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State languages

A big round of thanks and applause to everybody who pitched in to create a complete, and well-referenced, list of official languages at the state level! -- Lexmercatoria 23:28, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, great job Lex, Gnanpati et al. We may have been stepping on each other's toes with the flurry of edits (and edit conflicts :-) ) but the article is better for it. Now for the UTs ! Abecedare 23:35, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Deeply appreciate Lex's contributions to this article. Well done everyone. By the way, I've dumped some refs on Lex's page. Others here also might find them useful. I found this pdf particularly informative and interesting. I have added it to the "External links". Sarvagnya 23:49, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Citation required

"The official languages of India therefore include all languages used for the official purposes of the union, as well as the languages used for the official purposes of each state and union territory in the country" - please provide credible citations before interpreting the constitution. Specifically, I am interested in citations that support state languages as part of official languages of India. Generally speaking, thereforing usually cries out for reference in wikipedia. Thank you.--Blacksun 00:14, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The rephrased sentence seems to have even more problems. The line about state is not supported by the reference given + it does not even have the clarity of the original sentence. --Blacksun 08:26, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Introduction

I reckon that the introduction should mention 8th schedule languages somewhere. Ya? --Blacksun 09:00, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


Did anyone observed that the offical flag of India has a cut on its top? Samething carried out in "Free Access To All Human Knowledge” A Video Appeal From Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales " video clipping too. Has Indian govt. accepted the new flag or what? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.236.243.16 (talk) 01:07, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Language listing arranged

Hi, ive arranged all the languages in the main page in vertical sequence. Now its much nicer to read. Comments? :) --killerserv 04:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

You mean in List of national languages of India article, right? Yeah it was a good job. However that article was just a list and hence doesn't serve any meaningful purpose. It should be redirected to detailed article which is Official languages of India as it was before. Thanks for your effort though. Gnanapiti 05:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

the languages

If you look at the back of an Indian banknote, you'll find the value of the note written in all the official languages. Well, there are only 15 of them.

Assamese Bengali Gujarati Kannada Kashmiri Konkani Malayalam Marathi Nepali Oriya Punjabi Sanskrit Tamil Telegu Urdu

+ Hindu and English. That makes 17. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.227.156.156 (talk) 10:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution

The Eighth Schedule to the India Constitution just lists the languages. Presently there are 22. The table in the arti also gives the regions where they are used. This contains errors. For example there is only 13,000+ speakers in Kerala accounting for 4 per 10,000 or 0.04% of the population as per 2001 census. Bihar at 11.4% has the largest proportion of people speaking urdu, followed by karnataka(10.54), Jharkhand (8.64), Andhra Pradesh(8.63),Uttar Pradesh(7.99), Maharashtra(7.13)etc.

Sanskrit is not a language spoken by a significant proportion of population in any state Sindhi is, more than being the language of the Sindhi community, the language of the people who are/were living in the area earlier identified as Sindh most which is now in Pakistan

--59.98.0.100 (talk) 08:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution

The Eighth Schedule to the India Constitution just lists the languages. Presently there are 22. The table in the arti also gives the regions where they are used. This contains errors. For example there is only 13,000+ speakers in Kerala accounting for 4 per 10,000 or 0.04% of the population as per 2001 census. Bihar at 11.4% has the largest proportion of people speaking urdu, followed by karnataka(10.54), Jharkhand (8.64), Andhra Pradesh(8.63),Uttar Pradesh(7.99), Maharashtra(7.13)etc.

Sanskrit is not a language spoken by a significant proportion of population in any state

Sindhi is, more than being the language of the Sindhi community, the language of the people who are/were living in the area earlier identified as Sindh most which is now in Pakistan

--K N Unni (talk) 08:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Language of the people? =

There is a subsection of language for "Parliamentary proceedings and laws", "judiciary" , "administration" and so on. But there is no a single word of what language most people talk. I mean, what languages do people in the street talk? Or should we suppose they talk in the official language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbassi (talk • contribs) 15:04, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The language for each place is different. In U.P, they might speak Hindi and English. In Punjab, they might speak Punjabi, Hindi, or English, in Kerala, they might speak Malayalam, Hindi, or English, so what language the people speak is different depending on where they're from In India. Deavenger (talk) 02:04, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Why was English not phased out??

