The writings of the human beings during the entire era of history have reflected the culture, lifestyle, society and the polity of contemporary society. In this process, each culture evolved its own language and created a huge literary base. This enormous base of literature provides us a glimpse of the evolution of each of its languages and culture through the span of centuries. Language in its literary meaning is a system of communication through speech, a collection of sounds that a group of people understand to have the same meaning.

• A language family includes individual languages related through a common ancestor that existed before the recorded history.

• Dialect is a form of language spoken in a local area. It is noteworthy that several dialects can be derived from a particular language.

The languages spoken around the various corners of India belong to several language families, where most of them belong to the Indo-Aryan Group of Languages. This Indo-Aryan Group has been born out of the Indo-European Family. However, there are some language groups which are indigenous to the Indian sub-continent.

CLASSIFICATION OF INDIAN LANGUAGES

Languages in India are classified into the following major sub-groups:

Indo-Aryan Group of Languages

It is a branch of the larger Indo-European Family which came to India with the advent of the Aryans. It is the largest language group of India and around 74 percent of the Indians speak languages belonging to this group. This language group is again divided into three subgroups depending upon the time period of their origin.

Old Indo-Aryan Group

This group had its development around 1500 BC and Sanskrit was born out of this group. The ancient form of Sanskrit is what is found in the Vedas. Even Upanishads, Puranas and Dharmasutras were all written in Sanskrit. It can be said that Sanskrit is the mother of many Indian languages. The understanding of the diversity and richness of our culture has been made possible due to the development of Sanskrit language during those times. It is the most ancient language of our country and is one of the 22 scheduled languages listed in the Constitution.

The development of Sanskrit grammar began with Panini in 400 BC with his book Asthadhyayi being the oldest book in Sanskrit grammar. Some of the Buddhist literature belonging to Mahayana and the Hinayana school are even written in Sanskrit language. The book Mahavastu of the Hinayana School is a treasure of stories and written in mixed Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit. Lalitavistara, the most sacred Mahayana text and Ashvagosha’s Buddhacharita were also written in Sanskrit.

Sanskrit is the only language that transcended the barriers of region and boundaries. From north to south and from east to west, there is no part in India that has not contributed to or has not been affected by the Sanskrit language. The various literatures in Sanskrit language have been discussed in the chapter on literature.

The chaste form of Sanskrit developed in between 300 to 200 BC and was a refined version of Vedic Sanskrit. The first evidence of the use of Sanskrit can be found in the inscriptions of Rudradaman atJunagarh in the present Southern Gujarat region. However, it was the Gupta period where the use of Sanskrit in poetries can be traced. This is totally a period of creation of pure literature which is evident in the works as Mahakavyas (epics) and Khandakavyas (semi-epics).

In the field of Sanskrit literature, this period is known as the period of unique creation because a variety of literary works developed during this reign. Another important aspect of it is related to the ornate style in literary works. Many of the plays developed during Gupta period were also written in Sanskrit. However, it is to be noted that one of the features of these plays was the use of Sanskrit language by the characters of high varna and the use of Prakrit language by women and shudras.

Middle Indo-Aryan Group

The period of development of this sub-group is between 600 BC to 1000 AD and started with the development of Prakrit language. Prakrit is understood as natural, original, casual, etc. and which was used as a common tongue without any strict rules of usage. Prakrit is a broader term under which all the Middle Indo-Aryan Group languages are generally clubbed together. Many languages such as Ardha-Magadhi, Pali (used by Theravada Buddhists) and Apabhramsa, find their origin from the Prakrit.

Prakrit was associated with the common people. On the other hand, Sanskrit was orthodox, had fixed rules and was used by learned people or the elites, especially Brahmins. The writing of texts in Prakrit was relatively a late development, as compared to Sanskrit. Prakrit and Ardha-Magadhi language were used in the Jain ‘Agamas’.

It is important to note that the period of transition from one language or dialect to another was slow and cannot be separated into strict chronological periods.

