LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 11 : 2 February 2011
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.

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Provision for Linguistic Diversity and
Linguistic Minorities in India

A Masters Dissertation in Applied Linguistics and ELT

Vanishree V.M., MAPL and ELT, M.A., PGDHRM.

India is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world. Most languages in India belong to one of the four language families: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burmese and Austro-Asiatic. According to the 2001 Indian Census there are a total of 122 languages and 234 mother tongues. However, these figures cannot be accepted as final as the Census does not report languages spoken by fewer than 10,000 speakers (for instance, in 1961 around 1652 mother tongues were returned in the Census but only 193 languages were classified).

When India gained its Independence in 1947, the framers of the Constitution had a tremendous task to do. They had to put together a Constitution that not only preserved political unity, but also acknowledged and promoted cultural and linguistic diversity. Constitutional safeguards were put in place in order to protect and nurture linguistic diversity, such as the "Eighth Schedule" (ES); this was included in the Constitution in order to provide official status to many Indian languages. The initial proposal to adopt Hindi as National Language was dropped, as it provoked conflict in a country in which language differences often reinforced ethnic or religious divisions.

The Education Policy was devised to provide for link languages that would aid in the assimilation of minority language groups. In addition, the states were re-organised on the basis of dominant regional languages in order to protect the interests of linguistically diverse communities. However all this has led to a complex situation in which the 22 languages listed under the Eighth Schedule have a special status, which allows them dominance over other minority languages. Furthermore, some languages are the majority in one state and a minority in another, leading to two different types of minority languages: a) minorities that are a majority in some other state and b) minor minorities that are not dominant in any state. In addition, the Constitutional safeguards prescribed are also only declarative in nature and therefore cast no burden on the State to implement them.

Then how has India managed to sustain as a unified country despite this? It is only because of its willingness to adapt and recognise the considerable variation that exists.

This is only the beginning part of the dissertation. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE DISSERTATION IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Call for Papers for a Language in India www.languageinindia.com Special Volume on
Autobiography and Biography in Indian Writing in English | Call for Papers for a Special Volume on Indian Writing in English - Analysis of Select Novels of 2009-2010 | Hoping Against Hope: A Discourse on Perumal Murugan's Koolla Madari (Seasons of the Palm) | Ghanaian English: Spelling Pronunciation in Focus | The Relationship between Gaining Mastery on 'Content' (School Subject Matters) and 'Linguistic Competence Level in Second Language' through Immersion Program | Reader-centric and Text-centric Approaches to Novel - A Study of Intertextuality in Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence | Which One Speaks Better? The Field-Dependent or the Field-Independent? On the Effects of Field-Dependent/Field-Independent Cognitive Styles and Gender on Iranian EFL Learners' Speaking Performance | A Critical Look into Basic Assumptions of Teaching English as an International Language (EIL) | Digital Storytelling - A Case Study on the Teaching of Speaking to Indonesian EFL Students | The Reasons behind Writing Problems for Jordanian Secondary Students 2010-2011 | A Multidimensional Approach to Cross-Cultural Communication | A Study to Identify Problems Faced by the Heads of Secondary Schools in Kohat in North-Western Frontier Province, Pakistan | Go Beyond Education to Professionalism - Transition from Campus to Corporate | Impact of Students' Attitudes on their Achievement in English - A Study in the Yemeni Context - A Master's Degree Dissertation in TESL | Natural and Supernatural Elements in Arun Joshi's The City and the River | Pedagogical Values Obtained from a Language Class in an EFL Context - A Case Study from Indonesia | A New Tone in ELT - Positive Uses of Translation in Remedial Teaching and Learning | Training Dilemma: Analysis of Positive/Negative Feedback from the Workplace Setting in Pakistan | Learning Styles and Teaching Strategies: Creating a Balance | A Study on Evaluating the Discourse Skills of Engineering Students in Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India | Syntax and Semantics Interface of Verbs | History Revisited in Oral History by Nadine Gordimer | Provision for Linguistic Diversity and Linguistic Minorities in India - A Masters Dissertation in Applied Linguistics and ELT | A Speech Act Analysis of Jane Eyre | Matriarchal and Mythical Healing in Gloria Naylor's Mama Day | Impact of Project Based Method on Performance of Students | Computer: A Device for Learning English Language - A Summary of Advantages and Disadvantages | Mobile Phone Culture and its Psychological Impacts on Students' Learning at the University Level | Review of English and Soft Skills by S. P. Dhanavel (Orient BlackSwan, Hyderabad, 2010) | A PRINT VERSION OF ALL THE PAPERS OF FEBRUARY, 2011 ISSUE IN BOOK FORMAT. This document is better viewed if you open it online and then save it in your computer. After saving it in your computer, you can easily read all the pages from the saved document. | HOME PAGE | CONTACT EDITOR languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com

Vanishree V.M., MAPL and ELT, M.A., PGDHRM.
St Mary's University College
London
UK
vanivm@gmail.com

 
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