<div dir="ltr"><h1 id="gmail-pf-title" style="direction:ltr" class="gmail-non-delete">Protecting language diversity in India</h1><div id="gmail-pf-src" class="gmail-non-delete"><a id="gmail-pf-src-url" href="https://news.statetimes.in/protecting-language-diversity-india/" class="gmail-non-delete"><img id="gmail-pf-src-icon" src="https://s2.googleusercontent.com/s2/favicons?domain=news.statetimes.in" class="gmail-non-delete" width="16px" height="16px"><strong class="gmail-non-delete">news.statetimes.in</strong><span class="gmail-non-delete">/protecting-language-diversity-india/</span></a></div><span id="gmail-pf-date">2/17/2017</span><p><strong><span class="gmail-text-node"> Pandurang Hegde</span></strong></p>
<p>India is one of unique countries in the world that has the legacy of
diversity of languages. The Constitution of India has recognised 22
official languages. Multilingualism is the way of life in India as
people in different parts of the country speak more than one language
from their birth and learns additional languages during their life time.<br>
Though officially there are 122 languages, Peoples Linguistic Survey of
India has identified 780 languages, of which 50 are extinct in past five
decades.</p><p>
The twenty two languages that are recognised by the Constitution are:
Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri,Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri, Kannada,
Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi,
Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdue are included in the
Eighth Schedule of the constitution.</p><p>
Among these three languages, Sanskrit, Tamil and Kannada have been
recognised as classical language with special status and recognition by
Government of India. The classical languages have written and oral
history of more than 1000 years. In comparison to these, English is very
young as it has the history of only 300 years.</p><p>
In addition to these scheduled and classical languages, The Constitution
of India has included the clause to protect minority languages as a
fundamental right. It states” Any section of the citizens residing in
the territory of India or any part of thereof having a distinct
language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve
the same.”</p><p>
The language policy of India provides guarantee to protect the
linguistic minorities. Under the Constitution provision is made for
appointment of Special Officer for linguistic minority with the sole
responsibilities of safeguarding the interest of language spoken by the
minority groups.<br>
During the colonial rule the first linguistic survey was conducted
during 1894 to 1928 by George A. Grierson that identified 179 languages
and 544 dialects. Due to lack of trained personnel as linguists this
survey had many deficiencies.</p><p>
In the post independence era Central Institute of Indian Languages
(CIIL), based in Mysore was assigned to carry out an in-depth survey of
languages. However this is still remains incomplete.<br>
In 1991 the Census of India listed 1576 mother tongues’ with separate
grammatical structures and 1796 speech varieties that is classified as
other mother tongues’.</p><p>
Another unique feature of India is the concept of protecting the
interest of children to get basic education in their mother tongue. The
Constitution provides” it shall be the endeavour of every State and of
every local authority within the state to provide adequate facilities
for instruction in the mother tongue at the primary stage of education
to children belonging to linguistic minority groups”.</p><p>
Thus, even before the United Nations declared the International Mother
Language Day (February 21) the founders of the Indian Constitution gave
top priority to teaching in mother tongues’, enabling the child to
develop its full potential.<br>
This concept is in total agreement with the 2017 theme of United Nations
World Mother Language Day “to develop the potential of multilingual
education to be acknowledged in education, administrative systems,
cultural expression and cyber space”.<br>
In 1956 reorganisation of states in India was carried out with
linguistic boundaries that had its own script. Sardar Vallab Bhai Patel,
the then home minister played key role in formation and amalgamation of
states based on linguistic attributes.</p><p>
The language policy of India has been pluralistic, giving priority to
the use of mother tongue in administration, education and other fields
of mass communication. The Language Bureau of Ministry of Human Resource
Development is set up to implement and monitor the language policy.</p><p>
Supporting the cause of promoting and conserving the language diversity
in cyberspace, Union Minister of Electronic and Information Technology
Ravi Shankar Prasad cautioned the Internet providers “the language of
internet cannot be English and English alone. It must have linkages with
the local and local means local languages. I appeal to make local
languages available for more internet users”.<br>
He said that the ministry has initiated Technology Development for
Indian Languages with the objective of developing information processing
tools and techniques to facilitate human machine interaction without
language barrier, creating and accessing multilingual knowledge
resources.</p><p>
The Government of India under the vision of digital India has mandated
the mobile phones sold from July 2017 should support all Indian
languages. This will pave way for bridging the digital divide,
empowering one billion people who do not speak English with connectivity
in their own languages. This will also enhance the capacity of large
number people to be part of e-governance and e- commerce.<br>
Despite these efforts by the central government minority languages are
under threat of extinction due to multiple causes. In Andaman and
Nicobar Islands, the death of Boa, the last speaker of Bo language is
one of those instances that have lead to extinction of Bo language with
the history of 70,000 years.</p><p><a href="https://news.statetimes.in/protecting-language-diversity-india/">https://news.statetimes.in/protecting-language-diversity-india/</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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