar also produced several eminent Urdu writers including Sulaiman Nadvi, Manazir Ahsan Gilani, Abdul Qavi Desnavi, Paigham Afaqui, Jabir Husain, Sohail Azimabadi, Hussain Ul Haque, Dr. Shamim Hashimi, Wahab Ashrafi etc.
Language education by region
In India multiple language are taught in primary schools continue to high school level as a part of curriculum. Selection of language based on the mother tongue of the area and choice. Apart from regional language like Sanskrit, the language taught is English. English speak spoken in India is known as Indian English at worldwide level because of pronunciation difference.
Hindi
Hindi is the "lingua franca" of the "Hindi belt", and to a lesser extent other parts of India (usually in a simplified or pidginized variety such as Bazaar Hindustani or Haflong Hindi). Outside India, several other languages are recognized officially as "Hindi" but do not refer to the Standard Hindi language described here and instead descend from other dialects of Hindustani, such as Awadhi and Bhojpuri. Such languages include "Fiji Hindi", which is official in Fiji, and Caribbean Hindustani, which is a recognized language in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Suriname. Apart from specialized vocabulary, spoken Hindi is mutually intelligible with Urdu, another recognized register of Hindustani.
People's Linguistic Survey of India
The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India recognizes 22 scheduled languages, excluding English, and the linguistic policies and funding of the Indian government are organised around this information. However, this information does not adequately convey the linguistic diversity of India. The 1961 Census of India had recorded 1652 languages being in use in India. However, it was decided to exclude languages spoken by less than 10,000 people in the 1971 Census, which brought down the figure to 108 languages. PLSI has followed the policy of including all languages in the survey, irrespective of the number of users. For example, it records a language called Chaimal in Tripura, which is spoken by only five people.
Languages of India
Ethnolinguistically, the languages of South Asia, echoing the complex history and geography of the region, form a complex patchwork of language families, language phyla and isolates. Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians. The languages of India belong to several language families, the most important of which are :
Hindi
Hindi (Devanagari: हिन्दी, "Hindī"), or Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: मानक हिन्दी, "Mānak Hindī") is a standardised and Sanskritised register of the Hindustani language. Hindi, written in the Devanagari script, is one of the official languages of India, along with the English language. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India. However, it is not the national language of India because no language was given such a status in the Indian constitution.
Hindustani language
Standard Hindi, one of the official languages of India, is based on the Kharibol dialect of the Delhi region and differs from Urdu in that it is usually written in the indigenous Devanagari of India and exhibits less Persian and Arabic influence than Urdu. It has a literature of 500 years, with prose, poetry, religion and philosophy, under the Bahmani Kings and onwards. It is prevalent all over the Deccan Plateau.
Note that the term "Hindustani" has generally fallen out of common usage in modern India, except to refer to "Indian" as a nationality and a style of Indian classical music prevalent in northern India. The term used to refer to it is "Hindi" or "Urdu", depending on the religion of the speaker, and regardless of the mix of Persian or Sanskrit words used by the speaker. One could conceive of a wide spectrum of dialects and registers, with the highly Persianised Urdu at one end of the spectrum and a heavily Sanskrit-based dialect, spoken in the region around Varanasi, at the other end. In common usage in India, the term "Hindi" includes all these dialects except those at the Urdu spectrum. Thus, the different meanings of the word "Hindi" include, among others:
Modern language
Most children learn an official version of their native language or learn a local major lingua franca (for example Mandarin, Hindustani) in Asia-Pacific countries, and all subjects are taught in that lingua franca language except for foreign language lessons. Singapore, in which English is taught as a first language, is an exception. In India, Hindi and English is used for official communication and are both compulsory language to learn in many schools. Some students however also study other Indian languages. English is the most-studied foreign language in the People's Republic of China, India, Pakistan, Japan, South Korea, Republic of China (Taiwan), Singapore and Hong Kong. In China, English is a required language starting in third grade, although the quality of instruction varies greatly. In Nepal, almost all subjects are taught in English, except for Nepali literature.
Urdu
Apart from specialized vocabulary, spoken Urdu is mutually intelligible with Standard Hindi, another recognized register of Hindustani. The Urdu variant of Hindustani received recognition and patronage under British rule when the British replaced the local official languages with English and Hindustani written in Nastaʿlīq script, as the official language in North and Northwestern India. Religious, social, and political factors pushed for a distinction between Urdu and Hindi in India, leading to the Hindi–Urdu controversy.
