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The People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) is a
linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
survey launched in 2010 in order to update existing knowledge about the languages spoken in the modern republic of India. The survey was organized by the NGO Bhasha Research and Publication Centre, Baroda, founded by G. N. Devy, a social activist, and was conducted by 3500 volunteers, including 2000 language experts, social historians. It has identified 780 languages in India. The 35,000 page survey is being published in 50 volumes. The first six volumes were released at the Bhasha Vasudha Global Languages Conference in Vadodara on January 7, 2012. The survey was completed in December 2012 and several of its volumes are being published by the publishing house Orient Blackswan.


Survey format

The publications of the survey include the following information: * Name of the language. * Brief history. * Geographical region where the language is spoken. * Short bibliography. * Sample oral songs with translation. * Sample oral stories with translation. * Colour terms. * Relational terms. * Terms for time and space. For scheduled languages, the survey also provides a broad cultural overview of each language.


Relevance

The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India recognizes 22 scheduled languages, excluding English, and the linguistic policies and funding of the Indian government are organised around this information. However, this information does not adequately convey the linguistic diversity of India. The 1961 Census of India had recorded 1652 languages being in use in India. However, it was decided to exclude languages spoken by less than 10,000 people in the 1971 Census, which brought down the figure to 108 languages. PLSI has followed the policy of including all languages in the survey, irrespective of the number of users. For example, it records a language called Chaimal in
Tripura Tripura () is a States and union territories of India, state in northeastern India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a populat ...
, which is spoken by only five people. PLSI also highlights the phenomenon of dying languages. "On 26 January 2010, a lady who belonged to a community called Bo died in the
Andaman Islands The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago, made up of 200 islands, in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a mari ...
and she was the last speaker of her language that was also called Bo. Sadly, along with her, the continuous line of wisdom of 65,000 years was also gone." said G. N. Devy, the Chairperson of Bhasha Research and Publication Centre. Observing a link between changing economic realities and the survival of languages, Devy contends that "a language disappears when the livelihood options of the speech community disappear."


Selected findings

Of all the languages documented by PLSI, 480 are languages spoken by tribals and nomadic tribes, while about 80 are coastal languages.
Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh (; ) is a States and union territories of India, state in northeast India. It was formed from the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and India declared it as a state on 20 February 1987. Itanagar is its capital and la ...
is the state with the highest number of languages, with as many as 66 languages spoken there, while
West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...
has the highest number of scripts, nine, and around 38 languages. The scripts that exist in Bengal are Ol Chicki (Santhal), Kol Ho, Barangh Kshiti, Lepcha, Sadri and Limbu besides Bengali, Urdu and Nepali. Languages with increasing numbers of speakers are Byari in
Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...
,
Bhojpuri Bhojpuri may refer to: * Bhojpuri language, an Indo-Aryan language of India and Nepal * Bhojpuri grammar, grammatical rules of the language * Bhojpuri nouns, nouns of the language * Bhojpuri people, people who speak the language * Bhojpuri region ...
in
Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh ( ; UP) is a States and union territories of India, state in North India, northern India. With over 241 million inhabitants, it is the List of states and union territories of India by population, most populated state in In ...
and
Bihar Bihar ( ) is a states and union territories of India, state in Eastern India. It is the list of states and union territories of India by population, second largest state by population, the List of states and union territories of India by are ...
, Khasi in
Meghalaya Meghalaya (; "the abode of clouds") is a states and union territories of India, state in northeast India. Its capital is Shillong. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the Assam: the United Khasi Hills an ...
, Mizo in
Mizoram Mizoram is a states and union territories of India, state in northeastern India, with Aizawl as its Capital city, capital and largest city. It shares 722-kilometres (449 miles) of international borders with Bangladesh to the west, and Myanmar t ...
, Kumouni in
Uttarakhand Uttarakhand (, ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; List of renamed places in India, the official name until 2007), is a States and union territories of India, state in North India, northern India. The state is bordered by Himachal Pradesh to the n ...
, Kutchhi in
Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the List of states and union territories ...
and Mewati in
Rajasthan Rajasthan (; Literal translation, lit. 'Land of Kings') is a States and union territories of India, state in northwestern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the List of states and union territories of ...
. 400 million of the Indian population speak
Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...
and it remains the most popular language of India, while the number of Indian people with English as their mother language has gone up from 187,000 in 1971 to 10 million in 2011.Pathak, Maulik, ‘India becoming a graveyard of languages: Ganesh Devy’, ''Live Mint''.


References


External links

*http://www.peopleslinguisticsurvey.org {{Authority control Languages of India Surveys (human research) Linguistic history of India Linguistic research in India