The idea that a tongue spoken by a large number of people across a territory is ‘pure’ and therefore must not be changed is wrong
Our perception of language, formulation of language policies and their implementation, and our attitudes to other languages are all almost invariably polluted by the myths about language that we effortlessly inherit, nourish and transmit to our subsequent generations; we make sure that the damage is irreparable and irreversible. As long ago as 1620, Francis Bacon in his celebratedNovum Organum warned us against the idols of the ‘Cave, Tribe, Theatre and the Market Place’ that impede any scientific enquiry. We persistently refuse to listen to him. Unless some major steps are taken at the school and college levels, and the study of language is brought out of the clutches of traditional prescriptive rote-learnt grammar to be replaced by a scientific study of language, the future will continue to be what the present is and the past has been. We will continue to neglect the languages of children and the community; the levels of silence will continue to increase in classrooms; the clamour for English will become more intense, privileging a handful and neglecting the majority on the margins. Yes, there is something inherently wrong with the formulation ‘minorities on the margins’; thoseminoritiesconstitute the majority of our population.*
**DIALECTSOne such myth concerns the language/dialect dichotomy. Linguists who work on the science of language use these terms with the awareness that these are related varieties which are equally systematically organised at the levels of sounds, words, sentences, meaning and discourse. They are fully aware that what is one language today may become two languages tomorrow (mark the cases of Hindi and Urdu emerging from Hindustani or Serbian and Croatian from Serbo-Croatian) or that mothers may come to be called daughters (or dialects) as is the case with languages like Braj, Maithili, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, etc., which people without even a moment’s thought dismiss as dialects of Hindi. They are not even aware that not so long ago great poets considered it below their dignity to write poetry in Hindi; they would rather write in Braj. Linguists are also aware that what are pidgins and creoles of today may become standard languages of tomorrow and vice versa. Standardisation is a socio-political process that takes a particular variety through the process of codification and elaboration through grammars, dictionaries and reference materials of different kinds. Any variety given that opportunity has the inherent potential to become what we will legitimately call a ‘standard language’.**
There are also idols of the cave that individuals nourish in their minds because they, as Bacon said, would love to see things as they think they ought to be rather than as they are. Since such myths permeate almost every individual mind, they become a part of our social psyche. People who have never bothered to read the Constitution of India claim vehemently that Hindi is our national language. Our Constitution was a product of intense Constituent Assembly Debates (CAD), particularly in the case of language. Following the CAD, several provisions regarding language were made in the Indian Constitution. Articles 343-351 of part XVII and the 8th Schedule deal with issues of languages of the country. Hindi is the official and not the national language of the Union and English continues to be our associate official language. And yet, most people and several of our books declare Hindi to be our national language. It took 66 deaths and two self-immolations in the anti-Hindi student agitation of Tamil Nadu for the government to realise that a language could not be imposed on any people against their wishes and that repression of a student movement would automatically involve parents, teachers and the whole community. English was assured the status of the Associate Official language in 1965. Resolving the issue of national language by having official languages instead was a stroke of striking genius. Still, the myth of a national language (Hindi) dominates the Indian psyche.
Consider the case of the 8th Schedule of our Constitution. Ask anybody what it is called. The stock answers would include: ‘Indian languages; National languages of India; Regional languages of India; Official languages of the State’ among others. It is just called: Languages. The 8th Schedule started with only 14 languages; soon Sindhi had to be included and now it has 22 languages and still remains an open list. Languages (hitherto dismissed as dialects or minority/tribal languages or dehati, etc.) like Konkani, Manipuri, Bodo, Nepali, Dogri and Santhali among others would have never made it to the list but for the wisdom of our Constitution makers. They could indeed rise above the traditional myths. This rather naïve looking listing was simply a stroke of ‘raw genius’ as it built another bridge between the multi-linguality of India and identity of groups of people. Since it was an open list, more could be added to it; the inclusion, on the one hand, would cost almost nothing to the State in financial or administrative terms but lend a distinct aura to the language to be included, on the other.