The article doesn't really explain why there was an opposition to phasing out the use of English. Was is becuase those who lived in regions where hindi was not an official language refused to be have it forced upon them or was it because a greater number of the population had a basic grasp of English, or something entirely different?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.96.49.30 (talk) 08:33, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Opening paragraph not clear

The opening paragraph explains how things are "envisaged" without clearly stating how things "are". Can anyone please make this clear? Barrylb (talk) 10:05, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I've cleaned it up now. Thanks! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:46, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

inclusion classical languages

I think this should be included, since it's an official matter of India. Therefore this is the right place to put it in, especially with the proposed draft:
In addition to the constitutional defined official languages, the government of India created a category of official classical languages.
Please tell exactly why this should not be included here user:fowler&fowler. --Kalarimaster (talk) 18:51, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Union

"Union" is India. It is not the union government. The first article of the Constitution of India says: Name and territory of the Union: India that is Bharat shall be a Union of States. Article 2 then says Parliament can admit a new State into the Union. Obviously, they don't mean the Union Government! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:46, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

PS Please see Talk: India archives. I have two dozen references there from encyclopedias, UN agencies, British and US Government agencies, journal articles etc. Please don't keep changing Union to "union government." Hindi is the official language of India. Also, "national language" is a vague notion, so there is no reason to bring it up.
PPS. I see that the sentence about "national language" has been changed to, "Unlike other countries the Constitution of India doesn't define any national language. Again, "national language" is a vague term. The countries that are listed there, like Finland, have for Wikipedia purposes only "official languages" (see the infobox there); see also Official languages of the European Union. There is nothing there about the "national language of Finland." If a language satisfies the definition provided in the lead of the page Official language:
it is the official language regardless of whether the country calls it "official language," "national language," "native language," "lingua franca," or "heritage language." Please remove this sentence. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:16, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