Urdu
Urdu (; ) (also known as Lashkari, locally written لشکری)—or, more precisely, Modern Standard Urdu—is a Persianised standard register of the Hindustani language. It is the official and "lingua franca" of Pakistan. In India, it is one of the 22 official languages recognized in the Constitution of India, having official status in the six states of Jammu and Kashmir, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, as well as the national capital territory of Delhi. It is a registered regional language of Nepal.
Languages with official status in India
Since 2003, a government committee has been looking into the feasibility of treating all languages in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution as "Official Languages of the Union".
Languages with official status in India
In 2016, the Modi government announced plans to promote Hindi in government offices in Southern and Northeast India.
Anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu
The Republic of India has hundreds of languages. During the British Raj, English was the official language. When the Indian Independence Movement gained momentum in the early part of the 20th century, efforts were undertaken to make Hindustani as a common language to unite various linguistic groups against the British Government. As early as 1918, Mahatma Gandhi established the "Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha" (Institution for the Propagation of Hindi in South India). In 1925, the Indian National Congress switched to Hindustani from English for conducting its proceedings. Both Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were supporters of Hindustani and Congress wanted to propagate the learning of Hindustani in non-Hindi speaking Provinces of India. The idea of making Hindustani or Hindi the common language, was not acceptable to Periyar, who viewed it as an attempt to make Tamils subordinate to North Indians.
Sacred language
Hinduism is traditionally considered to have Sanskrit as its principal liturgical language. Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, Bhagavadgita, Puranas like Bhagavatam, the Upanishads, the Hindu epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata and various other liturgical texts such as the Sahasranama, Chamakam and Rudram.
Gauriganj, India
Hindi and Urdu are the official languages. Awadhi is also the widely spoken along with English.
Linguistic history of India
The establishment of British rule in the subcontinent saw the clear division of Hindi and Urdu registers. This period also saw the rise of modern Hindi literature starting with Bharatendu Harishchandra. This period also shows further Sanskritization of the Hindi language in literature. Hindi is right now the official language in nine states of India— Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh—and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Post-independence Hindi became the official language of the Central Government of India along with English. Urdu has been the national and official language of Pakistan as well as the lingua franca of the country.
Languages with official status in India
The table below lists the 22 languages set out in the Eighth Schedule as of May 2008, together with the regions where they are used.
Languages of India
"Modern Standard Hindi", a standardised language is one of the official languages of the Union of India. In addition, it is one of only two languages used for business in Parliament however the Rajya Sabha now allows all 22 official languages on the Eighth Schedule to be spoken.
Languages with official status in India
Communication between the union and states which use Hindi as their official language (classified by the Official Language Rules as "the states in Region A"), and with persons who live in those states, is generally in Hindi, except in certain cases. Communication with a second category of states "Region B", which do not use Hindi as their official language but have elected to communicate with the union in Hindi (currently Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Punjab) is usually in Hindi, whilst communications sent to an individual in those states may be in either Hindi or English. Communication with all other states "Region C", and with people living in them, is in English.
Sanskrit revival
Sanskrit revival is the accumulation of attempts at reviving the Sanskrit language that have been undertaken.This revival is happening not only in India bit also in western countries like Australia,Germany,UK,US and in many European countries.The revival of Sanskrit has also been a part political controversy in India ,as the language is deeply linked with Hinduism.Critics cites Hindu hardliners are promoting Sanskrit as a way of imposing Hindu superiority on the country’s religious and linguistic minorities.Sanskrit is one of the 22 official languages in India.It is also the second official language in Uttarakhand state in India.