‘PERFECT’ SANSKRITAnother linguistic myth that dominates the Indian consciousness is that there is indeed something special about Sanskrit; it is a perfect language, spoken with perfection and written in a perfect script. Many people believe that it is the mother of all the languages of the world; most are certain that it is the mother of at least all Indian languages. There is of course no doubt that all Indo-Aryan languages like Bangla, Gujarati, Marathi, Hindi, Punjabi, etc., descend directly from Sanskrit; but it is equally true that languages of the Tibeto-Burman family in the North-East, languages belonging to the Dravidian family in the South and Munda languages of different tribes across India have very little to do with Sanskrit. Many of them of course borrow extensively from Sanskrit just as languages of the Indo-Aryan family borrow from others but that does not, by any stretch of imagination, make them daughters of Sanskrit.***
Yet another major stereotype concerns the relationship between sound and script. Once again, Devanagari is considered superior to other scripts; Sanskrit, people say, is written in it, both the language and the script coming as it were from the gods themselves, and there is thought to be perfect isomorphism between sound and script here. Little do people realise that Sanskrit is actually written in over 14 scripts and can potentially be written in any script of the world with some minor changes. There is then no inherent relationship between sounds and scripts. We can easily invent a completely new script for any language in a couple of days. It should be common sense to appreciate that any set of people who sit down to evolve a new script for a given language would not do anything less than developing a systematic correspondence between sounds and script symbols. It should also be obvious that over a period of time, serious discrepancies would develop between the spoken and the written language simply because speech changes much faster than the written word. There are also several other socio-political and cultural reasons to keep the script intact; on the other hand, there is little we can do about the constantly changing speech. Such are the idols of the theatre that are created by a set of scholars with limited learning or with specific agendas.
The culmination of such myths takes place in the concept of “a pure standard language (say X)”, a concept cherished and perpetuated by great scholars and accepted, no wonder, by society at large including teachers and parents. Who represents this X best, say in English: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Shaw, Keats or Eliot? Who embodies it best in Hindi: Prem Chand, Prasad, Dwivedi, Renu or Kedar Nath Singh? Or where in India or abroad is standard Hindi spoken? Think hard. You may soon arrive at the accurate answer that except for a handful of streets in, say, Meerut or Allahabad, nowhere. People speak Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Maithili, Braj and their varieties over large tracts but that standard Hindi (for that matter any standard X) is ‘spoken over a large area, has a unique script, is grammatical, has a rich literary tradition behind it’ is the kind of myth we need to fight if we wish every human being in the world to live with a sense of dignity.
How do we go about this project? In our schools, normally from Class two, at least 2-3 classes are devoted to grammar of, in the case of many parts of north India, Hindi, Sanskrit and English. This is true across the country, though the names of the languages change. And yet, by the end of 10-12 years of such teaching, children hardly understand anything about the nature and structure of language, and myths about language continue to get perpetuated. It is now eminently possible to replace these classes by the scientific study of language which would subsume grammars of different languages. This will also be the child’s first introduction to the methods of logical enquiry. All data is present in the minds of children and they have the cognitive potential to classify, categorise and analyse, and formulate generalisations. They just need the right kind of guidance. No costs involved except hiring linguistically trained teachers or training existing faculty in the science of language. Given that language is constitutive of our identity and all knowledge is eventually constructed through language, the importance of this project can hardly be overestimated
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Re: Story of languages!
Latest research says same for Sindhi and I'm sure Punjabi is also not descendent from Sanskrit.
[QUOTE]
Many people believe that it is the mother of all the languages of the world; most are certain that it is the mother of at least all Indian languages. There is of course no doubt that all Indo-Aryan languages like Bangla, Gujarati, Marathi, Hindi, Punjabi, etc., descend directly from Sanskrit; but it is equally true that languages of the Tibeto-Burman family in the North-East, languages belonging to the Dravidian family in the South and Munda languages of different tribes across India have very little to do with Sanskrit. Many of them of course borrow extensively from Sanskrit just as languages of the Indo-Aryan family borrow from others but that does not, by any stretch of imagination, make them daughters of Sanskrit.***
[/QUOTE]
Re: Story of languages!
