Languages of India

#1

Post by happy-go-lucky » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 10:55 AM UTC

Re: Languages of India

#2

Post by neuralzen » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

When I visited Himachel Predesh I stayed a few days in a remote Himalayan village named Malana, sometimes referred to as "The Village of Taboos" due to all of the rules they have, largely concerning outsiders. Outsiders are not allowed to touch a Malanan person, touch or enter a building, or even speak the village language even if the outsider know some of it. They also claimed to be the world's oldest continuous democracy, and descendants of Alexander the Great's armies. Definitely a strange and fascinating society.

Re: Languages of India

#3

Post by vikramkr » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

The number of languages is stunning. Does anyone know if the number of languages is just the officially named languages or if it includes creoles? The language I speak is a creole of two languages and doesnt have a name or writing system really, and I'm curious to know how that is counted.

Re: Languages of India

#4

Post by abhiyerra » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 4:36 PM UTC

vikramkr wrote: post #3

The number of languages is stunning. Does anyone know if the number of languages is just the officially named languages or if it includes creoles? The language I speak is a creole of two languages and doesnt have a name or writing system really, and I'm curious to know how that is counted.

There are quite a few dialects. I don’t have the source off hand but something like 300. Also it is fun seeing the rupee notes because they have the denomination written in each of the scripts.

Re: Languages of India

#5

Post by staticautomatic » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

vikramkr wrote: post #3

The number of languages is stunning. Does anyone know if the number of languages is just the officially named languages or if it includes creoles? The language I speak is a creole of two languages and doesnt have a name or writing system really, and I'm curious to know how that is counted.

I'd consider "Mumbai Hindi" a creole. It's nominally a dialect of Hindi/Urdu but it has a lot of Marathi mixed in, among other languages.

Re: Languages of India

#6

Post by peterburkimsher » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

This may be a long shot, but could anybody help me find a Bible in Oriya?

Last year I did some research into Unicode PUA characters and discovered some unencoded Taiwanese & Hakka characters. I wrote a proposal to add them to Unicode, and a blog post on Medium (called Hakka news).

Now I've done the same for all languages on Bible.com, and I'm trying to compare with printed copies to know what the text should say.

Re: Languages of India

#7

Post by Jagat » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

It's amazing how most Indians believe that Hindi is the national language of India, when there's no such as a national language in India.

There are two official languages for union government communication - Hindi and English.

I've also noticed that a lot of non Indians find it funny that most Indians here in bay area companies communicate among themselves in heavily accented English instead of The Indian language.

Re: Languages of India

#8

Post by jfk13 » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

peterburkimsher wrote: post #6

This may be a long shot, but could anybody help me find a Bible in Oriya? Last year I did some research into Unicode PUA characters and discovered some unencoded Taiwanese & Hakka characters. I wrote a proposal to add them to Unicode, and a blog post on Medium (called Hakka news). Now I've done the same for all languages on Bible.com, and I'm trying to compare with printed copies to know what the text should say.

Try https://odia.bible ?

Re: Languages of India

#9

Post by jfk13 » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:24 PM UTC

abhiyerra wrote: post #4

vikramkr wrote: post #3

The number of languages is stunning. Does anyone know if the number of languages is just the officially named languages or if it includes creoles? The language I speak is a creole of two languages and doesnt have a name or writing system really, and I'm curious to know how that is counted.

There are quite a few dialects. I don’t have the source off hand but something like 300. Also it is fun seeing the rupee notes because they have the denomination written in each of the scripts.

The distinction between "language" and "dialect" is far from clear-cut, and often determined as much by socio-political as linguistic factors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_a...

Re: Languages of India

#10

Post by _emacsomancer_ » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

Jagat wrote: post #7

It's amazing how most Indians believe that Hindi is the national language of India, when there's no such as a national language in India. There are two official languages for union government communication - Hindi and English. I've also noticed that a lot of non Indians find it funny that most Indians here in bay area companies communicate among themselves in heavily accented English instead of The Indian language.

The original plan was, of course, to phase out English as a national language. This never happened, I suppose partially because while 'Hindustani' (as was) made sense as a symbol of unity during the time leading up to Independence, afterwards, especially as 'Hindi', it was seen more as a regional language (even if the region involved is large) and so not necessarily more deserving of official nation-level status than Bengali or Tamil. English ends up being more neutral in many ways (though, of course, not without its own (post-colonial) baggage).

> I've also noticed that a lot of non Indians find it funny that most Indians here in bay area companies communicate among themselves in heavily accented English instead of The Indian language.

Ah, yes, of course, 'the Indian language'. :)