The point is, that there is no national language in India defined by the constitution, and that there are nations, who have defined them per constitution. In a South Asian context, Pakistan has defined a national language, whereas India doesn't. We have to make sure, that people don't believe, that India has a national language. There are enough troubles because of such misunderstandings, for instance the current Marathi-North Indian conflicts. --Kalarimaster (talk) 18:43, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I have now created another subpage of my user page User:Fowler&fowler/Official_language(s)_of_India with 15 focused references. Note that references 3, 4, 10, all of which are very reliable references call Hindi the national language. Reference 12 says "Official or national" and regards them the same. In other words I have more WP:RS sources for Hindi being the national language than you do for Hindi "not being a national language." In other words, I could easily change "official" to "official or national language" and will have sources to back it up. I agree with your point about misunderstanding, given the sensitivities in India about this issue, but I doubt we are going to be able to find any citation for this edit, and it will be regarded as WP:OR. Perhaps there is a better way to deal with it. Let me think about it. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
You're kinda funny. Now, suddenly, you don't give any respect to the constitution. Instead you are trying to push somebody's view in the article. Infact, there were Anti-Hindi agitations 1965, who opposed the move to declare Hindi as sole "Official and National language" of India. See the Anti-Hindi agitation page. This move was obviously thwarted. So, there are two points: First, NO constitutional description of any national language. Agitation against National status to Hindi resulted in Official languages of States and English as Official language of Union. Overall the edit should be implemented.--Kalarimaster (talk) 19:22, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
F&F, whatever your references are, the Constitution is the over-riding source here and it does not specify a national language. I hope you see my point. I dont thhink you can claim Union = India, arent the states and their governments part of India. In the Constituion, the Union refers to the state and so I think Union Government is a more appropriate and less ambiguous term than simply India. I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations (talk) 20:46, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
No, it's not the overriding secondary source. It is a primary source. Primary documents can be used for some obvious statements; even there, it can be tricky. For example, the interpretation of Union=India and not union government, is something that belongs to the realm of secondary sources, even though Article 1 and 2 clearly imply it. The secondary sources (all 15 reliable ones I have quoted above) have clearly interpreted "union" to mean "India," and not "the Government of India." WP:RS secondary sources are what count on Wikipedia. Even if primary sources were allowed, how, by the way, are you going to show that the Constitution doesn't define a "national" language? By citing every page of the Constitution as a negative? Equally, I could add dozens of sentences like: the Constitution doesn't define a mother tongue, a lingua franca, a heritage language and cite all the pages of the Constitution as a negative. A national language is an ill-defined term. The Wikipedia page national language says that if it says anything. If the linguistic-sub-nationalists in India have a problem with the word "national" and apparently confuse "official" with "national," that is not Wikipedia's problem; it is theirs: they need to read history, linguistics, do some soul searching, or see a therapist. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:07, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
In all such instances (especially on such controversial issues) I always say, let's go for a Wikipedia mediation. It is the best form of dispute resolution. You lay out your argument and your sources, and the mediator helps out with a solution. I am happy to go for a mediation with either/both of you about either/both of the disputed issues here (Union=India; redundancy of mention of "national language.") Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:16, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
I have always wondered of the difference between official and national language. I agree, National language is, indeed, a vague term. There is no need to write about something so vague, doesnt exist and doesnt have to exist. There is a lot of countries which dont define a national language, I dont see one in Canada article for example. Docku: What up? 22:14, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Raj Basha is the term, which is used in the Hindi version of the constitution. Rashtra Basha means National language. Raj Basha means Official language. Enough said. --Kalarimaster (talk) 22:17, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

To Kalarimaster: Since you were quick to quote the Press Information Bureau, Government of India, for the dispute about "Classical Languages," how do you think the Government of India, has itself, interpreted "Union?"
  • On its website page, "Republic Day," it says in the second paragraph: "26th January, 1950 was the day when the Indian republic and its Constitution came into force. It was this day in history in 1965 when Hindi was declared as the official language of India."
  • The Press Information Bureau itself says (please scroll down half-way down the page to 40 Officials Awarded Prizes etc and read: "Speaking on the occasion, the Secretary, Legislative Department Dr. Raghbir Singh congratulated the recipients of awards in various categories of competitions for promotion of Hindi as the official language of India."
  • The Education Ministry of the Government of India, says, in the Introduction, "In its Eighth Schedule the Constitution of India has specified 15 Modern Indian Languages. Of these, Hindi has been accorded the status of the official language of India and English of an associate language."
  • The "General Information about India" offered by the Government. It says: LANGUAGE: Hindi is the official language of India, but English is widely understood and spoken."
  • For those who claim that Union = Government of India, The National Council of Educational Research and Training whose task it is "to advise and assist the Government of India in formulating and implementing policies and programmes in the field of education, particularly school education." says on page 2 of its webpage on School Curriculum, "... emphasising the teaching of Hindi as the official language of India and Samskrit as the language of traditional wisdom and culture of the country." (Since its curriculum is followed by over 15 million high-school students all over the country, Hindi is not just the official language of the Government.)
  • These same 15 million students, when they get to grade 12 in high-school, what do they learn in the Chapter 12 of the On-line textbook produced by the Education Council above? The chapter, India after independence: A constitution is written (which, sadly, is better written than the Wikipedia article) says, on page 164(5), "A compromise was finally arrived at: namely, that while Hindi would be the “official language” of India, English would be used in the courts, the services, and communications between one state and another."
Hindi is clearly not the language of the Government, since a lot of the work of the Government (or so the students learn) is being done in English! Do you really want me to keep going? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:15, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
There is no need to convince kalarimaster. He obviously doesnt like facts, who cares. We know why he doesnt, he was quite explicit in Talk:India. Our job is to report information as reported in secondary sources. While we should be sensible in doing so, we are not obliged to be politically sensitive. Indian Government will pander to the various Indian sensitivities, that is their job. Let us not forget that this is India page in wikipedia not Indian government official page. As far as I am concerned, official language (i just meant what official languages of India are) discussion is over. Docku: What up? 00:34, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Fowler, you're not even understanding how Hindi is implemented in Indian daily routine? I'm really surprised. FYI, Hindi is ONLY used for official purposes of the central government. central government controls many things in India, railways, planes, etc. They are usually written in Hindi and of course English. Everything, which is not related with the central government is not in Hindi or English. --Kalarimaster (talk) 00:48, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Kalarimaster, wp is not a discussion forum. Docku: What up? 00:50, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