Re: Story of languages!
I think that Punjabi, Urdu, Sindhi, all share the same origins. This is why they share the grammar, the structure of sentences, and also vocabulary.
Re: Story of languages!
I think that Punjabi, Urdu, Sindhi, all share the same origins. This is why they share the grammar, the structure of sentences, and also vocabulary.
There's a lot of impact of Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi on each other. During different eras during the past thousands of years, all or some of these areas have remained parts of the same empires and then they share borders.
Re: Story of languages!
South Indian view on Hindi’s qualifications for official language status were reflected in Annadurai’s response to the “numerical superiority of Hindi” argument:*** “If we had to accept the principle of numerical superiority while selecting our national bird, the choice would have fallen not on the peacock but on the common crow” 
Re: Story of languages!
Is Hindi mother tongue of majority population in India? 
Re: Story of languages!
There is something special about Sanskrit alright. My own language has been classified as a classical language same as Sanskrit. The preconditions by the Govt to declare a language as a classical language is : High antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1500-2000 years; A body of ancient literature/texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers; The literary tradition be original and not borrowed from another speech community; The classical language and literature being distinct from modern, there may also be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots" Having studied Sanskrit for 7 years, I can claim that no other language’s grammer is as structured, precise or mathematical as Sanskrit. It is considered by many as the worlds first spoken object-oriented language. I can’t but admire our Sanskrit speaking ancestors esp Panani whose grammatical rehaul of Sanskrit language is being used in metalinguistic formulas to describe the syntax of programming languages. So **yes, Sanskrit is special **and the first and only kind of this in the world
Re: Story of languages!
Approximately 33-40% of Indians claim Hindi as their mother tongue making it the largest spoken language in India. This ofcourse includes all the dialects too.
Re: Story of languages!
Approximately 33-40% of Indians claim Hindi as their mother tongue making it the largest spoken language in India. This ofcourse includes all the dialects too.
Do they consider urdu as a dialect of Hindi?
Re: Story of languages!
I don’t think so but I may be wrong. On one hand urdu is considered as a separate language on the otherhand both Urdu-hindi are lumped together as hindustani .
- Western Hindi[SUP][3]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi_languages#cite_note-3)[/SUP]
- Braj (Braj Bhasha, Brajbhakha), spoken in western Uttar Pradesh and adjacent districts of Rajasthan and Haryana
- Haryanvi (Bangaru), spoken in the states of Haryana and Delhi.
- Bundeli (Bundelkhandi), spoken in west-central Madhya Pradesh.
- Kannauji, spoken in west-central Uttar Pradesh.
- Khari boli, the standard dialect, generally identified with the grammatical core of Kauravi (vernacular Hindustani), but displaying features of other dialects and adjacent languages, as well as non-Indo-Aryan languages such as Persian. It forms the basis of the Hindustani language, with its standard registers of Urdu and Modern Standard Hindi.
- Eastern Hindi
- Awadhi, spoken in north and north-central Uttar Pradesh and in Fiji (Fijian Hindi).
- Bagheli, spoken in north-central Madhya Pradesh and central Uttar Pradesh.
- Chattisgarhi, spoken in southeast Madhya Pradesh and northern and central Chattisgarh. Hindi languages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Re: Story of languages!