C. Rajagopalachari
On 26 January 1950, the Government of India adopted Hindi as the official language of the country, but because of objections in non-Hindi-speaking areas, it introduced a provision tentatively making English the second official language on a par with Hindi for a stipulated fifteen-year period to facilitate a switch to Hindi in non-Hindi speaking states. From 26 January 1965 onwards, Hindi was to become the sole official language of the Indian Union and people in non-Hindi speaking regions were compelled to learn Hindi. This led to vehement opposition and just before Republic Day, severe anti-Hindi protests broke out in Madras State. Rajagopalachari had earlier been sharply critical of the recommendations made by the Official Languages Commission in 1957. On 28 January 1956, Rajagopalachari signed a resolution along with Annadurai and Periyar endorsing the continuation of English as the official language. At an All-India Language Conference held on 8 March 1958, he declared: "Hindi is as much foreign to non-Hindi speaking people as English [is] to the protagonists of Hindi". When the Anti-Hindi agitations broke out in 1965, Rajagopalachari completely reversed his 1938 support for the introduction of Hindi and took a strongly anti-Hindi stand in support of the protests, On 17 January 1965, he convened the Madras state Anti-Hindi conference in Tiruchirapalli. angrily declaring that Part XVII of the Constitution of India which declared that Hindi was the official language should "be heaved and thrown into the Arabian Sea."
Languages of India
Article 343 of the Indian constitution stated that the official language of the Union should become Hindi in Devanagari script instead of the extant English. But this was thought to be a violation of the constitution's guarantee of federalism. Later, a constitutional amendment, , allowed for the continuation of English in the Indian government indefinitely until legislation decides to change it. The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union were supposed to be the international form of Indian numerals, distinct from the numerals used in most English-speaking countries. Despite the misconceptions, Hindi is not the national language of India. The Constitution of India does not give any language the status of national language.
2012 Hyderabad Biodiversity Conference
There are 22 official and 398 living languages in India. Amidst this lingual diversity, Sanskrit holds the thread of oneness as many of these languages are derived from Sanskrit. The English translation is placed circling the lower rim.
Languages with official status in India
During the British Raj, English was used for purposes at the federal level. The Indian constitution adopted in 1950 envisaged that Hindi would be gradually phased in to replace English over a fifteen-year period, but gave Parliament the power to, by law, provide for the continued use of English even thereafter. Plans to make Hindi the sole official language of the Republic met with resistance in some parts of the country. Hindi continues to be used today, in combination with other (at the central level and in some states) State official languages at the state level.
List of lingua francas
Nepali is the lingua franca of the many ethnic, religious and cultural communities of Nepal, and is also spoken in Bhutan, parts of India and parts of Myanmar (Burma). It is one of 23 official languages of India incorporated in 8th annex of the Indian Constitution. It has official language status in the formerly independent state of Sikkim and in West Bengal's Darjeeling district. Similarly, it is spoken by the Nepalese living in the state of Assam and other Northeast Indian states. While Nepali is closely related to the Hindi–Urdu complex and is mutually intelligible to a degree, it has more Sanskritic derivations and fewer Persian or English loan words. Nepali is commonly written in the Devanagari script, as are Hindi, Sanskrit and Marathi.
Official language
According to an undated chart by the American pro-English-only organization known as U.S. English, 178 countries have an official language at the national level. Among those, English is the most common with 67 nations giving it official status. French is second with 29 countries, Arabic is third with 26 countries and Spanish is fourth with 19 countries, Portuguese is the official language of 9 countries and German is official in 6. Some countries—like Australia, United Kingdom and the United States—have no official language recognized as such at national level. On the other extreme, Bolivia officially recognizes 37 languages, the most by any country in the world. Second to Bolivia is India with 23 official languages. South Africa is the country with the most official languages, all at equal status to one another, in the world. As Bolivia gives primacy to Spanish and India gives primacy to Hindi.
Northeast India
According to 2011 Census of India, the largest cities in Northeast India are 
Northeast India constitutes a single linguistic region within the Indian national context, with about 220 languages in multiple language families (Indo-European, Trans-Himalayan/Sino-Tibetan, Kra–Dai, Austroasiatic, as well as some creole languages) that share a number of features that set them apart from most other areas of the Indian subcontinent (such as alveolar consonants rather than the more typical dental/retroflex distinction). Assamese, an Indo-Aryan language spoken mostly in the Brahmaputra Valley, developed as a "lingua franca" for many speech communities. Assamese-based pidgin/creoles have developed in Nagaland (Nagamese) and Arunachal (Nefamese), though their use has been on a decline in recent times. The Austro-Asiatic family is represented by the Khasi, Jaintia and War languages of Meghalaya. A small number of Tai–Kadai languages (Ahom, Tai Phake, Khamti, etc.) are also spoken. Trans-Himalayan/Sino-Tibetan is represented by a number of languages that differ significantly from each other, some of which are: Bodo, Rabha, Karbi, Mising, Tiwa, Deori, Biate etc. (Assam); Garo, Hajong, Biate (Meghalaya) Ao, Angami, Sema, Lotha, Konyak etc.(Nagaland); Mizo, Hmar, Chakma (Mizoram); Hrusso, Tanee, Nisi, Adi, Abor, Nocte, Apatani, Misimi etc. (Arunachal). Meitei is the official language in Manipur, the dominant language of the Imphal Valley; while "Naga" languages such as Poumai, Mao, Maram, Rongmei (Kabui) and Tangkul, and Kuki-Chin languages such as Thadou, Hmar, Simte and Paite predominate in individual hill areas of the state.
