LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 20:11 November 2020
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

Celebrate India!
Unity in Diversity!!

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‘One Language, Many Tongues’ –
An Exploration into the Mother Tongues of Hindi

Prof. B. Mallikarjun

The Online Journal – Language in India published the paper Metamorphosis of ‘Hindi’ in Modern India – A Study of Census of India in August 2019 (Vol.19 Issue 8). ‘The Hindu’ newspaper on Sep 17, 2019 in its Data Point portrayed Hindi as ‘One Language, many tongues’. This paper explores the statistical realism of Hindi language and the mother tongues of it with the help of the Census data of post-independence India.

The makers of the Constitution of India were clearly aware of the difference between mother tongue and language. Hence the Constitution differentiates between these concepts. The Article 120 states that in the Parliament ‘… business shall be transacted in Hindi or in English but … the Speaker of the House may … permit any member who cannot adequately express himself in Hindi or in English to address the House in his mother-tongue.’ Similarly, in case of the Legislature the Article 210 states that ‘… business in the Legislature of a State shall be transacted in the official language or languages of the State or in Hindi or in English,’ but… ‘the Chairman of the Legislature … may permit any member who cannot adequately express himself in any of the languages aforesaid to address the House in his mother-tongue.’

Not only in this domain of official transaction but also in the domain of education the Article 350A states that ‘It shall be the endeavour of every State and of every local authority within the State to provide adequate facilities for instruction in the mother-tongue at the primary stage of education to children belonging to linguistic minority groups;’ (italics mine). Hence in India, both ‘mother tongue’ and ‘language’ are not only linguistically but also educationally, socially, and politically relevant, important and different concepts.

Now, Hindi language is an inimitable formation, unheard elsewhere, an abstract entity; mother tongue components of it are concrete entities. As Professor Suniti Kumar Chatterji wrote, it was man-made by bringing together several inherently related and now functionally beneficial mother tongues also. The Census of India elicits information of mother tongues of citizens, not of languages and processes and collates them into languages. Thus, in India language is abstract and mother tongue is authentic.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Prof. B. Mallikarjun
Former Director
Centre for Classical Kannada
Central University of Karnataka
Kadaganchi, Aland Road
Kalaburagi District - 585311
KARNATAKA, INDIA
mallikarjun56@gmail.com
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