An analysis of the different languages and scripts of a nation can provide a detailed understanding of its past, present, and future.
Did you know that India one of the most linguistically diverse nations (fourth largest) of the world? Our country has four major language families. The biggest one is Indo-European. Next, follow the Dravidian languages, which are spoken mostly in the Southern parts of India. The Austro-Asiatic (Munda) is the third family and the fourth one is the Tibeto-Burman. Moreover, there are several languages that do not fit into any of these families! Unlike many other places in the world, the people of India write these languages in multiple scripts, making our nation one of the most graphically diverse nations across the globe.
An interesting fact – According to Article 343 of the Indian Constitution, the official language of the Union is Hindi in the Devanagari script. But the second part of this Article states that for a period of 15 years from the commencement of the Constitution, the English language shall continue to be used for all the official purposes of the Union. But it did not quite work out like that. Although English was the linguistic inheritance of British colonialism, the imposition of Hindi was a big issue and caused riots and deaths in several parts of the country. As a result, English is now considered as a de-facto official language for India.
The English language, which Indians speak, has become Indian over time. It cannot be compared to the English that is spoken in other countries. It has been significantly influenced by the multilingual nature of our nation. Similar to this, several other countries have their own versions of the English language. All these instances describe how English has localized all over the world, blending in with the languages of different nations.
A detailed and interesting story providing a glimpse of the different languages, scripts, and practices of multilingualism in our country was published on Medium which can be found here. It is based on one of the sessions (delivered by Nishaant Choksi, faculty in the Humanities and Social Sciences discipline) of the Virtual Seminar Series by IIT Gandhinagar.