People's Linguistic Survey of India
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The People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) is a
linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
survey Survey may refer to: Statistics and human research * Statistical survey, a method for collecting quantitative information about items in a population * Survey (human research), including opinion polls Spatial measurement * Surveying, the techniq ...
launched in 2010 in order to update existing knowledge about the languages spoken in the modern republic of India. The survey is conducted by 3500 volunteers, including 2000 language experts, social historians, and the staff of the NGO Bhasha Research and Publication Centre, Baroda, and 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 The Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India lists the official languages of the Republic of India. At the time when the Constitution was enacted, inclusion in this list meant that the language was entitled to representation on the Officia ...
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 (, Bengali: ) is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a population of 36.71 lakh ( 3.67 million). It is bordered by Assam and Mizoram to the ea ...
, 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 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 state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares ...
is the state with the highest number of languages, with as many as 66 languages spoken there, while
West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...
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 (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...
, Bhojpuri in
Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...
and
Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West ...
, Khasi in
Meghalaya Meghalaya (, or , meaning "abode of clouds"; from Sanskrit , "cloud" + , "abode") is a state in northeastern India. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the state of Assam: (a) the United Khasi Hills and J ...
, Mizo in
Mizoram Mizoram () is a state in Northeast India, with Aizawl as its seat of government and capital city. The name of the state is derived from "Mizo", the self-described name of the native inhabitants, and "Ram", which in the Mizo language means "lan ...
, Kumouni in
Uttarakhand Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...
, Kutchhi in
Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the 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 fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...
and
Mewati Mewati (Devanagri:मेवाती; Perso-Arabic:میواتی) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by about three million speakers in the Mewat Region (Alwar and Bharatpur, districts of Rajasthan, Nuh district of Haryana). While other people ...
in
Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern s ...
. 400 million of the Indian population speak
Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
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 one hundred eighty-seven thousand 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