Prakrit includes:

• Pali: It was widely spoken in Magadha. It was popular during 5th–1st century BC. It is closely related to Sanskrit, and the texts in Pali were written generally in Brahmi script. The Tripitaka of Buddhism were also written in Pali. It serves as the lingua franca of Theravada Buddhism. It is believed that Buddha himself did not speak in Pali but gave his preachings in Ardha-Magadhi language.

• Magadhi Prakrit or Ardha- Magadhi: It is the most important kind of Prakrit. Its literary use increased after the decline of Sanskrit and Pali. Buddha and Mahavira perhaps spoke in Ardha-Magadhi. It was the court language of few Mahajanapadas and also the Mauryan dynasty. Several Jain texts and Rock edicts of Ashoka were also written in Ardha-Magadhi. It later evolved into many languages of Eastern India namely Bengali, Assamese, Odia, Maithili, Bhojpuri, etc.

• Shauraseni: It was widely used to write dramas in the medieval India. It is also called Dramatic Prakrit. It was the predecessor to Northern Indian languages. Jain monks wrote mainly using this version of Prakrit. The oldest text of Digambara Jains, ‘Shatkhandgama’ is written in Shauraseni.

• Maharashtri Prakrit: Spoken till 9th century AD, it was the predecessor to Marathi and Konkani. It was used widely in Western and Southern India. It was the official language of Satavahana Dynasty. Several dramas were written in it like ‘Gaha Kosha’ by King Hala, ‘Gaudavaho’ (slaying of the King of Gauda) by Vakpati.

• Elu: Ancient form of modern Sinhala Language of Sri Lanka (it is similar to Pali).

• Paishachi: It is also called ‘Bhuta-Bhasa’ (dead language). Often regarded as Prakrit, it is considered as an unimportant dialect. Gunadhya’s Brihatkatha, an ancient epic is written in Paishachi.

Apabhramsa

The development of ‘Apabhramsa’ (corrupt or non-grammatical) took place by 6th-7th century AD. Apabhramsa is also an umbrella term which means dialects other than Sanskrit or even Prakrit. It represents a transition from Middle to Modern Indo-Aryan Group of languages.

Apabhramsa gradually became a literary language and was used to write several texts, legends, etc. Apabhramsa developed its own identity by the 7th century AD. This can be highlighted by the fact that Bhamaha, a renowned poet of Kashmir from the 6th or 7th century AD, divided poetry into Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Apabhramsa. And, Dandin said that Apabhramsa is the dialect of the common folk. Many Jain monks and scholars wrote extensively in Apabhramsa and sustained it.

Major texts and writers are: Pushpadanta’s Mahapurana (Digambara Jain text), Dhanapala’s Bhavisayattakaha, etc.

Modern Indo-Aryan Group

The languages belonging to this group are Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Odia, Urdu, etc. The languages under this sub-group developed gradually after 1000 AD. These languages are mainly spoken in the northern, western and the eastern parts of India.

Dravidian Group

This group comprises mainly of the languages spoken in the southern part of India. Around 25 percent of the Indian population is covered under this group. Proto Dravidian gave rise to 21 Dravidian Languages. They can be broadly classified into three groups: Northern group, Central group and Southern group.

Northern Group

It consists of three languages, i.e., Brahui, Malto and Kurukh. Brahui is spoken in Baluchistan, Malto in the tribal areas of Bengal and Odisha while Kurukh in Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.

Central Group

It consists of eleven languages i.e., Gondi, Khond, Kui, Manda, Parji, Gadaba, Kolami, Pengo, Naiki, Kuvi and Telugu. Only Telugu became a civilised language and is spoken in the State of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana whereas others are tribal languages.

Southern Group

Seven languages belong to this group; Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Tulu, Kodagu, Toda and Kota. Tamil is the oldest among all these.

Among these 21 languages of the Dravidian Group, the four major languages are:

• Telugu (numerically the largest of all Dravidian languages)

• Tamil (oldest and purest form of language)

• Kannada

• Malayalam (smallest and the youngest of the Dravidian group).

