Language and language politics

in India

Language and Literature Ht 2014

Heinz Werner Wessler

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The Achamenid Empire (ca. 550-330 b.Chr.)

Seleucos Nikator (Diadoche 312-280 BC)

Followed by the Greco-Baktrian kingdom

The Mauryan Empire II

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South Asia

Indo-European and Indo-Aryan

•

The Orientalist

The invention/development of Indian script

•

Manuscripts: birch-bark, palm leave, paper etc.

”Aryan Invasion Theory”

• Sarasvati Civilization: Proto-Śiva?

Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Tibeto-Burmese

• Language families versus ”Sprachbund” • Phonology (example: retroflex consonants) • Etymology (borrowing and neologisms) • Syntax (predominance of the genitiv;

ergativity) • Morphology (postpositions)

Indo-Aryan Speakers

• From Khowar and Shina (Afghanistan) to Asamiya (East) and Konkani and Sinhala (South)

Close to 1 billion mother tongue speakers (422 million Hindi, Census 2001)

• 78,7 percent of the population of SA

OIA, MIA, NIA

• Beames, John, A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India : to wit, Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya and Bangali. London 1872-79

• Cardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh, The Indo-Aryan Languages. London 2003

• Masica, Colin P., The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge 1991

OIA, MIA, NIA

• Pictographic Script: Indus valley civilisation

• Old Indo-Aryan • Middle Indo-Aryan

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The Vårdsätra-inscription

Dialect versus language

• ”The speech of each village differs slightly from the next, without loss of mutual intelligibility, all the way from Assam to Afghanistan. Cumulatively the differences are very great, but where do we draw the dialect, let alone the language, boundaries?” (Masica 1991: 25)

Number of languages in British-India: Grierson, LSI und Census 1921

Number of languages in India: Census 1961

Mother tongues, languages, dialects

• Census 1991: 10.400 mother tongues (1.576 classified) • People of India (POI) Project 1991: 700 Languages (in

25 scripts), 325 languages spoken at home (household languages), 75 major languages

• Language Atlas of India (2004): 114 languages (among these 47 so called dialects of Hindi), based on 1991 Census, 34 languages have speakers exceeding 100.000

POI (People of India) Project:

4635 cultural communities

linguistic heterogeneity in homogeneous communities

strong dynamics of linguistic

homogenisation

The constitution (after its 100th amendment): EIGHTH SCHEDULE [Articles 344 (1) and 351]

Languages

• 1. Assamese. • 2. Bengali. • 3. Bodo. • 4. Dogri. • 5. Gujarati. • 6. Hindi. • 7. Kannada. • 8. Kashmiri. • 9. Konkani. • 10. Maithili. • 11. Malayalam.

• 12. Manipuri • 13. Marathi. • 14. Nepali. • 15. Oriya. • 16. Punjabi. • 17. Sanskrit. • 18. Santhali. • 19. Sindhi. • 20. Tamil. • 21. Telugu. • 22. Urdu.

More candidates?

Bhili/Bhilodi 9,582,957 Gondi 2,713,790

Khandeshi 2,075,258 Kurukh/Oraon 1,751,489

Tulu 1,722,768 … and further „Hindi dialects“…

compare: Bodo 1,350,478, Dogri 2,282,589

(Census 2001 figures)

Hindi/Urdu in South Asia

Hindi and its dialects: Census 2001 figures

• 6 HINDI 422,048,642

• 1 Awadhi 2,529,308

• 2 Bagheli/Baghel Khandi 2,865,011

• 3 Bagri Rajasthani 1,434,123

• 4 Banjari 1,259,821

• 5 Bhadrawahi 66,918

• 6 Bharmauri/ Gaddi 66,246

• 7 Bhojpuri 33,099,497

• 8 Brajbhasha 574,245

• 9 Bundeli/ Bundelkhandi 3,072,147

• 10 Chambeali 126,589

• 11 Chhattisgarhi 13,260,186

• 12 Churahi 61,199

• 13 Dhundhari 1,871,130

• 14 Garhwali 2,267,314

• 15 Gojri 762,332

• 16 Harauti 2,462,867

• 17 Haryanvi 7,997,192

• 18 Hindi 257,919,635

• 19 Jaunsari 114

• 20 Kangri 1,122,843

• 21 Khairari 11,937

• 22 Khari Boli 47,730

• 23 Khortha/ Khotta 4,725,927

• 24 Kulvi 170,770

• 25 Kumauni 2,003,783

• 26 Kurmali Thar 425,920

• 27 Labani 22,162

• 28 Lamani/ Lambadi 2,707,562

• 29 Laria 67,697

• 30 Lodhi 139,321

More Hindi dialects... • 31 Magadhi/ Magahi 13,978,565

• 32 Malvi 5,565,167

• 33 Mandeali 611,930

• 34 Marwari 7,936,183

• 35 Mewari 5,091,697

• 36 Mewati 645,291

• 37 Nagpuria 1,242,586

• 38 Nimadi 2,148,146

• 39 Pahari 2,832,825

• 40 Panch Pargania 193,769

• 41 Pangwali 16,285

• 42 Pawari/ Powari 425,745

• 43 Rajasthani 18,355,613

• 44 Sadan/ Sadri 2,044,776

• 45 Sirmauri 31,144

• 46 Sondwari 59,221

• 47 Sugali 160,736

• 48 Surgujia 1,458,533

• 49 Surjapuri 1,217,019

• Others 14,777,266

Official language: Constitution • 343. Official language of the Union.—(1) The official language of the

Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script. • The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union shall

be the international form of Indian numerals. • (2) Notwithstanding anything in clause (1), for a period of fifteen years from

the commencement of this Constitution, the English language shall continue to be used for all the official purposes of the Union for which it was being used immediately before such commencement:

• Provided that the President may, during the said period, by order authorise the use of the Hindi language in addition to the English language and of the Devanagari form of numerals in addition to the international form of Indian numerals for any of the official purposes of the Union.

• (3) Notwithstanding anything in this article, Parliament may by law provide for the use, after the said period of fifteen years, of—

• (a) the English language, or • (b) the Devanagari form of numerals, • for such purposes as may be specified in the law.

Sanskritisation: Constitution

• §351: It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language, to develop it so that it may as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India and to secure its enrichment by assimilating without interfering with its genius, the forms, style and expressions used in Hindustani and in the other languages of India specified in the Eighth Schedule, and by drawing, wherever necessary or desirable, for its vocabulary, primarily on Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages.

Constitution in Hindi • 3. Insertion of new article 394A.-After article 394

of the Constitution, the following article shall be inserted, namely:-"394A. Authoritative text in the Hindi language.- (1) The President shall cause to be published under his authority,-(a) the translation of this Constitution in the Hindi language, signedby the members of the Constituent Assembly, with such modifications as may be necessary to bring it in conformity with the language, style and terminology adopted in the authoritative texts of Central Acts in the Hindi language

Raghu Vira: Comprehensive English-Hindi Dictionary Preface (1955)

• In 1948 Dr. Rajendra Prasad, then the President of the Constituent Assembly of India entrusted me along with other friends, with the task of developing the terminology required for the translation of the English text of our constitution into Hindi and other languages of India. The terminology was discussed and approved by an All-India Committee of Linguistic Experts representing as many as thirteen languges of India recognized by the Constitution … This terminlogy has already been used in the translations of the Constitution into several of these languages.

Constituent Assembly

• Assembly proceedings to be „transacted primarily in Hindustani or in English“ (1946)

• Fourth Assembly session (July 1947): „Hindi“ instead of „Hindustani“

• Top Hindi-leaders in the Assembly represented Hindi organisations, particularly Hindi Sahitya Sammelan: P.D. Tandon, Seth Govind Das, Sampurnanand, Ravi Shankar Shukla (Raghuvir came later)

Policies of homogenisation

• Replace English by Hindi • Replace Hindustani by Hindi • Define and replace „dialect“ by „High Hindi“ • Use educational institutions to teach Śuddh

Hindī • Defining the „Hindi belt“ • Hindi as a national pride issue • Define Urdu as „the other“ (to be left to itself)

THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGES ACT, 1963 (AS AMENDED, 1967) (Act No. 19 of 1963)

• 3. Continuation of English Language for official purposes of the Union and for use in Parliament-

• (1) Notwithstanding the expiration of the period of fifteen years from the commencement of the Constitution, the English language may, as from the appointed day, continue to be used in addition to Hindi,

• for all the official purposes of the Union for which it was being used immediately before that day; and for the transaction of business in Parliament:

• Provided that the English language shall be used for purposes of communication between the Union and a State which has not adopted Hindi as its Official Language:

• Provided further that where Hindi is used for purposes of communication between one State which has adopted Hindi as its official language and another State which has not adopted Hindi as its Official Language, such communication in Hindi shall be accompanied by a translation of the same in the English language:

• Provided also that nothing in this sub-section shall be construed as preventing a State which has not adopted Hindi as its official language from using Hindi for purposes of communication with the Union or with a State which has adopted Hindi as its official language, or by agreement with any other State, and in such a case, it shall not be obligatory to use the English language for purposes of communication with that State.

Three-language-formula:

State language (national language), Hindi and English

MSH and decolonisation

• Report of the Official Language Commission 1956:

• „Wich Hindi?“ „The point, therefore, is whether Hindi grammar can be simplified for all.“ „The grammar of a language cannot be changed to order.“ (p.238) – unlike Indonesian, Ivrit

• Suniti Kumar Chatterjee: Indian languages in Latin script? - like Indonesian, Turkish

Versions of Hindi • MSH (Modern Standard Hindi) i.e. Khari Boli: bhasha • Regional or local dialects (boli): upabhasha • Dialects outside the North Indian Hindi speaking area:

