India: the state language. Hindi, English, Bengali and others

India is quite an interesting and unique country in terms of internal structure and management principles. Its form of government is federal, and the state is the largest administrative unit of the country. In every state they speak their own language, officially established in the Constitution, and the dialects derived from it. India, the state language of which, in addition to Hindi, also English, controls only 29 states (not counting the seven union territories), and the borders between them are conducted according to national and linguistic principles. In this regard, they vary considerably in area, population and standard of living, and available resources.

The urgency of studying the language question

In this article, special attention should be paid to the linguistic situation in India, because now it is becoming more vulnerable due to the observed processes of erasing cultural and other barriers, and trends towards Westernization. In this situation, it will be increasingly difficult for the given state to preserve its identity and ensure the further development of each of more than twenty languages and over one and a half thousand dialects, of which they have been released.

Of course, most of them do not face the threat of extinction, since India is the second most populous country, and any of its official languages boasts a number of its bearers (from 1.5 million to 423 million Hindi). The problem lies in maintaining the purity of languages (avoiding borrowing and simplifications) and in the need for their use, because in the foreground in the modern world are English, Spanish, etc. They own almost half of the world.

Historical explanation of the peculiarities of the country

In fact, India has historically evolved not as a unitary state, and there are reasons for this. There are many nationalities living in the country, professing their own religions and belonging to different language groups. All these peoples in different centuries came and settled on the Indian lands. Between them there were different kinds of interactions: some mini-states united neighbors under their auspices, others tried to spread their own faith or build an economic exchange. However, not a single nation - the "Indians" or a strong country with stable internal ties and a common political course has developed over this for a long time.

Perhaps the whole wine is too deep a misunderstanding of each other's views and mutual distrust, plus passivity characteristic of Hindus, unwillingness to actively fight for anything. After all, and now in India separatist movements and national conflicts are strong. The country did not collapse, probably only because the British who colonized it could hold control over the states for a long time and built on their base more or less effective governance institutions, which the Indian authorities are using now.

Language families of India

There are only four officially registered language groups in the country . It turns out that:

1. Representatives of the Indo-Aryan family dominate in the northern and central regions.
2. The south of India is Dravidian.
3. The north-east is a zone of the spread of the Sino-Tibetan languages.
4. Separately, we can distinguish and speakers of the languages of the Australasian or Australian group (the Santal tribes).

Official languages of the Indian states, number of speakers

The country's Constitution declares 22 languages official. Below is a list of the languages of India (in random order), with which the states carry out basic communication. The figures are based on the 2002 census.

• Hindi - 422 million
• Urdu - 51.6 million (note, the state language of Pakistan).
• The language of Bengali or Bengali is 83.4 million.
• The Tamil language is 61.2 million.
• Telugu - 75 million.
• Marathi (the language of the most economically developed state - Maharashtra) - 81.3 million.
• Gujarati - 47 million.
• Kannada - 38.7 million.
• Punjabi - 30 million.
• Kashmiri - 5.9 million.
• Oriya - 34 million.
• Malayalam - 34, 1 million.
• Assamese - 13.9 million.
• Maithili - 13, 1 million.
• Santalsky - 7.2 million
• Nepalese - 2.9 million
• Sindh - 2.7 million
• Dogri - 2.4 million.
• Manipuri - 1.5 million.
• Konkani - 2.5 million.
• Bodo - 1.4 million.
• Sanskrit is a dead language.

India: state language - Hindi

If we look more precisely at the language situation that India has, the state language is not one - there are two. But the first and the main language is Hindi, which, by the way, says the government of the state. He is very expressive, and along with Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, etc., comes from the ancient Indo-Aryan language - Sanskrit. He owns about 422-423 million people, which makes Hindi the second most widely spoken language in the world.

The status and role of English

Involuntarily, the question arises: why in India is the state language - English, where is the connection? Information comes to the aid of world history. It turns out that as early as the 17th century England, on behalf of the East India campaign established in it, led a profitable trade with India. Having exhausted the previous sources of enrichment, the British over a hundred years (by 1850) subjugated the entire territory of the country, and India has become a colony of Great Britain. It established its orders, authorities, the English monopoly on trade, and the local population engaged in extraction, supply of raw materials and production of goods.

During his time in the British Kingdom, until independence was proclaimed in 1947, the population of India was drawn into capitalist relations, learned English management models, and also adopted the language of the conquerors and the ways of their thinking. Therefore, India, whose official language is also Hindi, recognizes English equal in importance to it.

The latter, as a rule, is used when communicating with foreigners. For example, he is actively practicing in the tourism industry, because a huge flow of tourists every year goes on vacation on the shores of the Indian Ocean. In addition, all business meetings of businessmen and politicians of India with partners and colleagues from abroad are held in English. The country after gaining its independence has not lost close and profitable ties with Great Britain, it is part of the British Commonwealth of Countries.

Conclusion

Thus, in India a rather complicated linguistic situation develops. After all, when each of the states of the country communicates mainly in its official language, it is rather difficult to develop a common internal policy in the state. There may be misunderstandings, problems with accurate reporting of information, born of distrust of the government in power or national movements. Nevertheless, there are also positive aspects. The presence of such a vast range of languages in India provides that each of them is associated with certain cultural characteristics, the values of the people using it. Therefore, India today is a country with a rich cultural heritage that evokes the interest of the world community. Thus, Indian culture has gained respect and recognition on its part, and hence, a guarantee of prosperity in the future.