Kannauji is my all time favourite dialect in Hindi 
Sanskrit letters are used in almost every Indian language, even South Indian language start with A Aa E Ee…, The syntax of sanskrit is different from Hindi. Hindi has just singular and plural for noun and pronoun while Sanskrit has singular, then for two, and then for many (plural)
Wah jaat hai- Sah Gchatih
Wo dono jaate hain- tau gchatah
Sab Jaate hain- Te gchantih
Hindi has just two form, singular and plural, grammer of Hindi is more similar to English then to Sanskrit
So what hindi maximally got from Sanskrit is words, Tatsam-directely from sanskrit and tadbhav- slight aberration of sanskrit
My name is kaur becomes Mam namaah Kaur Asti
I never understood South Indian’s reluctance to learn this language, even punjabis were reluctant initially. Learning english doesn’t hurt them but learning Hindi does
The way Hindi is expanding, it will become national language automatically, another case of De facto becoming De jure
Yes, Hindustani is biggest language group followed by Bengali
No, Urdu always had status, it was language of princely elite, the language itself was patronized by Muslim rulers and even like in case of Ghalib by British as well. Hindi on the other hand was never patronized before independence, Tamil was patronized by Cholas, Telugu by Vijayanagar empire, Kannada by mysore but hindi was always orphan, gathering itself and standing on its own, produced wonderful Ramcharitmanas and Sur Sagar and then contribution by muslims like Abdul Rahim Khan-e-Khana and Krishna devotee Raskhan.
Malik Muhammad Jayasi was the first individual who wrote book in Khadi boli (standardized hindi) called Padmavat
Re: Story of languages!
Kannauji is my all time favourite dialect in Hindi :) Sanskrit letters are used in almost every Indian language, even South Indian language start with A Aa E Ee..., The syntax of sanskrit is different from Hindi. Hindi has just singular and plural for noun and pronoun while Sanskrit has singular, then for two, and then for many (plural)
Wah jaat hai- Sah Gchatih Wo dono jaate hain- tau gchatah Sab Jaate hain- Te gchantih
Hindi has just two form, singular and plural, grammer of Hindi is more similar to English then to Sanskrit
Arabic also got same structure. Three forms for singular, plural.
Re: Story of languages!
Arabic also got same structure. Three forms for singular, plural.
And also Arabic has same importance as Sanskrit :)
Discrimination is human nature, the idea of discrimination is not only confined to human but languages also :). I never understood how one language can be better than another. they are just languages. How can hindi be less beautiful than arabic or persian or tamil or sindhi or Kashmiri.
Personally Hindi is the only language where I never made mistake in spelling, because of hindi comics in early age. and only subject that is my responsibility to teach my kids :)
special thanks for this to PM AB Vajpayee, "hum vijayi hue hain hum mein vinamrta hai, prajay mein to atmamanthan hona chaiye." we are modest even after winning, one should be introspective after losing :)"
Re: Story of languages!
I don’t think that it is reluctance to learn, it is mostly not wanting to use that for official communications. Try to understand, all the south Indian languages have the status of classical languages because they have been in continuous use from antiquity. So people are proud of their languages. The Dravidian languages have nothing in common with Indo-Aryan languages and are considered as the original native languages. Another fact is that Hindi has never been in use as an official means of communication by kingdoms or the british before independence. Urdu yes but not hindi. So after independence, the proposal to make an alien to the south language like Hindi a national language was seen as cultural invasion. 
Most south Indians learn their native language and one non native language. Most opt for English since the dream is to work for MNCs or abroad not the govt of India unless one wants to become an IAS/IPS officer. Even then engineering and medicine trumps civil services as a profession choice for kids in the eyes of the parents. So learning another non-native language takes more effort since there is precious little time left over from maths and science. Funnily enough, Sanskrit is not met with the same reluctance. If India had decided on Sanskrit as national language like Israel made Hebrew national language , I don’t think there would be much opposition. People still learn Hindi from watching Bollywood movies. That is how I did.
