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> A language is means of communication. That is it!

As any sociolinguist will tell you, languages are partly a means of communication, partly a signal of group identity. The latter trait of human language is why some demographics intentionally take the common language and attempt to make it difficult to understand by outsiders by adding in-group slang and cant. It is why many peoples determine that a person is no longer a member of their community when he/she switches to entirely speaking an outside language.

If you see language merely as a means of communication, a lot of sociographic and inter-ethnic phenomena are going to elude you.

What does that have to do with the topic at hand? I am talking about irrational hatred for a language. Not about how a language can be misused. The misuse of language is secondary. What is the point of knowing about slang and cant if you aren't even going to learn the language in the first place?

> Not about how a language can be misused. The misuse of language is secondary.

Again, use of language as a way to signal group identity and block out others is not "misuse" of a language. It is an inherent part of the human language faculty, it is normal usage. I know that in a venue like this who many participants are developers or sympathetic to the software community, there is a tendency to think of human language like a programming language, as solely a means of communication, purely a matter of "utility", but as I said, that is not how human communities actually work.

As for “irrational hatred”: considering the danger that large languages supported by a central government can pose to regional languages – a danger illustrated by numerous case studies all over the world – the desire of certain South Indians to avoid Hindi is not irrational at all.

> It is an inherent part of the human language faculty, it is normal usage

If it is normal usage then there is nothing to fear right? This logic makes no sense because I don't see this happening with other regional languages vis-a-vis Hindi.

> a danger illustrated by numerous case studies all over the world

Are you telling me that Hindi speaking people are deliberately targeting Tamil and Malayalam while giving a free pass to other linguistic communities? Why don't I see Assamese or Odia people having similar issues with Hindi? Surely they should also feel threatened by Hindi right? But they don't! They are thriving and they continue to speak their own language, maintain their own culture and traditions and also know to speak and write Hindi!

India has a 5000 year recorded history. Never has any language in these 5000 years been deliberately destroyed. I am a Kannadiga. I speak Kannada at home and yet have studied Hindi as my 3rd language and am fluent in it. It hasn't destroyed my culture, tradition or language. I don't see Hindi as a danger. If at all it has enriched my life, my thinking and given me a greater perspective.

But I am open minded enough to know other perspectives. Even if I disagree 100%. Can you share links to some of those studies? I find it hard to believe that any study can come to a conclusion on one Indian language being a danger to another language.

>That turned out to be a big hoax. This is the second time such a frenzy was created for no apparent reason. There is no such "imposition" done by the Centre

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/centre-removes-mandat... The controversial sentence appeared in Section 4.5.9, titled ‘Flexibility in the choice of languages’. It said: “In keeping with the principle of flexibility, .... the study of languages by students in the non-Hindi-speaking states would include the regional language, Hindi and English. ”

This was just a draft. The Centre keeps getting drafts of various policies every single day. Most of them never see the light of the day.

Drafts are made to get people talking about and changes are made as necessary. An example of that is the Net Neutrality draft that was changed radically. Even the "Free basics" program which was part of the initial draft and was removed in the final policy.

These are drafts made at committee level that shouldn't be taken seriously. Only after the Government vets such drafts and puts out a call for "public opinions" would the the draft be finalised into a policy. The State Governments basically preempted the Government's intention. This is what is dangerous. If the State Government starts cornering the Central Government over committee level drafts then it creates a situation where the Government wouldn't even make public any draft policy fearing backlash. Instead have patience and see what the Central Government does with the drafts. All policies go through a call for "public opinion" and until and unless all issues related to public opinion are not taken into account it won't be finalised into a policy.

So it was a daft draft. Nothing to worry then.

Obviously it was! Why else would it be changed to remove Hindi being compulsory and only talk about 3 language formula?

The only daftness in this process was that the entire Government machinery had to be put in force just to allay the fears of one State over a committee's draft policy.

If this sort of reactionary response becomes the norm, then the Central Government will just stop publishing draft policies on their websites and instead wait until the final draft is ready. I prefer that as we have too many emotional people in the country who have no patience to wait for the final draft.

A language is means of communication very true. Let's hope North Indian at least now learn south indian languages and improve communication.

> North Indian at least now learn south indian languages and improve communication.

Am a North Indian living in Blore. You are right. The thing is there is no incentive to learn Kannada for me. At work everyone speaks English, outside of work too, English does it for me. I have never had the need to learn Kannada in Blore. I found its requirement when I went to Hampi and other than that in Blore itself I never felt handicapped for not being able to speak in Kannada. I know that its my fault, learning local language is always nice to experience local culture, but I have been lazy and English is slowly but certainly replacing all Indian languages.