LANGUAGE IN INDIA

A SURVEY OF LANGUAGE PREFERENCES IN
EDUCATION IN INDIA
Omkar N. Koul, Ph.D.

MULTI-LINGUAL CHARACTER OF SOCIETIES

Language in Education policy is directly related to the linguistic situation of a particular region, state or a country. The number of dominant language or languages prevalent in a particular society determines its monolingual, bi- or multilingual character. It is a fact that a majority of countries are defacto multilingual countries as a number of languages are spoken natively within their boundaries. There are over 5000 languages spread over less than 200 independent countries of the world.

The number of languages does vary from country to country. The linguistic character of a particular country determines the issues of language rights, language empowerment, language promotion, language policy and language planning. It is directly related to the use of language or languages in education at different levels.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MONOLINGUAL AND MULTI-LINGUAL COUNTRIES RELATING TO LANGUAGE USE IN EDUCATION

It is obvious that monolingual and bi-/multilingual countries differ in their approaches in language policy in education. In a dominant monolingual approach, the dominant language is assigned prominent role in education and the mother tongues of the linguistic minorities are ignored. The linguistic minorities have to adopt the dominant language for their meaningful survival at different levels. In a multilingual approach, all the languages spoken in the region, state or country is given equal importance as far as their use in different domains is concerned. This approach promotes the development of all the languages and encourages their use in education.

Language policy of the country ensures the teaching of the mother tongues at the elementary level and their use as media of instruction in the early school education. Children may learn other language or languages at the higher levels of their education.

MULTILINGUALISM IS FAST DEVELOPING

The multilingualism is fast developing as a world - wide phenomenon with the opening up of free economy, trade and globalisation. The result being that in the English dominated monolingual countries like the USA, England and Australia, the use of languages of the linguistic minorities including the languages of the migrants are increasingly used in education at the primary level. The voluntary/non governmental organisations are helping the migrant communities in the preservation and maintenance of these languages. There is a growth of language based ethnic schools and cultural centres. Multilingual countries face various problems in the formation and implementation of their language policies in education.

MULTILINGUALISM IN INDIA

The multilingual and multicultural character of India with high rate of illiteracy (of 33%) poses a large number of problems for the use of languages in education. Grierson identified 179 languages and 544 dialects in his Linguistic Survey of India conducted during 1888 and 1927. The 1951 census lists 845 languages including dialects, 60 of which were spoken by more than 10.000 speakers each. The 1961 census lists 1652 mother tongues corresponding to 193 classified languages. The classified languages belong to four families of languages: Austric (20), Dravidian (20), Indo-Aryan (54), Tibeto -Burmese (98) and one of doubtful affiliation. In the 971, 1981 and 1991 Census, distribution of household population is presented along with the Schedule VIII languages and other major languages. It is important to note that the percentage of speakers of 18 languages included in the Schedule VIII of the Constitution is about 96% out of the total household population.

The multilingual, multicultural and multiethnic characteristics of India, varying socio-economic strata of people, complex communication patterns were well recognised during pre-independence period. The Constitution of India devotes 9 articles (Art 343-351) to the issues related to language policy of the Central and State governments. While Hindi in the Devanagri script is recognised as the official language of the Central government along with English as the associate official language (initially for a period of 15 years up to 1965,however continues to be used by the Official Language Act passed in 1963 and amended later in 1967).

The state Governments have a choice to adopt any language or languages listed in the VIII Schedule of the Constitution as the official language in their state. Whereas all the States made a choice in favour of their regional or dominant native language as the official language, Jammu and Kashmir government chose Urdu - a non -native language of the state; some states in the Northeast decided in favour of English. The Constitution protects the right of the linguistic minorities in each state for preservation of their linguistic and cultural identity.

A detailed SURVEY OF LANGUAGE PREFERENCES IN EDUCATION IN INDIA is presented in this report. This is not the end of this paper. This is only an introduction. Entire report is available in PDF format below.

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Omkar N. Koul, Ph.D.

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