Indian Signing System
The Indian Signing System or Indian Sign System (ISS) is a convention for manually coded language used in India. It uses the words (signs) of Indian Sign Language with the word order and grammar of at least six official oral languages of India, including Hindi (Signed Hindi), Marathi (Signed Marathi), and Tamil (Signed Tamil).
Swarachakra
India is a multilingual country with 1,635 languages (including dialects and sub dialects) while Indian currency notes display 15 major languages. Although smartphone penetration is increasing in India, text input in Indic scripts has been a challenge for many years. According to the 2005 India Human Development Survey, the surveyed households reported that 72 per cent of men did not speak any English, 28 per cent spoke some English, and five per cent spoke fluent English. Among women, the corresponding percentages were 83, 17, and 3. While Indian languages are preferred in other means of communication in India (e.g. oral and written communication, radio, TV, newspapers and magazines), English is still the most preferred language for text input.
Languages of India
The Indian constitution, in 1950, declared Hindi in Devanagari script to be the official language of the union. Unless Parliament decided otherwise, the use of English for official purposes was to cease 15 years after the constitution came into effect, i.e. on 26 January 1965. The prospect of the changeover, however, led to much alarm in the non Hindi-speaking areas of India, especially in South India whose native tongues are not related to Hindi. As a result, Parliament enacted the Official Languages Act in 1963, which provided for the continued use of English for official purposes along with Hindi, even after 1965.
Rise of Dravidian parties to power in Tamil Nadu
The major driving force of the anti-Hindi agitation was not the questioning of protecting Tamil, but questions of the future of Tamils. Hindi as a suitable candidate for the official language of India after independence was first proposed by the Motilal Nehru Report of 1928. An Official Language Commission appointed under the terms of the Constitution in 1955 to review the situation supported Hindi as the sole official language, although members from Bengal and Madras dissented in favour of English. As of the 1961 census, there were 1652 languages. Hindi as an official language was opposed for two reasons: the first because the numbers of people with knowledge of English were fairly evenly spread, and also that imposition of Hindi would give a major advantage in terms of job and educational possibilities to those who had Hindi as their mother tongue. In effect a Tamil who would desire to pursue union civil service would have to learn three languages, Tamil, Hindi and English, which are members of three different language families and each is written in a different script. Therefore, a three-language formula proposed was seen as a great educational burden imposed on non-Hindi-speaking states. Nehru promised in 1959 that the interests of the non-Hindi speakers would be safeguarded, and so did Lal Bahadur Shastri later, but those promises didn't put the fears of non-Hindi speakers to rest.
Urdu movement
Independent India adopted Urdu as one of its 23 scheduled languages although its counterpart, Hindi, enjoys the status of official language. Urdu is also officially recognised by the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar and Delhi. Urdu is widely used by Indian Muslims across the country and there are a large number of Urdu-medium schools, colleges and universities, including madrassahs, the Jamia Millia Islamia and the Aligarh Muslim University. Urdu is also a part of popular culture, media and publications. Numerous Urdu language films have been produced, which include "Umrao Jaan", "Shatranj Ke Khiladi" and "Pakeezah".
Languages of India
The 2001 census identified the following native languages having more than one million speakers. Most of them are dialects/variants grouped under Hindi.