Sino-Tibetan Group

Languages under this group belong to Mongoloid family and stretch to all over Himalayas, North Bihar, North Bengal, Assam and up to the North- Eastern frontiers of our nation. These languages are considered to be older than the Indo-Aryan Languages and are referred to as Kiratas in the oldest Sanskrit literature. Languages belonging to this group are spoken by 0.6 percent of the Indian population.

The Sino-Tibetan Group is further divided into:

Tibeto-Burman

Languages under Tibeto-Burman are further divided into four groups:

(a) Tibetan: Sikkimese, Bhutia, Balti, Sherpa, Lahuli and Ladakhi

(b) Himalayan: Kinnauri and Limbu

(d) Kuki, Garo, Bodo, Mikir, Naga, etc. Meitei is the most important language spoken under this sub-group and is mainly spoken is Manipur.

Siamese-Chinese

Ahom is one of the languages which belongs to this group. However, this language has already been extinct from the Indian sub continent.

Austric

Languages under this group belong to Austro-asiatic sub-family which are represented by the languages of Munda or Kol Group and are spoken in Central, Eastern and North-Eastern India. Some of them also belong to Mon- Khmer Group, vig. Khasi and Nicobarese.

The existence of these languages have been much before the advent of the Aryans and were referred to as Nisadas in ancient Sanskrit literature.

Santhali is the most important language under this group which is spoken by Santhal tribals of Jharkhand, Bihar and Bengal.

With the exceptions of Khasi and Santhali, all Austro-asiatic languages in Indian territory are endangered.

Others

This group includes several Dravidian tribal languages like Gondi, Oraon, Praji, etc. which are very distinct and cannot be classified in the groups mentioned above.

Difference between Indo-Aryan Group and the Dravidian Group of Languages:

1. The root words in the two language families are different.

2. There is a different grammatical structure in the two groups.

(a) Grammatical structure of Dravidian Family is agglutinative, i.e. the combinations in which root words are united results in little or no change of form or loss of words.

(b) The grammatical structure of Indo-Aryan Group is inflected, i.e. a word’s ending or its spelling changes according to its grammatical function in a sentence.

OFFICIAL LANGUAGES OF INDIA

Article 343 (1) of the Constitution of India states that “The official language of the Union Government shall be Hindi in Devanagari Script.” “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. It means over a period of 15 years since the commencement of the Indian Constitution, Hindi will replace English as the official language. Parliament can decide, if English can be used as official language.

This clause led to protests across the nation by the non-Hindi speaking communities against the change in official language from English to Hindi. The protest resulted in the enactment of The Official Languages Act, 1963. This Act declares Hindi in Devanagari script as the official language of the Union. English has been given the status of “subsidiary official language” of the Union.

The Constitution of India has also made a provision for each of the Indian States to choose their own official language for communications at the State level. There are many languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution which may be used by the States for official purpose. Initially, the following fourteen languages were selected under the Eighth Schedule.

• Assamese

• Hindi

• Malayalam

• Punjabi

• Telugu

• Bengali

• Kannada

• Marathi

• Sanskrit

• Urdu

• Gujarati

• Kashmiri

• Odia

• Tamil

• Later Sindhi was added as the 15th language through 21st Amendment Act of 1967.

• Three more languages were added by 71st Amendment Act, 1992. They are Konkani, Manipuri, and Nepali.

• 92nd Amendment Act, 2003 added four more languages to the Eighth Schedule. They are Bodo, Maithili, Dogri and Santhali.

Thus, at present there are 22 languages in total listed under the eighth schedule of the Indian Constitution.

Note:

• There is no national language of India. Hindi is not a national language. Neither the Constitution nor any Act defines the word ‘national language’.

• The Constitution does not specify official language for States for conduct of their official functions. States are free to adopt an official language.

• The language to be adopted by the States need not be one of those listed in the Eighth Schedule. Several States have adopted an official language which is not listed in Eighth Schedule. Examples:

❖ Tripura-Kokborok (belongs to Sino-Tibetan Familly)

❖ Puducherry - French

❖ Mizoram-Mizo

• English is not in the list of 22 scheduled languages as per the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.

• Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland are the only states which have English as their only official language.

STATUS OF CLASSICAL LANGUAGE

In 2004, the Government of India declared that languages that meet certain requirements would be accorded the status of a “Classical Language of India”.

Criteria

The following criteria were laid down to determine the eligibility of languages to be considered for classification as a “Classical Language”:

1. High antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1500- 2000 years;

2. A body of ancient literature/texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers;

3. The literary tradition be original and not borrowed from another speech community;

4. The classical language and literature being distinct from modern, there may also be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots.

Languages so far declared to be a Classical Language are:

• Tamil in the year 2004

• Telugu in the year 2008

• Malayalam in the year 2013

• Sanskrit in the year 2005

• Kannada in the year 2008

• Odia in the year 2014

The Government has been criticised for not including Pali as a classical language as experts argue that it fits all the above mentioned criteria.

Benefits

Government of India’s resolution states that the following benefits will accrue to a language declared as a “Classical Language”:

• Two major international awards for scholars of eminence in Classical Indian Languages to be awarded annually.

• A ‘Centre of Excellence for Studies in that Classical Language’ will be set up.

• The University Grants Commission will be requested to create and to start with, at least in the Central Universities, a certain number of Professional Chairs in Classical Languages for scholars of eminence.

National Translation Mission (NTM) is a Government of India scheme to facilitate higher education by making knowledge texts accessible to students and academies in Indian languages. NTM aims to disseminate knowledge in all 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution through translation.

A combination of efforts is made to orient translators, encourage publishers to publish translations, maintain databases of published translations from, into and between Indian languages and to become a clearing house of information on translation to establish translation as an industry in India. It is expected to facilitate the modernisation of languages by developing new terminologies and discourse styles through translation. At present, NTM is engaged in the translation of all pedagogic material related to higher education in 22 Indian languages.

Linguistic Diversity Index (LDI) is the probability that two people selected from the population at random will have different mother tongues; it, therefore, ranges from 0 (everyone has the same mother tongue) to 1 (no two people have the same mother tongue). The Index of Linguistic Diversity (ILD) measures how the LDI has changed over time; a global ILD of 0.8 indicates a 20 percent loss of diversity since 1970, but ratios above 1 are possible, and have appeared in regional indexes.

A lingua franca, also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language or vehicular language, is a language or dialect systematically used to make communication possible between persons not sharing a native language or dialect, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both native languages.

Lingua franca have been developed around the world throughout human history, sometimes for commercial reasons but also for cultural, religious, diplomatic and administrative convenience, and as a means of exchanging information between scientists and other scholars of different nationalities. The best example is English.

ANCIENT SCRIPTS OF INDIA

A script is also known as writing system or orthography. It is a standard for representing the parts of a spoken language by making specific marks on a medium (Paper, rocks, birchbark, etc). The two ancient scripts in India comprise Brahmi script and Kharosthi script.

Most of the ancient and modern scripts in India are developed from Brahmi script be it Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Odia, Assamese/Bengali, etc. Hence, it can very much be maintained that Brahmi is the mother of scripts.

However, Urdu is written in a script derived from Arabic, and a few minor languages such as Santhali use independent scripts.

Let us discuss them in brief:

Indus Script

The Indus Script is a corpus of symbols produced by the Indus Valley Civilisation. Most inscriptions are extremely short and it is unclear if these symbols constitute a script used to record a language.

Brahmi Script

Brahmi is the oldest writing systems used in the Indian subcontinent and in Central Asia during the final centuries BC and the early centuries AD. Some believe that Brahmi was derived from contemporary Semitic Script or may be Indus Script. All surviving Indic Scripts in South East Asia are descendants of Brahmi.

The best-known Brahmi inscriptions are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka in North-Central India, dated 250–232 BC. The script was deciphered in 1837 by James Prinsep.

Brahmi is usually written from left to right. Brahmi is an abugida, meaning that each unit is based on consonant and the vowel notation is secondary, except when the vowels commence a word.