section break

F&F, btw, arent all the agencies that you mentioned above, agencies of the union government ? And thats exactly what the law says, any agency of the Union Government must do its business in Hindi, along with other languages as required. I agree that the term national language is ambiguous, but there is no ambiguity about the fact that Constitution does not mention anything about a national language. I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations (talk) 01:27, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Rajbasha vs. Rashtrabasha is the difference. The Hindi version constitution says, Rajbasha, and this means official language. Rashtrabasha would be national language. --Kalarimaster (talk) 13:33, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
To FMT: Although use by the Central Government of India is a big part of the meaning of "official," it is by no means everything, there are other uses, such as in legislatures or judiciary (that are not the Government). Most importantly, in India, "official" has a special meaning: Hindi is the only language which has a constitutional right for development (with the development explicitly described in the Constitution). That, for example, has resulted in billions and billions of rupees spent by the Government of India in developing scientific nomenclature in Hindi; whether it has been successful or not is another story, but it is not just used by Government scientists. It is this meaning, "the constitutional right of development," that has resulted in Hindi becoming a great deal more than what it was in 1951, when the Constitution was framed.
Thus (i) the 15 million students whose curriculum is affected by Hindi being the official language (the 3-language formula), (ii) the information that international organizations provide for the citizens of their member countries (usually in the official languages of the countries), (iii) that fact that a majority (50.8 per cent in the Census of 1991, and more now) are first-, second-, or third- language speakers of Hindi and no other language even comes close (not even 10%), and more tellingly that these number have grown dramatically in the last 50 years, (iv) the fact that Hindi is the primary language (along with English) of the Indian Parliament (the parliament is not the Government of India), (v) the fact that Hindi is a primary language of the Supreme Court (although they have been allowed to continue in English) and the Supreme Court is not the Government, all these things make Hindi more than just the language that the Central Government in India uses (which, as we have seen, it doesn't use all that much anyway).
The planned development of Hindi as the language of India has been in the works now for almost a century, starting with the Indian National Congress decision (with Gandhi's major support) in the 1920s to make Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) the future national language of India. This planned development produced the Dakshin Bharatiya Hindi Pracharini Sabhas (South Indian Hindi Development Organizations) in South India, which were especially popular in the region of present-day Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh (the ones that are now denying, at least in their thin-skinned Wikipedia incarnations, the partial Indo-Aryan antecedents of their respective languages). As I have already said somewhere, the decision to make Hindi the "official" language (in contrast to "national language") was a compromise made in the Constituent Assembly to placate some Indian National Congress members from present-day Tamil Nadu (not the ones from Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh, mind you, who had no problems with the term), but it didn't particularly change how Hindi has evolved as the language of India. In the end, as some linguists have recently theorized, Hindi (perhaps in the bazaar form that Gandhi had favored) is more likely to become the lingua franca of India, with English becoming the language of technical use in Governmental work and other spheres, but that doesn't concern us here. The main point is that Hindi, because of its constitutional right for planned development, is a great deal more than the language of the Central Government. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:18, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Another primary reference, how Hindi and English are implemented in India: http://www.rajbhasha.nic.in/dolruleseng.htm And this doesn't even apply to the state of Tamil Nadu. Hindi is no national language, it's Rajbasha. Funds are given by government for Hindi to improve government workers Hindi skills, that's it. http://www.rajbhasha.nic.in/annualreporteng.pdf --Kalarimaster (talk) 15:37, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