I can understand hindi well enough but can speak only in broken sentences. In other words, my receptive language is better than my expressive language where Hindi is concerned. Last but not the least is the attitude. In my personal exp itself, I have had North Indians utter with consternation when I told them that I don’t speak hindi. They were dismayed by the fact that I could not speak the “national language” questioned my patriotism in not many words and proceeded to ignore me and another south Indian friend of mine by talking only in Hindi when we were around. I am proud to say that we tried to be more inclusive and used English to include them in our conversation and they claimed that they were not comfortable carrying whole conversations in English :D. Well this was almost a decade ago in my student days and the North Indians in particular were UP wallahs and I don’t want to tar all northies with the same brush. Now times are changing but I am not familiar with the education System in the South w.r.t languages but I can say that Hindi is still only used for govt signboards in offices and railway stations. But maybe the present generation is much comfortable with hindi than we were and hindi will slowly find acceptance. You never know , language is a very sensitive cultural symbol and we have had north-south “wars” and even south-south “wars” over language superiority. That is I think a fallacy of human nature.
Re: Story of languages!
I do not get the difference between not want to use in official language and reluctance to learn. South Indians have every reason to be proud of their language but putting gobar on Hindi signs in Madras Zoo as I saw, was more outrageous. Hindi still is not national language, infact we don't have any national language but only official language. Choosing english over his hindi is understandable but it sounds more like choosing international crow than desi one :D. Hindi is not the language of many. Punjabis learnt it, Bengalis learnt it, even people from north east and nepal can speak it. But somehow, South Indians feel it as cultural invasion. Looks like "Ignorance is better than knowledge":D
Re: Story of languages!
I do not get the difference between not want to use in official language and reluctance to learn. South Indians have every reason to be proud of their language but putting gobar on Hindi signs in Madras Zoo as I saw, was more outrageous. Hindi still is not national language, infact we don't have any national language but only official language. Choosing english over his hindi is understandable but it sounds more like choosing international crow than desi one :D. Hindi is not the language of many. Punjabis learnt it, Bengalis learnt it, even people from north east and nepal can speak it. But somehow, South Indians feel it as cultural invasion. Looks like "Ignorance is better than knowledge":D
I don't agree with putting gober or signs of any language. It smacks of extremism. But I admit that South Indians think more International in their approach. If there exists a choice between learning 2 new languages, we opt for English because of the opportunities that opens up. If you see in the US today, South Indians are immigrating in droves. Most temples in the US have priests who come form the South and ability to speak the southern langs is a must along with Hindi for the priests to even qualify for visa :DI know that it not true but in the villages many people think other than Delhi and Bombay, N India does not have much to offer in terms of easing the economic burden. Every villager knows California though and they also know that kids working in California means they can afford to get kids married, build a better house etc. It is just plain economics. Since humans are by and large lazy, they don't bother abt leaning anything but the min required lang to better their lives. Adding extra language into the mix is a waste of time. I am not talking of Hindi only, even suggesting any other local language is also met with boohoo. So I am sorry to say English trumps anything else. I suppose economy trumps cultural patriotism . Sorry !:D
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today is the other case, When actual debate took place there were no such opportunities, this entire economic argument is very new. I feel there was some cultural issue that they feel with Hindi, sometime the outright arrogance feels like that Hindi is not considered at par with the native language in South or may be it is because they think Hindi will culturally invade their region and are safe with English instead
Re: Story of languages!
today is the other case, When actual debate took place there were no such opportunities, this entire economic argument is very new. I feel there was some cultural issue that they feel with Hindi, sometime the outright arrogance feels like that Hindi is not considered at par with the native language in South or may be it is because they think Hindi will culturally invade their region and are safe with English instead
yes Cultural invasion is one aspect. Remember, I mentioned that before independence south did not have exposure to hindi. So many feel threatened when national languages are proposed since they think that their language will lose prominence. Having said that, hindi is taught as 3rd lang in the south in schools but that is not enough to make them proficient speakers since the language is not native to the region. Making it an official language means that they will have to make an effort for proficiency which takes them outside their comfort zone. It is not the study of hindi but the time and effort required that will be needed if made an official language that people don't want esp when it doesn't better their lives in any ways economically. I suppose, they are more content with the status quo. Economy and languages are related to an extent. That is why US schools have started teaching Mandarin :D
Re: Story of languages!
^ I got my answer from this :)