How to count every language in India (2018)
atlasobscura.com
atlasobscura.com
Our language has been preserved though the common speak and has no agreed upon script, so it is majorly taught to the children by their parents and relatives. Most of us know Tamil/Kannada/Telugu because of the main language in the place we live in and also use it to publish local magazines.
The magazines though are published in Hindi, Tamil, Sourashtra scripts, the interest is declining at a fast rate. Fewer people want to buy and even fewer want to write. In my city, some are distributed for free only to see it being used for packing pakodas and samosas. Another factor is, many in our community marry people from outside the communities (I'm not against that) and their children can barely understand the language. Our language is still not in the endangered category, but I see it becoming one in the coming decades. More people in our community are getting educated, becoming modern (by western standards), want their children to communicate in English and as a result most people have become middle-class to rich. The reasons for our endangerment is partly because of modernisation.
I'm seeing the coming generations have lesser and lesser interest in growing the language as my Grandpa rightly feared, and will be one of the ones forgotten by the end of this century.
Such a weird notion. It seems to me that 'old' for a language is often used to imply that it is 'important' (culturally? presumably yes.), which feels, well, not racist, but maybe 'linguist' -- OK, that word is already occupied... Even fighting exists about which language is 'oldest' -- could you please make up the rules of the game before playing?
Anyway -- this is just me not understanding what people mean.
Personally, I think most languages are old, except for constructed languages like Toki Pona that have only existed for a short time.
How do you measure the language change [2]? There are several approaches, the one I remember reading about is, you fetch the most basic kernel of a language, like very simple key words (like relations, food, feelings and so on) for about 100 words and then see how many of those words have changed since say last 10 years, last 50 years and 100 years and so on. You try going back as long as you can and you loose few words from 100 words you started, that's you delta.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Indian_epigraphy 2. https://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fall_2003/ling001/languag...
The "after some practice" makes this a bit of a squishy claim. For example, Malayalam and Tamil split less than 1000 years ago and are both descendants of Old Tamil. I would be surprised if "after some practice" a Malayalam speaker couldn't also read Old Tamil, or for that matter Modern Tamil (and vice versa for a Modern Tamil speaker learning Malayalam).
So is Tamil somehow older than Malayalam? I think not.
Written Tamil have continuously evolved all along, the recent being around 1950 when printing became prevalent. The language itself changed very little, however only written letters survive and to know what was written 1000 years before you need some training.
Expert opinions might be different. Hope I am getting some information.
For instance, we have very solid evidence (but still circumstantial, and therefore this is technically an hypothesis) that the Greek letter η, that now stands for /i/, had a long eh-like sound, likely /ε:/, for this and due to many other changes, we can say that were a Modern Greek speaker to speak with a Greek from the 5th century BC, they would have understood barely anything, barring certain specific words. From tracing how the language changed, according to the extent evidence, we can probably say that this speaker, however, would have mostly (but with difficulty) understood a speaker from 12th century Constantinople in simple day-to-day conversations. At the very least, the two speakers would have the same sound inventories and similar grammar, but somewhat different vocabularies.
I still agree with you that saying one language is older than another is meaningless. At most we can say that a language is probably more conservative than others.
Here is poem that speaks about children being joyous, and how they playfully eat food. A simple ordeal in everyday life. Its about 7 lines and everyday speaker still understands all of it.
https://365paa.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/063/ (poorely translated: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...)
ondru, irandu, moondru, nangu, aintu, aru, ezhu (prounced like eru), ettu, ompattu, pattu
in modern:
oru, rendu, moonu, nalu, intu, aru, elu (or eru), ettu, ompati, pattu
Oldest language could be a distinct language that has preserved its uniqueness. Due to the ice age, European languages can not be the oldest.
The isolation of these tribes and the long human habitation in these regions could make the languages some of the oldest as well as primitive.
I don't think they have actually been isolated for 60,000 years though. If I understand correctly, they chose to isolate in the 1800's because the British were kidnapping people. Before that they had contact with other Andaman islanders at least. For example, apparently the Sentinelese may speak a language of the Ongan family[1], which would mean that their language most likely diverged sometime within the last millennium or two, I think.
