RISING SUN
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2012
- Messages
- 4,015
- Reaction score
- 0
- Country
- Location
India's 'forest of living languages' grows to 880
A staggering 880 languages are spoken in India, a four-year survey will show Thursday, in the first comprehensive study since the 19th century. This major increase from the 122 languages identified in the 2001 census is largely because the threshold for the number of required speakers has been lowered. The People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) has identified more than 780 living languages.
"Another 100 languages spoken in remote areas have escaped our attention and the total is around 880," said linguist Ganesh Devy, 63, who is in charge of the project and the lead author. "This is in contrast to the 122 languages found in the 2001 census, which followed a 40-year policy of omitting languages with less than 10,000 speakers," Devy told dpa.
It is the first comprehensive language study in India since Irish linguist George Grierson's survey on sub-national languages between 1898 and 1928. Devy, who is the founder of the non-profit Bhasha Trust in the western state of Gujarat, led the 60-million-rupee (900,000-dollar) study. He said the survey, which was not government-funded, included languages spoken by as little as four people.
India's linguistic diversity is almost unmatched, given its size, Devy said, as he compared it with Europe, which has 250 languages. India uses 66 scripts, he added. The research was conducted by 3,000 volunteers, who included scholars, activists working with tribal communities, even bus drivers and nomads. The result: Some 50 volumes, running over 35,000 pages. "Now, we are actually creating a forest of living languages or Bhasha Vana (in Hindi) at our tribal academy in Baroda city," Devy said. "In the next eight months, people will be able to walk amid the trees and hear folk songs, tales and voices in different languages via audio guides or speakers planted on every tree."
The survey revealed that a language called Narsi-Farsi is spoken only by thieves in eight states. Meanwhile, transgender communities use a speech variety called Koti, a sort of code language with double meanings. Induction in the community is bound to the ability to use Koti. Kanajibhai Patel, the PLSI co-ordinator in Gujarat, said lesser-known languages such as Bhili - spoken by the Bhil tribe in west-central India - are among the country's fastest-growing languages despite official apathy.
"Bhils are now proud of their mother tongue. The community is assertive and is giving vent to its aspirations and expressions," Patel said. And a large number of languages such as Bhojpuri, spoken in the eastern state of Bihar, are rapidly growing, despite not having a script. Yet, the researchers noted that languages in India are constantly under threat, as is the case worldwide, because of migration, globalisation and cultural domination, which imperils the voices of indigenous and minority communities.
"Young people migrate to the cities for better jobs and lose touch with their mother tongue. They think they would be sidelined if they use their mother tongue and want their children to learn English and Gujarati," Patel said. Siddi, an African language, spoken by descendants of the Bantus - who were brought to Gujarat by the Portuguese as slaves between the 17th and 19th centuries - is now extinct in the region.
"We feel we have lost a big part of our identity," said Faridaben, a Siddi woman in her 50s and a bank employee in Gujarat's Bhavnagar city. "We could have been empowered if our language was alive." Francis Neelam, who worked on the volume about the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands, said that Bo - one of the world's oldest dialects - became extinct three years ago, after its last speaker died.
Bo is one of the 10 dialects used by the Great Andamanese, an indigenous tribe whose language is in peril with only 42 surviving members. "It takes centuries for a community to create a language," said Neelam, from Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
"With the death of a language, die the culture, traditions, history and beliefs of a people. They can never be revived," he added. Yet the rate of decline of India's languages is slower than the global slide. It is estimated that in the last 50 years, up to 220 languages have vanished in India. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), of the 6,000 languages worldwide, 3,000 are likely to disappear by the end of the century, Devy said.
"The project is not about digging up graveyards of dead languages," Devy said. "It is about a responsibility to ensure our languages do not face a global 'phonocide'. The languages forest is an effort in that direction." India's thriving living languages are evident even in the urban jungle of the capital, New Delhi: On the underground train network alone, experts say that as many as 300 languages are spoken.
