People's Linguistic Survey of India

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The People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) is a linguistic survey launched in 2010 in order to update existing knowledge about the languages spoken in the modern republic of India. The survey was organized by the NGO Bhasha Research and Publication Centre, Baroda, founded by G. N. Devy, a social activist, and was conducted by 3500 volunteers, including 2000 language experts, social historians. It has identified 780 languages in India. The 35,000 page survey is being published in 50 volumes. The first six volumes were released at the Bhasha Vasudha Global Languages Conference in Vadodara on January 7, 2012. [1] The survey was completed in December 2012 and several of its volumes are being published by the publishing house Orient Blackswan.

Contents

Survey format

The publications of the survey include the following information:

For scheduled languages, the survey also provides a broad cultural overview of each language.

Relevance

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. [2] 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. [3]

PLSI also highlights the phenomenon of dying languages. "On 26 January 2010, a lady who belonged to a community called Bo died in the Andaman Islands and she was the last speaker of her language that was also called Bo. Sadly, along with her, the continuous line of wisdom of 65,000 years was also gone." said G. N. Devy, the Chairperson of Bhasha Research and Publication Centre. [4] Observing a link between changing economic realities and the survival of languages, Devy contends that "a language disappears when the livelihood options of the speech community disappear." [5]

Selected findings

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, [6] 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. [7] 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. [8] 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 187,000 in 1971 to 10 million in 2011. [9]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Odia language</span> Indic language

Odia is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Indian state of Odisha. It is the official language in Odisha, where native speakers make up 82% of the population, and it is also spoken in parts of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Odia is one of the many official languages of India; it is the official language of Odisha and the second official language of Jharkhand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bagheli language</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken in India

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santali language</span> Language of South Asia

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Ho is a Munda language of the Austroasiatic language family spoken primarily in India by about 2.2 million people per the 2001 census. Ho is a tribal language. It is spoken by the Ho, Munda, Kolha and Kol tribal communities of Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Assam and is written with the Warang Citi script. Devanagari, Latin script, Odia script and Telugu script are sometimes used, although native speakers are said to prefer a Ho script. The latter script was invented by Ott Guru Kol Lako Bodra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kurukh language</span> Dravidian language of eastern India

Kurukh, also Kurux, Oraon or Uranw, is a Dravidian language spoken by the Kurukh (Oraon) and Kisan people of East India. It is spoken by about two million people in the Indian states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar and Tripura, as well as by 65,000 in northern Bangladesh, 28,600 of a dialect called Uranw in Nepal and about 5,000 in Bhutan. Some Kurukh speakers are in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is most closely related to the Malto language. It is marked as being in a "vulnerable" state in UNESCO's list of endangered languages. The Kisan dialect has 206,100 speakers as of 2011.

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Ganesh Narayandas Devy is an Indian cultural activist, literary critic and former professor of English. He is known for the People's Linguistic Survey of India and the Adivasi Academy created by him. He is credited with starting the Bhaashaa research and Publication Centre. He writes in three languages—Marathi, Gujarati and English. His first full-length book in English is After Amnesia (1992). He has written and edited close to ninety books in areas including Literary Criticism, Anthropology, Education, Linguistics and Philosophy.

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The Saurashtra script is an abugida script that is used by Saurashtrians of Tamil Nadu to write the Saurashtra language. The script is of Brahmic origin, although its exact derivation is not known which was later reformed and standardized by T.M.Ram Rai. Its usage has declined, and the Tamil and Latin scripts are now used more commonly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linguistic Survey of India</span>

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Ahirwati is an Indo-Aryan dialect of India. It is spoken within the Ahirwal region located to the south-west of the capital Delhi. It belongs to the Rajasthani language group and is commonly taken to be a dialect of Mewati, but in many respects it is intermediate with the neighbouring varieties of Bangru and Bagri, and is especially close to Shekhawati.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bengali language</span> Indo-Aryan language in Bengal region

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deori language</span> Tibeto-Burman language spoken in northeastern India

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bhumij language</span> Endangered Austroasiatic language of India

Bhumij is an Austroasiatic language belonging to the Munda subfamily, related to Ho, Mundari, and Santali, primarily spoken by Bhumij peoples in the Indian states Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal. As per the 2011 census, only 27,506 people out of 9,11,349 Bhumij people spoke Bhumij as their mother tongue, as most Bhumijas have shifted to one of the regional dominant languages. Thus the language is considered an extremely endangered language.

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Noakhailla (নোয়াখাইল্লা), Noakhali Bengali also known by the demonym Noakhalian, is a dialect of Bengali, spoken by an estimated 7 million people, primarily in the Greater Noakhali region of Bangladesh as well as southern parts of Tripura in India. Outside of these regions, there are substantial numbers of Noakhailla speakers in other parts of Bangladesh; as well as diaspora communities in the Middle East, Italy, Europe and the United States.

Tobdan is a historian and linguist from Himachal Pradesh, India. He is noted for his work on the cultural traditions, histories, and languages of the Lahaul and Spiti district, and some neighboring regions.

The Vaacha: Museum of Voice is an indigenous museum located in Tejgadh village, Gujarat. The museum is part of a larger initiative called the Adivasi Academy, which is an offshoot of the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre based in Vadodara. The museum aims to preserve Adivasi history and culture which otherwise historically has been undocumented because most indigenous communities do not have a written script and therefore much of their traditions and worldview are at risk of decaying. The present director of the initiative is the visual artist and craft revivalist Madan Meena.

References

  1. ↑ Lalmalsawma, David, ‘India speaks 780 languages, 220 lost in last 50 years’, Reuters.com, September 7, 2013, Accessed on January 5, 2015.
  2. ↑ Soman, Sandhya (9 August 2013). "India lost 220 languages in the last 50 years". The Times of India. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  3. ↑ Lalmalsawma, David, ‘India speaks 780 languages, 220 lost in last 50 years’, Reuters.com
  4. ↑ Pathak, Maulik, ‘India becoming a graveyard of languages: Ganesh Devy’, Live Mint, February 22, 2013. Accessed on January 5, 2015. http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/vIbx7ZUHxvTQMbwboNYHPI/India-is-becoming-a-graveyard-of-languages.html
  5. ↑ Lalmalsawma, David, ‘India speaks 780 languages, 220 lost in last 50 years’, Reuters.com
  6. ↑ Singh, Shiv Sahay, ‘Language Survey Reveals Diversity’, The Hindu, July 22, 2013. Accessed on January 5, 2015. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/language-survey-reveals-diversity/article4938865.ece
  7. ↑ Bandopadhyay, Krishnendu, ‘Bengal has highest number of scripts: PLSI’, The Times of India, August 31, 2013. Accessed on January 5, 2013. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Bengal-has-highest-number-of-scripts-PLSI/articleshow/22174671.cms
  8. ↑ Lalmalsawma, David, ‘India speaks 780 languages’, Reuters.com.
  9. ↑ Pathak, Maulik, ‘India becoming a graveyard of languages: Ganesh Devy’, Live Mint.
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