LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 2 : 5 August 2002

Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Associate Editor: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.

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MOTHER TONGUES OF INDIA ACCORDING TO THE 1961 CENSUS

B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.

The Language Tables published by the Census of India 1961 is an important milestone in the study of Indian linguistic demography. The Census of India 1961 identified 1652 "mother tongues." "Mother tongues" thus identified may not have been identical to the languages, dialects, or even speech forms of the individuals. These were the labels used by the individuals to identify their speech, when asked to give the name of the early childhood language used in the household of the individual.

The census enumerators were asked to write down the names given by the individuals without making any correction. These mother tongues were then sought to be "rationalized" and identified with the languages or dialects through a careful analysis of the names. Sometimes the individuals gave the name of their caste as their language, not distinguishing between language and caste. Sometimes they gave the name of a language which they did not speak, but which is supposed to be used by the members of the religious group they belonged to. Sometimes, they gave the names of their profession. The region they came from was also used to indicate their speech.

While such mixing of the names of languages with caste, profession, religion, and region, etc. somewhat led to a confusing picture of the actual languages spoken in the country, the process of rationalization often (not always) resulted in the identification of the language or dialect that the individual actually spoke. "It was a fascinating experience. To identify and rationalize these mother tongues, we had to go through various sorts of flyleaves, and maintain a separate box for each state, etc., and correspond with the Superintendent of Census of Operations of each state, and sometimes with the distict collectors," say the then young scholars (Dr. M. R. Ranganatha, Dr. J. Neethivanan, and Dr. M. S. Thirumalai) who were part of the small team of linguists employed by the Language Division of the Census of India Organization.

In retrospect, one could assign language affinity to several of the unclassified mother tongues listed here, and even re-assign the classified individual mother tongues under other languages or dialects. However, for various reasons, the team did not choose to give the identity to some obvious mother tongues listed here. The tabulation/analysis of the mother tongue names was done by the Language Division of the Census of India under the leadership of a senior anthropological linguist, Mr. R. C. Nigam. The Registrar-General and Census Commissioner for the 1961 Census operations, Mr. Asok Mitra, an ICS officer of great calibre, took a keen personal and scholarly interest in planning, executing and analyzing the mother tongue returns.

The names of the mother tongues listed in the Cenus of India 1961 clearly reveal the interesting pscho-social and political dynamics of language use in India. The very same dynamics are still in operation, although the subsequent Census reports on Indian languages somewhat tried to standardize the names, and not present the names of mother tongues as they were given by the people.

An abstract of the list of mother tongues returned in Census of India 1961 is given below. A total of 1652 mother tongue names was identified, but it should be remembered that mother tongues are not identical to languages or dialects.The question as to how many languages are spoken in India is still a question that cannot be answered with certainty. We really need another Linguistic Survey of India that will focus not only on identifying the languages and dialects of India, but will provide the unwritten languages with relevant script systems, prepare monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual dictionaries in the lesser known languages, provide resources for the use of these languages at least up to the elementary level in education, and describe and explain the dynamics of language use and identity in the country. A progressive and democratic nation should always feel proud of its diversity and the strength that it derives from such diversity.

Since the list is long, and it takes quite a bit of time to format the list in the table format, I presented only a part of the list (foreign and unclassified mother tongues) in the last issue of Language in India. What is presented here is a complete list of all the mother tongues enumerated in the Census of India 1961, including those under the foreign and unclassified mother tongues. My thanks are due to Dr. Thirumalai and Miss Kelly Stuart who kindly helped me in formatting this long list.

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