India's 'forest of living languages' grows to 880 | Business Recorder
A staggering 880 languages are spoken in India, a four-year survey will show Thursday, in the first comprehensive study since the 19th century. This major increase from the 122 languages identified in the 2001 census is largely because the threshold for the number of required speakers has been lowered. The People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) has identified more than 780 living languages.
"Another 100 languages spoken in remote areas have escaped our attention and the total is around 880," said linguist Ganesh Devy, 63, who is in charge of the project and the lead author. "This is in contrast to the 122 languages found in the 2001 census, which followed a 40-year policy of omitting languages with less than 10,000 speakers," Devy told dpa.
It is the first comprehensive language study in India since Irish linguist George Grierson's survey on sub-national languages between 1898 and 1928. Devy, who is the founder of the non-profit Bhasha Trust in the western state of Gujarat, led the 60-million-rupee (900,000-dollar) study. He said the survey, which was not government-funded, included languages spoken by as little as four people.
India's linguistic diversity is almost unmatched, given its size, Devy said, as he compared it with Europe, which has 250 languages. India uses 66 scripts, he added. The research was conducted by 3,000 volunteers, who included scholars, activists working with tribal communities, even bus drivers and nomads. The result: Some 50 volumes, running over 35,000 pages. "Now, we are actually creating a forest of living languages or Bhasha Vana (in Hindi) at our tribal academy in Baroda city," Devy said. "In the next eight months, people will be able to walk amid the trees and hear folk songs, tales and voices in different languages via audio guides or speakers planted on every tree."
The survey revealed that a language called Narsi-Farsi is spoken only by thieves in eight states. Meanwhile, transgender communities use a speech variety called Koti, a sort of code language with double meanings. Induction in the community is bound to the ability to use Koti. Kanajibhai Patel, the PLSI co-ordinator in Gujarat, said lesser-known languages such as Bhili - spoken by the Bhil tribe in west-central India - are among the country's fastest-growing languages despite official apathy.
"Bhils are now proud of their mother tongue. The community is assertive and is giving vent to its aspirations and expressions," Patel said. And a large number of languages such as Bhojpuri, spoken in the eastern state of Bihar, are rapidly growing, despite not having a script. Yet, the researchers noted that languages in India are constantly under threat, as is the case worldwide, because of migration, globalisation and cultural domination, which imperils the voices of indigenous and minority communities.
"Young people migrate to the cities for better jobs and lose touch with their mother tongue. They think they would be sidelined if they use their mother tongue and want their children to learn English and Gujarati," Patel said. Siddi, an African language, spoken by descendants of the Bantus - who were brought to Gujarat by the Portuguese as slaves between the 17th and 19th centuries - is now extinct in the region.
"We feel we have lost a big part of our identity," said Faridaben, a Siddi woman in her 50s and a bank employee in Gujarat's Bhavnagar city. "We could have been empowered if our language was alive." Francis Neelam, who worked on the volume about the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands, said that Bo - one of the world's oldest dialects - became extinct three years ago, after its last speaker died.
Bo is one of the 10 dialects used by the Great Andamanese, an indigenous tribe whose language is in peril with only 42 surviving members. "It takes centuries for a community to create a language," said Neelam, from Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
"With the death of a language, die the culture, traditions, history and beliefs of a people. They can never be revived," he added. Yet the rate of decline of India's languages is slower than the global slide. It is estimated that in the last 50 years, up to 220 languages have vanished in India. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), of the 6,000 languages worldwide, 3,000 are likely to disappear by the end of the century, Devy said.
"The project is not about digging up graveyards of dead languages," Devy said. "It is about a responsibility to ensure our languages do not face a global 'phonocide'. The languages forest is an effort in that direction." India's thriving living languages are evident even in the urban jungle of the capital, New Delhi: On the underground train network alone, experts say that as many as 300 languages are spoken.
India's 'forest of living languages' grows to 880 | Business Recorder
