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Languages in

India

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Language

System of symbols

Governed by grammatical rules

Conveys meaning

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Languages spoken in India

The languages spoken in India

belong to major

Linguistic families like: Indo-Aryan

Indo-Dravidian

Austro-Asiatic Tibeto-Burman

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Official Languages

The official languages of the Republic of

India are Hindi and English

The states can legislate their own officiallanguages depending on their linguistic

demographics

The official languages of India have been

listed in the eighth schedule of the

Constitution of India

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Language of Parliamentary Proceedings

and Laws

The Constitution of India draws a distinction

between the language to be used in the proceeding

of the Parliament and the languages in which laws

are to be made

The Constitution permits a person who is unable to

express himself in Hindi or English to address the

House in his mother tongue with the permission ofthe Speaker of the concerned House.

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The language of the Judiciary

The Constitution provides that all

proceeding in the Supreme Court of

India shall be in English

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The language of Administration

The Official Language Act

provides that the Union

Government shall use both

Hindi and English in theadministrative documents

Any Indian citizen shall be

allowed to submit a petitionfor redressal of a grievance

to a government officer or

authority in any language

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Official Languages at the State Level

The Indian Constitution does not specify the official

language to be used by the states for their official

functions

Each state is free through its legislature to adoptHindi or any language used in the territory

The language need not be one of those listed in the

Eighth Schedule of the Constitution

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The language of Legislature and

Administration

The State Legislatures may conduct their

business in their official language (Hindi or

English)

The members can also use their mother

tongue with the permission of the speaker