I am well aware of that site. That's a recent site and department. Billions were spent in the 1950s and 1960s on the development of Scientific and technical nomenclature in Hindi. How do you explain the 3-language formula? Why are school children given a choice of Hindi, English, and State language (even with a few exceptions)? Why not Sindhi, English, and Tamil? Why not Kannada, English, and mother tongue? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:17, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Is this a rhetorical question? Of course, you need English or Hindi to work in the Union government. The 3 language formula is a fairness consensus, to make it Hindi native speakers not too easy. They have to learn 2 new languages too. --Kalarimaster (talk) 16:56, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
If two out of three languages that students are learning are Hindi and English (and not Sindhi and Urdu, for example), and this is a consequence of Hindi and English being the "Official languages of the Union," then Hindi and English are not just the languages used by the Government of India. Are you saying that the expression "Official language of the Government of India" includes in it the subsidiary meaning, "favored language in the instruction of the children of the country?" Or are you saying that the privileged status of Hindi (in the instruction of children) is a result of opportunities of future employment in the federal government rather than Hindi's constitutionally mandated right for development? Or both? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:20, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
The Hindi mandate for spreading is somehow mysterious. I think, this is linked with the use of English. India wanted to get rid of English from day one, so Hindi can be official language alone. But this has failed til today. This has however nothing to do with the 3 language formula. This is a question about Hindi vs. English. These two languages are now required to work for the central government, so they are both teached in schools, alongside a 3rd language, which indicates clearly, that these 2 languages are certainly not any way more important than other languages for the Indian nation. --Kalarimaster (talk) 17:38, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Kalarimaster, u r missing the point again. Though the third language is certainly important in that particular state, Hindi is more important in India as a country because it is the language of the government, parliament, supreme court, third language in many non-Hindi speaking states, consitutionally mandated for its development. Despite that, I see Fundamental metric tensor has a point, which arises from the ambiquity the term "official language of India" carries with it and its unintentional implication of language of all states of india. This is an unique problem to India and I dont see how we can solve this problem. I just dont think changing India=>Union is a solution. Docku: What up? 18:02, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Of course Hindi is widely used in India. So what?` It's only important to work for the central government, though there are problems, because even there, many people don't know Hindi. --Kalarimaster (talk) 18:59, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Your arguments seem to indicate to me that you have so much hatred for Hindi and you are using this place for venting your anger than in to improve this article or wikipedia as a project. I am not going to take u serious anymore and suggest anyone else not to. Docku: What up? 19:05, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
You obviously didn't read the reference of the annual report. Instead you are keeping assuming bad faith, because you have no arguments. Please stay away from serious discussions in future. --Kalarimaster (talk) 19:10, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
General question for everyone

If Union means Government of India, why, would Part III: Fundamental Rights of the Constitution begin with this definition, "In this Part, unless the context otherwise requires, “the State’’ includes the Government and Parliament of India and the Government and the Legislature of each of the States and all local or other authorities within the territory of India or under the control of the Government of India." Are you saying that "Union" is a subset of "the State?" Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:22, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I think state there means agencies like the police, army and civil service in addition to legislative bodies (which are likely to (and infact do) infringe on these rights). I am not a Constitutional expert, so I dont think I can contribute anymore to this discussion. I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations (talk) 16:33, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Another general question

If Union means Government of India, what is the meaning of the first line of Article 1 of the Constitution: "Name and territory of the Union: 1. (1) India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States?" Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:28, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

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