Lines on India languages in diversty
Answers
India has become a land of many tongues and has been called “as a tower of veritable languages” or a “Museum of languages”. In 1950, the States in India were reorganized on linguistic basis. As a result, the domiciles of a particular state speak a particular language. The Constitution of India has approved of 22 languages.
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In India we find a number of languages. India has also been called a “Tower of Babel”. This multilingual nature of the country affects every aspect of her national life. But linguistic diversity was not a great problem in the past since Sanskrit in the beginning, later Persian and during last hundred years English served as link languages.
At present the language problem has become so acute that it has posed a major threat to national integration. Most often linguistic tensions are being manifested in the borders which are bilingual.
For example, in Belgaum there is a tug of war between Marathi and Kannada speaking people. Assam confronted with Bengali and Assamese. Although Hindi has been recognized as the national language, this has promoted bitter hostilities, particularly in the South. Language problem has never been as intensely felt as it is today. Even Bihar and Utter Pradesh are not free from the linguistic problems. Further, conflict tends to persist among the Urdu, Hindi and Oriya linguistic groups and Urdu and Hindi speaking people respectively.
Causes of Linguism:
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Some of the important causes of linguism are discussed below:
1. Love of Literature:
Love of literature creates and strengthens a sense of loyalty towards it among the linguistic groups. These linguistic loyalties hamper the evolution of a common language.
2. Geographical Causes:
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Geographical conditions also promote linguism. People living in a particular locality tend to speak the same language. This promotes local identity and distinctiveness among people. Living together geographically reinforces a linguistic group’s love for its own language.
3. Historical Causes:
Linguism in India is a by-product of India’s struggle for national freedom. Our leaders of freedom movement criticized the British system of dividing country by cutting across linguistic boundaries. Rather, they pleaded for the division of India into different provinces along linguistic lines. After independence, in 1956, the States were reorganized on the basis of homogeneity of languages. The reorganization of the States on linguistic lines has provided geographical foundations for sub-nationalism in India.
4. Political Causes:
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Parochial political parties create linguistic feeling among the people of a locality and exploit their sentiments at the time of election.
5. Psychological Causes:
Language has certain psychological and emotional characteristics which invoke the feeling of ethnocentrism to a homogeneous group. In India, the linguistic groups are tied together by ties of common interest. This creates the spirit of regionalism, sectarianism and separatist feeling in the mind of the inhabitant.
Consequences of Linguism:
The evils of linguism are as follows:
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1. Increasing Regionalism and Parochialism:
The people of different linguistic groups who are concentrated in a state seem to think only in terms of interests of their own States. This undermines consideration of national issues and causes parochial feelings.
2. Formation of Regional Political Parties:
Linguism has resulted in regionalism which has ultimately led to the formation of regional political parties in some state. Some of these regional political parties have also formed government. Such political parties in power often complicate Centre-State relationship.
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3. Persecution of the Linguistic Minorities:
The State Reorganization Commission had provided for safeguard of linguistic minorities in States. But in reality the linguistic minorities have been harassed in different States. As a result certain complications and disturbing trends have developed which seem to have threatened the unity of the country.
4. Demand for Separate States:
Linguistic conflicts take place due to selfish motive of politicians. These politicians instigate the linguistic minority to demand partition of the States along linguistic lines. The demand for a separate state creates problems for the concerned state as well as the centre.
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5. Erosion of National Feeling:
The national feeling is eroded due to linguistic and regional loyalties. The erosion of national feeling threatens the sovereignty of the country.
6. Inter-State Border Dispute:
Language problems have created tensions in the boarder which are bilingual. For example, the Goans are divided on the basis of Konkani
Answer:
There are twenty two official languages in India including Assamese, Bodo, Bengali, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Kashmiri, Maithili, Meitei, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Santhali, Telugu, Tamil, and Urdu. There are several hundreds of mother tongues in India.In 1950, the States in India were reorganized on linguistic basis. As a result, the domiciles of a particular state speak a particular language. India has also been called a “Tower of Babel”. This multilingual nature of the country affects every aspect of her national life.Linguistic diversity is sometimes a specific measure of the density of language, or concentration of unique languages together. This diversity covers varied types of traits including language family, grammar, and vocabulary.Traditionally, language diversity has been claimed to result from random, internally-motivated changes in language structure. Ongoing research suggests instead that different factors that are external to language can promote language change and ultimately account for aspects of language diversity.Linguistic diversity is unevenly distributed across populations and regions.Papua New Guinea, for example, has a population of about 6.4 million but is home to more than 830 spoken languages—17 percent of the world's totalmaking it one of the most linguistically diverse countries on earth.There are approximately 7,000 languages believed to be spoken around the world. Despite this diversity, the majority of the world's population speaks only a fraction of these languages. The three largest language groups (Mandarin, Spanish, and English) are spoken by more than 1.5 billion people.