India has several languages in use; choosing any single language as an official language presents problems to all those whose "mother tongue" is different. However, all the boards of education across India recognise the need for training people to one common language. There are complaints that in North India, non-Hindi speakers have language trouble. Similarly, there are complaints that North Indians have to undergo difficulties on account of language when travelling to South India. It is common to hear of incidents that result due to friction between those who strongly believe in the chosen official language, and those who follow the thought that the chosen language(s) do not take into account everyone's preferences. Local official language commissions have been established and various steps are being taken in a direction to reduce tensions and friction.
Anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu
Hindi in Devanagari script would be the official language of the Indian Union. For fifteen years, English would also be used for all official purposes (Article 343). A language commission could be convened after five years to recommend ways to promote Hindi as the sole official language and to phase out the use of English (Article 344). Official communication between states and between states and the Union would be in the official language of the union (Article 345). English would be used for all legal purposes – in court proceedings, bills, laws, rules and other regulations (Article 348). The Union was duty bound to promote the spread and usage of Hindi (Article 351).
Language secessionism
The national language of Pakistan and official languages in many parts of India, the Khariboli dialect has become the chief language variety for use in Hindi and Urdu. Grammatically, Hindi and Urdu are the same but differ in their lexicons. Hindi tends to revitalize its Sanskrit words and purges words borrowed from Persian and Arabic while Urdu does the opposite. In essence, apart from their scripts, the lexicon is what distinguishes Urdu and Hindi. Also, there are other Indo-Aryan languages that are classed as Hindi but are not necessarily the same as Hindi and Urdu. Their dialects are close to the Khariboli dialect, which sets the grammatical standard over other Indo-Aryan languages both far and near. These languages will tend to diverge, especially through the influence and accents of surrounding native languages in the communities.
Tamil Nadu
Tamil (தமிழ்) is the sole official language of Tamil Nadu while English is declared an additional official language for communication purposes. When India adopted national standards. Tamil was the first language to be recognised as a classical language of India. As of 2001 census Tamil is spoken as the first language by nearly 90 percent of the state's population followed by Telugu (5.65%), Kannada (1.67%), Urdu (1.51%) and Malayalam (0.89%). Other Languages spoken are Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali etc. which are mostly spoken by people whose first language is not Tamil, or, Native Tamil speakers who have knowledge of these languages.
Languages of India
In British India, English was the sole language used for administrative purposes as well as for higher education purposes. When India became independent in 1947, the Indian legislators had the challenge of choosing a language for official communication as well as for communication between different linguistic regions across India. The choices available were:
Official language
The Constitution of India (part 17) designates the official language of the Government of India as English as well as Standard Hindi written in the Devanagari script.
Hindi–Urdu controversy
Hindi is a literary register of the Hindustani language, derived from the Khariboli dialect of the Hindi languages. A Persianized variant of Hindustani began to take shape during the Delhi Sultanate (1206–1526 AD) and Mughal Empire (1526–1858 AD) in South Asia. Urdu, along with English, became the first official language of British India in 1850. Urdu was being written, spoken and translated to and from English in all courts, schools, official documents, and government institutes. Although the need to have a language for Hindus developed in the 1850s, the irrevocable momentum of the Hindi language movement occurred around 1880. Urdu is a name derived from the Turkic word "ordu" (army) or "orda". When the Turco-Persian Mughals who invaded the Indian subcontinent made camps, the colloquial Persian spoken by the soldiers, known as the "language of the camp", or ""Zaban-i-Ordu"", became gradually more and more Indianised, as they themselves settled and married into the local communities, until the dialect they spoke was readily intelligible to the native Hindu population.
Languages of India
In 2004, the Government of India declared that languages that met certain requirements could be accorded the status of a "Classical Language in India".. Over the next few years, several languages were granted the Classical status, and demands have been made for other languages, including Marathi.
Demographics of India
41.03% of the Indians speak Hindi while the rest speak Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Maithili, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and a variety of other languages. There are a total of 122 languages and 234 mother tongues. The 22 languages are Languages specified in the Eighth Schedule of Indian Constitution and 100 non-specified languages.
Languages with official status in India
The position was thus that the Union government continues to use English in addition to Hindi for its official purposes as a "subsidiary official language," but is also required to prepare and execute a programme to progressively increase its use of Hindi. The exact extent to which, and the areas in which, the Union government uses Hindi and English, respectively, is determined by the provisions of the Constitution, the Official Languages Act, 1963, the Official Languages Rules, 1976, and statutory instruments made by the Department of Official Language under these laws.