Descendents of Brahmi Script are as follows—

Gupta Script

It belongs to Gupta Empire and was used to write Sanskrit. Gupta Script descended from Brahmi and gave rise to the Nagari, Sarada and Siddham Scripts. These scripts in turn gave rise to many of the most important scripts of India, including Devanagari, Gurmukhi Script (for Punjabi Language), Assamese Script, Bengali Script and the Tibetan Script.

Kharosthi Script

The Kharosthi Script (3rd century BC - 3rd century AD) is an ancient script used in ancient Gandhara (present Afghanistan and Pakistan) to write the Gandhari Prakrit and Sanskrit. It is a sister script of Brahmi and was deciphered by James Prinsep again.

Kharosthi is also an abugida like Brahmi. Kharosthi includes a set of numerals that are similar to Roman numerals like I, X, etc. Kharosthi script is mostly written right to left but some inscriptions also show the left to right direction of Kharosthi.

Vatteluttu Script

The Vatteluttu alphabet is an abugida writing system which originated in South India. Developed from Tamil-Brahmi, Vatteluttu is one of the three main alphabet systems developed by Tamil people to write the Tamil Script.

Kadamba Script

The Kadamba Script marks the birth of a dedicated script for writing Kannada. It is also a descendant of the Brahmi Script which developed during the reign of the Kadamba Dynasty in the 4th-6th century AD. Ws script later became Kannada-Telugu Script.

Grantha Script

The Grantha Script was widely used between the 6th and the 20th century AD by Tamil speakers in South India, particularly in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, to write Sanskrit and the classical language Manipravalam, and still is in restricted use in traditional Vedic schools. It is a Brahmic Script, having evolved from the Brahmi Script in Tamil Nadu. The Malayalam Script is a direct descendant of Grantha as are the Tigalari and Sinhala alphabets.

Sarada Script

The Sarada or Sharada Script is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family developed around the 8th century AD. It was used for writing Sanskrit and Kashmiri. Originally more widespread, its use became later restricted to Kashmir, and it is now rarely used except by the Kashmiri Pandit Community for ceremonial purposes.

Gurmukhi Script

Gurmukhi is developed from the Sarada Script and was standardised during 16th century AD by Guru Angad. The whole of the Guru Granth Sahib is written in this script, and it is the script most commonly used by Sikhs and Hindus for writing Punjabi language.

Devanagari Script

Devanagari is an abugida writing system of India and Nepal. It is written from left to right.

The Devanagari Script is used for over 120 languages, including Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Pali, Konkani, Bodo, Sindhi and Maithili among other languages and dialects, making it one of the most used and adopted writing systems in the world. The Devanagari Script is also used for classical Sanskrit texts.

Modi Script

Modi is a script used to write the Marathi language. Modi was the official script used to write Marathi until the 20th century when the Balbodh style of the Devanagari Script was promoted as the standard writing system for Marathi. Although Modi was primarily used for writing Marathi, other languages such as Urdu, Kannada, Gujarati, Hindi and Tamil are also known to have been written in Modi. Modi script is also an abugida.

Urdu Script

The Urdu Script involves right-to-left style of writing and is used for writing Urdu language. It is a modification of the Persian alphabet, which is itself a derivative of the Arabic alphabet and has its origins in 13th century. It is closely related to the development of the Nastaliq style of Perso-Arabic Script. Urdu Script in its extended form is known as Shahmukhi Script and is used for writing other Indo-Aryan languages of North Indian subcontinent like Punjabi and Saraiki as well (Saraiki spoken in Punjab Province of Pakistan).

Thus, we see that Indian literary styles have undergone considerable changes over a long period of time. Spread of Buddhism from India to various countries has influenced their scripts also, especially Sri Lanka, Tibet and South-East Asia. The advent of Islam in India also caused a change in the Indian writing tradition. However, it remains to be seen how the scripts and languages of a country survive and evolve in the era of globalisation where English has become a lingua franca.

12 LANGUAGES IN INDIA