Context
The Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA) proposes to conduct a linguistic survey across the country to create a ‘Language Atlas’ of India.
Key Highlights
- IGNCA was established in 1985 under the Culture Ministry in honor of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi after her demise in 1984
- It is meant to be a resource centre for the humanities and to provide a forum for innovative and critical dialogue.
About Language Atlas’ of India
- The first and most exhaustive Linguistic Survey of India (LSI) was carried out with the aid of Sir George Abraham Grierson and published in 1928.
- The Indian map was redrawn after Independence, and therefore, the LSI includes languages and dialects that won’t be a part of current Indian States.
- The proposed linguistic survey would cognizance of the quantity of languages and dialects in India, could attempt to recognise how many languages are spoken in India, and how many scripts and dialects there are.
- It might also have the variety of languages and dialects which are extinct or on the verge of extinction
- The stakeholders in the survey will be the Ministries of Culture, Education, Tribal Affairs, Home, Social Justice and Empowerment, and Development of the North East Region, other than diverse language communities.
- Phases: The DPR proposes that first off, there should be State-clever data series, and then region-wise.
- It also proposes to digitally archive the audio recordings of all of the languages spoken.
- Need: A language is a means of communique and is important for preserving local wisdom, knowledge, stories and culture.
- Many janjatis (tribal communities), for example, have their own localised medicinal flowers and herbs, which they bypass on to younger generations of their local language.
Note
- India has 22 languages formally, which might be a part of Schedule 8 of the Indian Constitution.
- According to Census facts, 97% of the Indian populace speaks this type of languages.
- There are a further ninety nine non-scheduled languages protected within the Census, and consistent with the 2011 Census, around 37.
- 8 million human beings become aware of any such non-Scheduled languages as their mother tongue.
- The local language of 1.2 million humans stays unaccounted for because of the selection to no longer consist of languages with less than 10,000 speakers within the Census for the reason that 1971.
- Of all of the Census surveys, the legitimate Census of 1961 changed into the most exhaustive and exact with admiration to linguistic statistics.
- In this Census, even languages with a single speaker have been included in the records.
Source: The Hindu
UPSC Mains Practice Ques
Q.Should India have a specific Lingua franca for the whole country? Comment in the light of linguistic diversity and cultural significance of languages in India. (250 words)
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