S. Natarajan
When India became a republic with its own constitution in 1950, the constitution had given special status to the Hindi language, which was to gain official status after 15 years in 1965. This move was regarded with anxiety by students in Tamil Nadu. Speaking of making Hindi as an official language of India, Annadurai said "It is claimed that Hindi should be the common language because it is spoken by the majority. Why should we then claim the tiger as our national animal instead of the rat which is so much more numerous? Or the peacock as our national bird when the crow is ubiquitous?". In view of the continued threat to impose Hindi, the DMK held an open-air conference against Hindi imposition at Kodambakkam, Chennai in August 1960, which Annadurai presided over. He gave black flags to leading functionaries, to be shown to the President of India during his visit to the state. Sensing an uprising, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru assured in the Parliament that English would continue to be the official language of India, as long as non-Hindi speaking people desire. DMK gave up the plan of showing black flags and Annadurai appealed to the Union Government to bring about a constitutional amendment incorporating the assurance.
Kashmiri language
The Kashmiri language is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India, and is a part of the "eighth Schedule" in the constitution of the Jammu and Kashmir. Along with other regional languages mentioned in the "Sixth Schedule", as well as Hindi and Urdu, the Kashmiri language is to be developed in the state. Most Kashmiri speakers use Urdu or English as a second language. Since November 2008, the Kashmiri language has been made a compulsory subject in all government schools in the Valley up to secondary level.
Bilingual education
The official languages of the Union of India are Hindi and English, with 21 other regional languages holding co-official status, including: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.
People's Linguistic Survey of India
Of all the languages documented by PLSI, 480 are languages spoken by tribals and nomadic tribes, while about 80 are coastal languages. Arunachal Pradesh is the state with the highest number of languages, with as many as 66 languages spoken there, while West Bengal has the highest number of scripts, nine, and around 38 languages. The scripts that exist in Bengal are Ol Chicki (Santhal), Kol Ho, Barangh Kshiti, Lepcha, Sadri and Limbu besides Bengali, Urdu and Nepali. Languages with increasing numbers of speakers are Byari in Karnataka, Bhojpuri in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Khasi in Meghalaya, Mizo in Mizoram, Kumouni in Uttarakhand, Kutchhi in Gujarat and Mewati in Rajasthan. 400 million of the Indian population speak Hindi and it remains the most popular language of India, while the number of Indian people with English as their mother language has gone up from one hundred eighty-seven thousand in 1971 to 10 million in 2011.
Languages with official status in India
List of official languages of states of India
Indo-Canadians
Hindi, as India's most spoken language, is now the language primarily used by new Indian immigrants, especially ones with ties to Northern India and Central India. As an official language used by the Government of India and by almost half of India's population, Hindi plays a key role as a lingua franca between Indo-Canadians who don't necessarily feel comfortable to speak in English.
List of languages by number of native speakers in India
As per 2011 Census of India languages by highest number of speakers are as follows : Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Urdu, Kannada, Odia, Malayalam
Bharati Braille
Bharati braille ( ), or Bharatiya Braille (Hindi: "" "Indian braille"), is a largely unified braille script for writing the languages of India. When India gained independence, eleven braille scripts were in use, in different parts of the country and for different languages. By 1951 a single national standard had been settled on, Bharati braille, which has since been adopted by Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh. There are slight differences in the orthographies for Nepali in India and Nepal, and for Tamil in India and Sri Lanka. There are significant differences in Bengali Braille between India and Bangladesh, with several letters differing. Pakistan has not adopted Bharati braille, so the Urdu Braille of Pakistan is an entirely different alphabet than the Urdu Braille of India, with their commonalities largely due to their common inheritance from English or International Braille. Sinhalese Braille largely conforms to other Bharati, but differs significantly toward the end of the alphabet, and is covered in its own article.
Dravidian parties
DMK leaders also perceived that the attempts to declare Hindi as the sole national language of India was an attempt impose an Aryan language unwilling people in the South. According to the terms of the Indian constitution dated 26 January 1965, English as an official language of India would come to an end and Hindi would become the sole official language. However, the Madras Anti-Hindi agitation in 1965 compelled the Central Government in India change its language policy, allowing English to continue as an official language.