Dakhini • Pidgin Hindi in India: Kolkata, Mumbai • Dialect and Pidgin Hindi in foreign Countries: Sarnami

etc. • Social and functional („argot“) varieties of Hindi: Hindi-

Urdu-English mixed codes used by modern media, ruling elite codes, Bazar codes including secret codes („Dalali Hindi“) and caste codes, criminal codes (sometimes related to gesture code language or special script)

Improving Hindi: Ballantyne • Education Department‘s Annual Report 1846-47

(Benares College): Essay on „Why do you despise the culture of the language you speak every day of your lives, of the only language which your mothers and sisters understand?“

• Student response: „We do not clearly understand what you Europeans mean by the term Hindi, for there are hundreds of dialects, all in our opinion equally entitled to the name, and there is here no standard as there is in Sanskrit…“ (Alok Rai 2001: 65ff)

Nagari and Hindi • Court of directors EIC 1832: judicial courts

should be „administered in a language familiar to the people at large…“ „It is easier for a judge to acquire the language of the people than for the people to acquire the language of the judge“ (quote Alok Rai 2001: 18)

• 1900: Devanagari permissive in the courts of the NWP&O – „The MacDonnell Moment“ (Alok Rai 2001: 17)

• Linguistic duality – two-ness of Hindi/Urdu

Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859): On Indian Education (1835)

• All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that

the dialects commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India, contain neither literary nor scientific information, and are, moreover, so poor and rude that, until they are enriched from some other quarter, it will not be easy to translate any valuable work into them.

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, "Minute of 2 February 1835 on Indian Education,"

Macaulay, Prose and Poetry, selected by G. M. Young. Cambridge MA 1957, S 729.

English-educated elites

• „While many governmental agencies under the pressure of democratization may be eager to discard English in favour of regional languages, the agencies engaged in trade and technology still judge an individual's achievement , orientation and merit on the basis of English.“ (Khubchandani 1995: 38)

The Hindiwallah

• „Hindiwallas are endowed with an invisible tail.“ (Nirala after the provincial Sahitya Sammelan meeting May-June 1938 in Faizabad; Alok Rai 2001: 108)

• „The founding institutions of ‚Hindi‘ are now merely degenerate kleptocracies.“ (Alok Rai 2001: 119)

Mahatma Gandhi: Hind Swaraj 18 (1909)

• Those English books which are valuable, we should translate into the various Indian languages.

• A universal language for India should be Hindi, with the option of

writing it in Persian or Nagari characters. In order that the Hindus and the Mohammedans may have closer relations, it is necessary to know both the characters. And, if we can do this, we can drive the English language out of the field in a short time. All this is necessary for us, slaves. Through our slavery the nation has been enslaved, and it will he free with our freedom.

Chandra Bhan Prasad (1):

• „Goddess English is all about emancipation. It is a mass movement against the caste order, against local languages. Indian languages are more about prejudices, discrimination and hatred and less about expressions and communications.“

• „The Pioneer“ (Dalit Diary), 29. Oktober 2006

Chandra Bhan Prasad (2): • „By the year 2025, the language map of the world would

have changed considerably: English-speaking cab drivers will be preferred to non-English speaking; security guards standing at ATMs will be required to know English; office assistants will take instructions in English. Technology will have changed so much that ordinary factory workers will be required to know a bit of English. By AD 2100, most non-English languages would have become like Sanskrit of today. „

Agyey (Hindi-author) on literary creativity

• „We struggled with our language, we fought it, in our anger and frustration we sometimes trampled upon it or tore it to shreds; but it was never anything but ours.“

• „I have spent some forty-odd years being impatient with my language … but I have never found the language inadequate for anything that I felt deeply enough and wanted strongly enough to say.“

• „A society cannot begin to live in a foreign language, the success of a few notwithstanding … The English-speaking West may dismiss this view as linguistic chauvinism ...“

• [Agyey] Vatsyayan, Sacchidananda H., „Language and identity“, S. 140; 141

The house devided: Pakistan

• Urdu mother tongue speakers 7.57 percent (Census 2001)

• Urdu privilige – English prestige language • de jure – de facto: elite’s patronage of

English in the name of efficiency and modernization (Rahman 2006: 77)

Constitution on minority languages

• 347. Special provision relating to language spoken by a section of the population of a State.—On a demand being made in that behalf the President may, if he is satisfied that a substantial proportion of the population of a State desire the use of any language spoken by them to be recognised by that State, direct that such language shall also be officially recognised throughout that State or any part thereof for such purpose as he may specify.

Constitution § 350 A und B • 350A. Facilities for instruction in mother-tongue at primary

stage.—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; and the President may issue such directions to any State as he considers necessary or proper for securing the provision of such facilities.

• 350B. Special Officer for linguistic minorities.—(1) There shall be a Special Officer for linguistic minorities to be appointed by the President.

• (2) It shall be the duty of the Special Officer to investigate all matters relating to the safeguards provided for linguistic minorities under this Constitution and report to the President upon those matters at such intervals as the President may direct, and the President shall cause all such reports to be laid before each House of Parliament, and sent to the Governments of the States concerned.