Tamil has two forms. Sentamil and Koduntamil, both survived till date. Sentamil is the formal/literary form and Koduntamil is the colloquial form used by common people. Koduntamil is made of simplified and shortened forms of words from Sentamil, some loan words and slang words. Due to the cultural and political influences in the last few centuries, there are many loan words from European and Persian languages in Koduntamil.
Other Dravidian languages[4] such as Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada has heavy influence of Sanskrit. There were efforts to Sankritise Tamil as well by using Sankrit words in Tamil syntax, which was called Manipravalam. Manipravalam was in use till early 20th century. In the beginning of 20th century, Tanittamil Iyakkam[5] aka Pure Tamil Movement restored the language and Maripravalam is no more in use. The formal Tamil used today, such as in news bulletins and official documents, is very close to the classical form.
Pure Tamil Movement, the two language policy[6] adopted by Tamil Nadu government and related efforts helped preserve the language. Although the Tamil speaking population is lesser compared to other languages such as Hindi and Telugu, Tamil has a thriving art, literature and media industry which are economically successful too.
Recent archeological research at Keezhadi has revealed a 6th century BCE Sangam era settlement in Vaigai river valley[7]. If more research confirms the findings, Tamil would be one among the oldest surviving classical languages.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirukku%E1%B9%9Fa%E1%B8%B7
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangam_literature
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiruvasagam
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravidian_languages
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanittamil_Iyakkam
[6] https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/policy-lessons-in-tami...
[7] https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/keeladi-fi...
It is lacking in modern technical literature and comics. Most kids in school memorize tirukural, without understanding a word. Pushing the burden on preserving old language on kids is actually driving them from the language itself.
Can you elaborate on how you concluded that Tamil has become less usable? Citing sources will be helpful.
YouTube has many if you just want to listen couple of times to remember them.
The whole issue of language v/s dialect is a complex one; but I have adjusted to the one in this popular article [1]: if you speak a language and can enter into a conversation with a speaker of a variation on that language relatively easily, it qualifies as a dialect.
> A Mandarin-speaker can no more “adjust” to Cantonese than a Swede could “adjust” to German.
Most of the well-known Indian languages actually fail this test. Someone who has grown up speaking Hindi cannot reliably converse with someone in Bangla, Sambalpuri, or Tamil. If anything, the word "dialect" is overused regarding India – Bhojpuri [2] was often mentioned as a dialect of Hindi; but as a fluent Hindi speaker I cannot claim to understand or have a fluid conversation with someone speaking Bhojpuri. I am glad that it is at least sometimes referred to as a language now.
----------------------------------------------------
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/01/di...
A lot of western-educated people have asked me “So Hindi is the main language, and there are a lot of different dialects throughout the country, right?” – and I have no idea where to begin explaining that it's nothing like that, so I go with the time-tested “Well, it's slightly different...”
(I have studied Sanskrit and Hindi in school for multiple years, and can understand a good amount of Marathi and Tamil.)
You can say this - I think it is true, not quite verified (partly heard from older relatives, partly deduction based on observing similarities in the mentioned languages' vocabularies):
Sanskrit came first - thousands of years ago. It is the language of the Vedas, 4 of India's most ancient scriptures. Many northern (including east and west) Indian languages are similar to Sanskrit and likely are descendants of it. Hindi, Gujarati, Marwari, Punjabi, Bengali, Oriya (not sure, but it sounds some like Bengali), Marathi, are some of these.
Languages of Indian states further east than Bengal, called the North Eastern states, like Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, etc. may not show a lot of Sanskrit influence because they may have Oriental influence instead, such as from SE Asia, China, etc. Except Assamese may have some Sanskrit influence, also not sure of Manipuri.
And of the southern states in the peninsula, Tamil has the least Sanskrit influence and is also said to be very ancient. The other three, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu, have some Sanskrit influence.
Caveat: I am not a language expert.
What about the Bhagavatapurana is Tamil?
I stand corrected about Assamese's relationship with Bengali.
Yes, that is nearly same as what I said above, except I said "likely", because I was not sure, not being a language expert. And that "likely" applied to the other languages I mentioned too, in that sentence.
Edit: Actually, I am (still anecdotally) pretty sure of it for at least Hindi and Marathi, because both of them have too many words which are the same as, or derived from Sanskrit, for it to be a mistake.
It seems easy to say, "actually, no, India has multiple unrelated language groups as different from each other as English is from Hindi, and I don't just mean in isolated villages"
Tarek Fatah makes a point about why Urdu isn't a distinct language from Hindi.