Although DMK was not directly involved in the violence that marred the agitation, the protest itself catapulted DMK to political power in the State in the 1967 legislative elections. Annadurai became the first non-Congress Chief Minister of the post-1950 Madras state as a result.
North India
Linguistically, North India is dominated by Indo-Aryan languages. It is in this region, or its proximity, that Sanskrit and the various Prakrits are thought to have evolved. The most widely spoken language in this region is Hindi. It has official status in the states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh as well as in the union territory of Delhi. Punjabi has predominance in the state of Punjab where it is the official language. It also has significant presence in the nearby regions. Urdu enjoys official status in Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh. Further north in Jammu and Kashmir, major languages are Dogri and Kashmiri. Languages like Bengali, Bhili and Nepali are also spoken in notable numbers throughout the region. A large part of North India is taken up by the so-called Hindi Belt, which here subsumes most of the Rajasthani languages, dialects of Western Hindi, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Garhwali and Kumaoni.
Moturi Satyanarayana
As an activist for Indian Independence, a framer of the Indian Constitution, and a Parliamentarian, Moturi was a key figure in India's political history. However, some people criticise his decision to support Hindi, and not English, as the official language of India. The awkward provisions in the Indian Constitution and a later push by pro-Hindi hardliners led to "language riots" in the 1960s in southern states such as Tamil Nadu, where more than 60 people died. Several students immolated themselves protesting the forced use of Hindi as the national language. While English has become the de facto national language of India by 2010, the Indian Constitution has continued to serve as the fundamental basis of the India's polity and society and its drafting was a major accomplishment.
Languages with official status in India
Via the 92nd Constitutional amendment 2003, four new languages – Dogri, Maithili, Santali and Bodo – were added to the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution.
Multilingualism in India
Hindi is one of the official languages of India and had 528 million native speakers as of the 2011 Census. About 139 million Indians speak Hindi as a second language and 24 million speak it as their third language.
Teaching English as a second or foreign language
Beginning as early as 1759, English language teaching in India has been occurring for more than two hundred and fifty years. After Hindi, English is the most commonly spoken, written and read language of India, as it is used most commonly for inter-state and intrastate communication, acting as a ‘link’ language. In India, it is a very important language in some fields such as law, finance, education, and business.
Tamil language
Tamil (; "" , ) is a Dravidian language predominantly spoken by the Tamil people of India and Sri Lanka, and by the Tamil diaspora, Sri Lankan Moors, Douglas, and Chindians. Tamil is an official language of two countries: Sri Lanka and Singapore and official language of the Indian state Tamil Nadu. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the Indian Union Territory of Puducherry. It is used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia, along with English, Malay and Mandarin. Tamil is spoken by significant minorities in the four other South Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India.
Languages of South Asia
Most languages spoken in India belong either to the Indo-European (c. 74%), the Dravidian (c. 24%), the Austroasiatic (Munda) (c. 1.2%), or the Tibeto-Burman (c. 0.6%) families, with some languages of the Himalayas still unclassified.
The SIL Ethnologue lists 461 living languages for India.
Gujarati language
Gujarati is one of the twenty-two official languages and fourteen regional languages of India. It is officially recognized in the state of Gujarat, India and the union territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.
Hindi–Urdu controversy
C. Rajagopalachari, chief minister of Madras Presidency introduced Hindi as a compulsory language in secondary school education though he later relented and opposed the introduction of Hindi during the Madras anti-Hindi agitation of 1965. Bal Gangadhar Tilak supported Devanagari script as the essential part of nationalist movement. The language policy of Congress and the independence movement paved its status as an alternative official language of independent India. Hindi was supported by religious and political leaders, social reformers, writers and intellectuals during independence movement securing that status. Hindi, along with English, was recognised as the official language of India during the institution of the Indian constitution in 1950."Indo-Persian Literature and Amir Khusrau, University of Delhi - PDF
Newspaper
Languages of India
Hindi is widely taught both as a primary language and language of instruction, and as a second tongue in most states.
Kumaoni language
Almost all people who can speak and understand Kumaoni can also speak and understand Hindi, one of the official languages of India. Due to a number of reasons (including the predominance of Hindi), the use of Kumaoni is shrinking very rapidly. UNESCO’s Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger designates Kumaoni as language in the "unsafe" category and which requires consistent conservation efforts.