Latest revision as of 17:49, 27 February 2024

[edit] 220 languages lost since 1961

India’s lost 220 languages in past 50 years: Survey

Most Were Spoken By Nomads

Sandhya Soman TNN

The Times of India 2013/08/09

The number of languages in India: 1961 and 2013

Mumbai: India has lost around 20% of its languages in the past five decades, a survey by the Vadodara-based Bhasha Research and Publication Centre has revealed.

The country had 1,100 languages in 1961, but nearly 220 of them have disappeared, said Ganesh Devy, writer and lead coordinator of the survey called the People’s Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI). The survey was carried out over two years from 2011.

“We have found 780 languages and must have missed about 100 or so. That makes it close to 880 languages. The rest have disappeared,” he said.

Most of them belonged to nomadic communities. “Were they alive, they would have been spoken by 3% to 4% of Indians, that is around 5 crore people,” Devy said. The reasons for the disappearance are a lack of recognition, displacement of communities, the absence of a livelihood option for speakers and stigma against ‘under-developed’ mother tongues.

[edit] HOW THE COUNT WENT DOWN IN 1971

The 1961 census listed 1,652 languages, which were cut to 1,100 as many were found to be variants.

The 1971 census listed only 108 as the government decided to document only those languages which had more than 10,000 speakers. The rest were included in the ‘others’ section. The new survey does not follow this norm but includes all languages

[edit] METHODOLOGY OF THE SURVEY

Nearly 3,000 PLSI volunteers reached out to community groups, linguists and activists to document various languages and the history of their speakers

[edit] No policy to conserve languages

Mumbai: The absence of a policy on language conservation has contributed to the loss of about 20% of India’s languages in the past five decades, said Ganesh Devy, writer and lead co-ordinator of the survey called the People’s Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI).

The census of 1961 had recorded 1,652 languages in all, but taking into account the fact that variants of many languages had found a place in this list, the number was later brought down to 1,100.

In 1971, the census had listed only 108 languages due to the central government’s decision to document only those which had more than 10,000 speakers. All other languages were included in the ‘others’ section. The practice continues and many languages remain forgotten. The PLSI, however, hasn’t gone by the government norm; it listed all languages.

A Marathi volume on languages in Maharashtra, called ‘Maharashtratil Bhasha’, put together by the institute, was released in Pune on August 17 2013. There are 49 more such volumes as part of the survey, which were released in New Delhi on September 5, 2013

[edit] Some successes, as in 2019

Ishita Mishra, Nov 16, 2019: The Times of India

Padma Shri Ganesh N Devy, who helmed the People’s Linguistic Survey of India, a government study between 2010 and 2013, told TOI, “A script can be in Roman or Devanagari or both. One can introduce marks like ‘ nukta’ or ‘ ardhachandras’ to solve the issue with phonetics. Punjabi language uses Gurmukhi, Persian and Arabic script while Santhali has eight types of scripts. As long as they find acceptability with speakers, it works. But creating new script for a language in India has never been easy. In case of Kokborok — spoken by Tripura’s Borok — creation of its script led to an uprising.”

Kokborok was recognised by the Tripura government in 1979 and became the second state language after Bengali. When Kokborok was introduced in schools, Bengali script was accepted for Kokborok textbooks. But a majority of the indigenous educated youth was in favour of the Roman script and this led to a major unrest.

Vaishna Narang, former professor at JNU’s languages department, said an important way to preserve language is to use it in media, be it social media or television. She cited the example of Gondi spoken by the Gond tribe with 1.2 crore members across Bastar in Chhattisgarh, parts of Telangana, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand. According to the 2011 Census, only 27 lakh Gond spoke the language but new estimates suggest numbers of Gondi speakers have shot up.

Subhranshu Chaudhary, who runs CGNet Swara, an NGO that works to propagate and preserve Gondi, told TOI, “In Bastar, Gondi is now taught in schools. There are newspapers and news bulletins in Gondi and its literature is being translated to other languages —such as English and French — with the help of IIT Raipur and Microsoft Research.”

Devy added migration plays a major role in the loss of indigenous languages. “The state must ensure indigenous tribes have livelihood. If they don’t have work, they will migrate and adopt new languages and cultures,” he said.

But government help or not, Rungs are determined to preserve their heritage. At a recent Rung workshop in Dehradun, boys performed a traditional dance while judges doled out questions on Rung culture to young participants. At the entrance, 19-year-old Pranita greeted guests. “ Gan hum eno?’ (How are you?),” said one. “It’s gan hum ino,” Pranita immediately corrected as elders at a distance beamed approvingly.

[edit] Pali

Buddha’s language is fighting extinction, and it’s not alone

Rakesh.Roshan@timesgroup.com


Vaani (dialect) changes every 4 kos – roughly 12km – and paani (water) after every 8 kos. This is a famous saying in Bihar, which is struggling to keep its many languages and scripts alive, with some now listed as endangered. 
In September 2022, the Bihar government pledged institutional support to eight languages: Sanskrit, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Magahi, Angika, Bajjika, Bangla and Surjapuri. However, experts say a language needs care, and political and social patronage, to develop and flourish.


