Answer:

2.L

anguages of Mass Media

: The nation has newspapers and/or periodicals in 87

languages with varying degrees of regularity and readership. Radio programs are still

mostly under the government domination (with the exception of a few recent FM

stations) and they beam programs in 24 languages and 146 “dialects” (so called –

not on the basis of any sound historical linguistic principles, but only because of the

fact they are mostly oral modes of expression), whereas films are made in 15

languages.

3.Written Languages

: In a recent survey conducted by Padmanabha, Mahapatra,

Verma and McConnel (1989), we are told that out of the 96 languages surveyed of

the 114 languages listed in Census 1981, 50 were found to have written modes of

expression. Although by the end of the 19th century many major Indian languages

were put to some kind of writing, the writing systems did not spread across the

whole society. In the initial period, these included writings by both scholars and nonnative missionaries, but without native participation, every such written language

lapsed back to an unwritten state.

4.L

ink Languages and Speech Variation

: Every language area consists of at least

three inter-languages. Widely accepted and understood languages have variants.

Hindi alone has 48, which has resulted in a functional hierarchy of Indian languages,

with Hindi and English occupying the top spot, followed by the 16 other official

languages of the states and territories plus four others (that include Dogri, Maithili,

and Rajasthani), which are RECOGNISED as vehicles of significant literature.

5.Numerous ‘Other tongues

’: There are 23 “other” languages with a million plus

speakers (including Awadhi, Bagri, Bhili, Bhojpuri, Chattisgarhi, Deccani, Kangri,

Garhwali, Haryanvi, Ho, Kanauji, Khandeshi, Kumaoni, Kurux, Lamani, Magahi,

Malvi, Marwari, Meitei, Mundari, Nimadi, Sadari and Tulu), followed by hundreds of

still other speech varieties at the bottom of the ladder.

6.S

peech Variation in early surveys

: The picture of changing space of Indian

languages becomes clearer if one looks into older demographic records, like the

census returns of Bombay (1864), Madras Presidency (1871) and Bengal (1872),

and then systematically compares information on linguistic composition of the

country as collected through the succeeding decennial censuses of the country from

1891 to 2001. Grierson’s LSI (The Linguistic Survey of India), conducted between

1886 and 1927, was another source of information of the linguistic composition of

the region. It had a total number of 179 languages and 544 dialects (Grierson,

1927), although these figures are of limited consequence today because he had to

include many regions that are no longer part of the country, and there are many

other parts of the country that did not receive adequate coverage at the time.

7.P

icture after Independence: 1961 and 1971 Attempts

: After Independence, an

attempt was made in the 1961 census to present the mother tongue data in the

same classification SCHEME as that of Grierson. A list of 193 classified languages

(excluding foreign and unclassified tongues) was identified out of a total of 1,652

mother tongue labels enumerated. The 1971 census, which defined ‘language’ in

terms of broad demo- and geolinguistic units, showed a list of 105 languages each

with a speaker strength of 10,000 and above on the all India level.

8.Rationalisation of Mother Tongue Figures

: Until the census of India 1881 came out,

because innumerable mother tongue labels were floated during each census taken at

ten year intervals, there was great difficulty in arriving at a rationalised figure. For

example, the 1961 and 1971 census figures of raw labels numbered around 3,000,

which JUMPED in 1981 to around 7,000 and touched an all-time high in 1991, when

more than 10,000 were returned. The task of presenting a meaningful linguistic

picture of the entire country required that the census produce a list of rationalised

mother tongues. This was how the 1961 figure as 1,652 was announced, whereas in

1991 it was 1,576. FINALLY, in the Census of India, 1991, the total number of

languages arrived at was 114