The high degree of ethnic diversity of India is further diversified in the forms of speech of our people. A linguistic group is an entity of social significance and it acts an an integrating factor among speakers of the same language. In the beginning languages and dialects developed in the different regions of the country under conditions of more or less isolation.
The distribution on pattern of major language groups served as one of the major bases for the formation of states, giving a new political meaning to the geographical patterns f linguistic distribution.
Taking the 2001 census into consideration :
There are 122 major languages
22 included in the 8th Schedule of the C.
100 Non Scheduled languages
234 identifiable mother tongues with 10000 or more speakers each at all India level
With 93 mother tongues grouped under Scheduled languages (Part A)
141 mother tongues grouped under Non Scheduled languages (Part B)
Of the total population, 96.56% have one of the Scheduled languages as their mother tongue.
Linguistic Classification In India.
4 language families :
Austric Family (Nishad) 1.16%
Dravidian Family (Dravida) 23%
Sing-Tibetan Family (Kirat) 0.62%
Indo-European Family (Aryan) 74%
Austric Languages : They belong to the Austro-Asiatic sub family of languages. It is further divided into two main branches :
Munda : Has fourteen tribal language groups. Kherwari is the major group consisting of Santhali, which accounts for the largest number of speakers.
Mon-Khmer : It consists of two groups. (A) Khasi (B) Nicobari.
Sino-Tibetan Languages : The speakers of this family fall into three branches :
Tibeto-Himalayan : It consists of two groups
Bhutia Group : It includes Tibetan, Balti, Ladakhi, Lahauli, Sherpa and Sikkim Bhutia. Ladakhi has the largest number of speakers.
Himalayan Group : Consists of four languages - Chamba, Lahauli, Kannauri and Lepcha. Kannauri is the most widely spoken one of this group.
North-Assam or Arunachal Branch : It has the following six speeches :
Aka
Dafla
Abor
Miri (has the largest number of speakers)
Mishmi
Mishing
Assam-Burmese Branch : Can be divided into following groups :
Bodo
Naga
Kachin
Kukichin
Burma or Myanmari
Each of these groups have several speeches. Naga displays the highest with Manipuri having the largest number of speakers. Other important speeches falling into this group include Garo, Tripuri, Mizo (Lushai) and Mikir.
Dravidian Languages : Following Krishnamurthi's classification, the family can be divided into following groups :
North-Dravidian : Kurukh (Orion), Malta, Brahui.
Central Dravidian : Kolami, Parji.
South Central Dravidian : Telugu, Gondi. Minor speeches include Kui, Konda.
South Dravidian : Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam. With minor speeches like Tulu, Kota, Kurgi, Toda.
Although they are spreading to other parts of the world (especially Telugu), Dravidian languages have no relationship outside the Indian subcontinent unlike the other three language families.
The major language groups like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam account for 96% of the total population of the Dravidian speakers.
Aryan Languages : Can be generally divided into two main branches :
Dardic : The group includes Dandi, Shina, Kohistani and Kashmiri. Kashmiri is spoken by about 2 million. Other languages < 7000 people.
Indo-Aryan : This branch can be further divided into these groups :
Northern : They are one of the varieties of Paharsar speeches. They include Nepali, Central Pahari and Western Pahari.
North-Western : Khanda, Kachchi and Sindhi.
Central : Hindi, Punjabi, Rajasthani and Gujrati. Rajasthani consists of a variety of speeches like Marwari, Mewari and Malavi.
East Central : It has three main subgroups :
Avadhi
Bagheli
Chattisghari
Eastern : Oriya, Bihari, Bengali and Assamese. Important dialects of Bihari are Maithili, Bhojpuri and Magadhi.
Southern : Marathi and Konkani.
Cultural significance of Dravidian languages??? - Outline the distribution of Dravidian languages in India and describe their cultural significance. 15.