“If my language is looked down upon by society, how will I feel proud of it? If there is no job opportunity in linguistics, why should one opt for a language?” asks Sweta Sinha of IIT-Patna. “In the Hindi belt, most people list Hindi as their mother tongue, not Bhojpuri or Magahi.”


The 2011 Census listed 1,369 mother tongues in the country. But many such languages and scripts are either no longer spoken or are slowly going extinct.
“The state government created various academies for the development of languages. But the academies’ directorships became political posts,” says Subhash Sharma, former development commissioner of Bihar and author of Bhasha Aur Lipi Ka Itihaas.


 Buddha’s Language 


Pali is the language of Buddha’s sermons. It is taught in Allahabad, Magadh and Patna universities. Till 2013, UPSC aspirants could opt for it as a subject.
“The good news for Pali is that the language is not yet dead. At least one lakh people speak Pali across the country. It is now being taught at Fergusson College, Pune, and several other universities in Maharashtra. But there is a need to do more for this language,” says Dinkar Prasad, additional commissioner (admin), Darbhanga Division. He is a PhD in Pali with a gold medal from Delhi University and has taught the language to many UPSC aspirants. 
“The governments of UP and Bihar should at least introduce this language in Class 12, if not for PG and graduation. Buddha was born, found enlightenment, gave his first sermon and attained Mahaparinirvana in these two states. Most of his sermons are in Pali... It must be reintroduced in UPSC as an option,” Prasad adds.


 Old Documents In Kaithi 


Bihar government offices used the Kaithi script till the early 1900s. Now, it isn’t easy to find people who understand it. “In Bihar, most court cases are related to land disputes and many old land documents are written in Kaithi,” says Bhairab Lal Das, author of a book on the history of the Kaithi script.
Jayant Kumar, a professor at NIFT, Patna, has been working on developing key fonts in the Kaithi script. “The state government recently organised a crash course on Kaithi in Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University with 30-40 participants. This is a very good sign. For the development of any language or script, it must be used in regular writing or reading in society,” he says.


Only Official Native Language


Maithili is the only native language of Bihar in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, which lists India’s official languages. Its script known as Mithilakshar or Tiruhata is one of the oldest scripts in which Sanskrit is written. 
After a long-drawn agitation in the Mithilanchal region, Maithili was included in the Eighth Schedule in 2003. It was also included as an optional subject in UPSC. However, Bihar Public Service Commission is yet to include it as an optional subject in exams, says Aruna Chaudhary, head of Maithili department at Patna University. “Moreover, teaching this language has been discontinued in most Patna University colleges as there are few takers,” she adds. 
Madan Mohan Jha, a Maithili-speaking schoolteacher, says: “I am from Mithilanchal. I speak Maithili with my mother and wife. But my kids don’t want to speak it.”


Inferiority Complex


Nearly 30km east of Patna, at Pali village, people speak Magahi in a dialect different from Patna’s. And if you travel 50km west from Patna, people in Jehanabad, speak it differently. Similarly, Bhojpuri, prevalent in Bhojpur, Buxar, Kaimur, Rohtas, Saran, Siwan and Gopalganj, is spoken differently in Chhapra, Ara and Sasaram. 
“Bhojpuri is limited to villages or the downtrodden people. If you speak Bhojpuri or Magahi in Patna, people look down upon you. You will seldom find two Bhojpuri or Magahi-speaking people talking in their mother tongue. Maithili is the only language people can be heard talking in. That’s why Maithili is placed better than other Bihar languages... My kids don’t want to speak Bhojpuri because they have an inferiority complex about the language,” says Vishnu Kant Tiwari, a Bhojpuri speaker.


(With inputs from B K Mishra and Abhay Singh)

[edit] ENDANGERED, VULNERABLE OR LOST

[edit] Pali (extinct)

Therigatha, an anthology of poems by Buddhist nuns in Pali, is one of the oldest examples of women’s writing in the world. It was compiled between the 6th and 3rd centuries BCE. 
===Kaithi (endangered):=== It flourished after the Gupta dynasty. In the 16th century, Sher Shah introduced coins in Kaithi and it became the language of various government records. After him, Mughals emphasised on Persian.


[edit] Tharu (endangered):

During the Mughal era, many Rajputs from Rajasthan fled to the UPBihar border, according to lore. Their language was Tharu. Most families in Champaran that spoke Tharu have adopted Bhojpuri as their mother tongue. 
===Magahi (vulnerable):=== This language was derived from Magadhi. Earlier, Magadhi became Ardh-Magadhi, giving birth to three languages – Magahi, Awadhi and Bhojpuri. Magahi is used in nine districts of Bihar.


[edit] Angika, Bajjika (endangered):

There have been calls to save Angika, the language named by Rahul Sankrityayan, eminent litterateur and doyen of Buddhist studies.


[edit] Armik (endangered):

This script came to India from Afghanistan, and is now lost.


[edit] Musasa (vulnerable):

Used to be spoken along the Bihar-Nepal border. 
===Khortha*:=== It was in use along the BiharJharkhand border.


[edit] Lathori*:

Lathori language speakers, primarily nomadic, were settled in the Buxar district.


[edit] Brahmi*:

Considered to be one of the oldest scripts in the country, it gave birth to languages like Gujarati and Bengali.
*Status unknown