IIRC Sanskrit has also been written in dozens of scripts, there's a perfect one-to-one transliteration into most (maybe all) the north-indian scripts, although they have extra characters for their own sounds.
For example, a lawyer & a rapper might both compose their works in English, while adopting a register & jargon geared towards their respective audiences. Their works might very well be largely incomprehensible to each others target audiences.
Punjabi, Gujrati, Marathi and others (picking from areas neighboring the Hindi belt) are not dialects, they are languages, even though from that list Gujrati and Marathi use Devnagri script (or very close to it).
Checking wikipedia, it mentions a "Punjabi diaspora family of languages." These distinctions seem understandable and interesting to me, of European descent and non-political.
thanks yumraj, for the many posts here today on this, it feels important at some basic level.
I enjoyed reading "In Search of the Cradle of Civilization" long ago.. and studied personally with one of the authors, in California.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subhash_Kak#In_Search_of_the_C...
Interestingly, Pakistan has a state called Punjab where Punjabi is the main language, but I’m not sure what script they use.
Regarding Hindi and Urdu, I found the wikipedia page to at least be informative. Link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi%E2%80%93Urdu_controver...
Are there any other examples of such a language?
Konkani in the Devanagari script is an official language of India & the state language of Goa - while Christian Konkanis (a sizable proportion of the population) prefer to write it in the Latin script.
Kashmiri Pundits used the Sharda script, while Muslim Kashmiris wrote it in the Persian script.
Historically, the picture is more complicated. People were familiar with multiple scripts, and shifted across them based on context and jargon. For example, when the British took Sindh from the Nawab, they found the natives writing the same language in multiple scripts. The administration of the erswhile Nawab worked in Persian, while merchants used Khudabadi, a landa script related to Gurmukhi. They found that women in the home preferred the Devanagari script, as did the priestly class. Since the British were most concerned with the needs of the Persianate clerks, they mandated that Sindhi only in the Persian script would be taught in schools. You will find similar situations across India, with people adopting scripts geared towards the audience they were writing to, rather than an exclusive formalized script unique to a language. Literate Medieval Indian would be fluent in multiple languages and scripts, and combined them in interesting ways.
On a tangent, I recall an argument by Bhagat Singh that the different languages of India should adopt a common script to foster unity - Devanagari in his opinion.
The ones I mentioned as dialects are indeed dialects, at least per commonly accepted standards.
I believe both Urdu and Hindi came from Hindustani which was derived from Khari Boli.
For example, when the British took Sindh, they found that officials of the erstwhile Nawab administration used the Persian script, while merchants used the Khudabadi landa script. Women and priests, however, largely used the Devanagari script. The British adopted the Persian script for Sindhi since the clerks they absorbed used it.
A similar story played out with Marathi. From the time of the Marathas till as late as the 1920s, Marathi was written formally in the Modi (ie, twisted) script. The British pushed for the adoption of the Devanagari script, since it would simplify logistics at printing presses.
This is probably true of most large, diverse languages. Each dialect has drifted sufficiently far from each other than while it is possible to communicate with other dialects, it's most convenient to use the shared formalized standard register. So while a Malvani speaker can largely comprehend the dialect of somebody from Gadchiroli, more often both speakers will switch to the standard Marathi register they learnt in school.
Some languages are already dead, except for academic purposes.
I say that languages divide us and silo us. It is a triumph when a language dies because the people who previously spoke it now think and speak in a different language. Of course we should try to preserve any literature or folk-lore.
I look forward to the day when everyone on earth will be able to speak and communicate in a single language.
Goethe said something along the lines- “He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own”. As for the inherent beauty in a language, most would agree that certain thing expressed in language X 'tastes' different than in Y. As for uniting, I am neither German nor Persian, but it is my ability to use German or Persian that unites me to both the cultures (and people) in a much deeper way; of course, you can argue that the fact that I drew the boundaries of German/Persian is in itself a problem, and having had a single language would have been the ideal, but again, I doubt that since language X might be superior in terms of certain expressions over Y (until proven otherwise).
So should we just have one programming language? Should we have just one OS? Should we have one computer game? One social media? Should we have one political party? One school? One store? One book?
> I look forward to the day when everyone on earth will be able to speak and communicate in a single language.
We already do. It's called math.