'Do you speak INDIAN?' | Linguistic Diversity of India: short talk

Few additional points... 1) Sanskrit and Tamil's written origins have the fixed dates mentioned on slide, though it's heavily debated by scholars as new evidences emerged that could push both further back in time. Both languages are expected to have had older oral traditions though, before the oldest known written evidence in each language. 2) The counts of number of languages in the country vary based on the definitions given by each survey for what is a language, and what is a dialect. 3) Dimapur is a city (although not as big as Mumbai and Bengaluru) while Nagaland is the state whose pie chart has been shown on slide to depict diversity of languages in the region. Dimapur is located in Nagaland and is it's largest city. It's also the name of the district where it's located (Dimapur district) 4) Bollywood's box office share has shrunk since 2021, though it still has the biggest share of the Indian box office. 2021 saw Tollywood and Sandalwood gain more share of the box office.

At least they will educate forward and one day no one will ask "Do you speak indian"

1. Uttar Pradesh: Urdu, Kauravi (Hindi), Braj, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Kannauji, Bagheli, Bundeli 2. Andhra Pradesh: Telugu, Urdu, English, Gondi 3. Arunachal Pradesh: English, Hindi, Nishi, Adi, Apatani, Tagin , 26 languages of 26 tribes 4. Bihar: Hindi, Urdu, Maithili, Bajjika, Angika, Magahi, Bhojpuri 5. Assam: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Hindi, Bodoi, Dimasa 6. Chhattisgarh: Hindi, Chhattisgarhi, Gondi, Halbi 7. Goa: Konkani, Marathi, English 8. Gujarat: Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi 9. Haryana: Haryanvi (Hindi), Punjabi, English 10. Himachal Pradesh: Hindi, Kangri, Himachali (Pahari dialects) 11. Jammu and Kashmir: Kashmiri, Dogri, Hindi, Urdu 12. Jharkhand: Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Santali, Oriya, Mundari, Bhojpuri 13. Karnataka: Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Urdu, Tulu 14. Kerala: Malayalam, Tamil, English 15. Ladakh: Hindi, English, Ladakhi 16. Madhya Pradesh: Hindi, Urdu, Sindhi, Marwari, Bundeli, Bagheli, Gondi, Halbi 17. Maharashtra: Marathi, Konkani, Hindi, Urdu, Kannada 18. Manipur: Manipuri, Meitei, Lamgang, Thadou 19. Meghalaya: English, Khasi, Garo, Jaintia 20. Mizoram: Mizo, English, Lakher, Pawi, Hmar 21. Nagaland: English, Ao, Konyak, Angami, Sema 22. Odisha: Odia, Telugu, Bengali, Urdu, Santali 23. Punjab: Punjabi, Hindi 24. Rajasthan: Hindi, Rajasthani,Sindhi, Punjabi 25. Sikkim: Nepali, Sikkimese, Bhutia, Lepcha 26. Tamil Nadu: Tamil , English 27. Telangana: Telugu, Urdu, Kannada 28. Tripura: Bengali, Kokborok, Manipuri 29. Uttarakhand: Hindi, Garhwali, Kumaoni, Urdu 30. West Bengal: Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Odia, Santali, Nepali

ನಾನು ಕರ್ನಾಟಕದಿಂದ ಮತ್ತು ನಾನು ಕನ್ನಡ ಮತ್ತು ಉರ್ದುವನ್ನು ನಿರರ್ಗಳವಾಗಿ ಮಾತನಾಡುತ್ತೇನೆ ಹಾಗೂ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ತೆಲುಗು, ತಮಿಳು ತಿಳಿದುಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದೇನೆ ❤

I dont understand why this video is not gone viral. It should.

Let that sink in for them😂... A comprehensive presentation, well done!

I am a polyglot. The only regional language that I can read,write,speak and understand is kannada. I can read telugu script using my kannada script knowledge. I can speak Tamil fluently. I can read the devanagari script.

Excellent effort, Kavin. I have been living in Sydney for the past three decades and I still get asked frequently “Do you speak Indian” even in universities. My response is: Imagine for a moment, India is like the European Union. Would anyone there ask do you speak European, or which European language do you speak? No one might ask a Spaniard why don’t you speak Polish? It would be like asking a Bengali why don’t you speak or understand Malayalam (for which a lesson on the linguistic diversity of India is needed). Anyway, it does come as a surprise to many here when I tell not all Indians can understand one another if they are from distant regions of the country (although most Indians can manage four languages, which comes as a bigger surprise). I guess in the future I might direct people to view your video. Kavin, do check out videos of Dr Lera Boroditsky on how language shapes the way we think, and of Dr Fiona Swee-Lin Price whose work will help you understand the complexities in pronunciation. BTW, the translation bungle in the Hatia-Ernakulam train board slide you showed was a killer!

This presentation was so well-rounded. When I clicked on the video I just expected an explanation of the different languages, scripts, and populations that use these, but you covered so many more aspects!

From your accent I know you belong to a southern state, but the way you read the devnagri script , from Nepali to Marathi, really loved it. Very clean pronunciation. This is what make our country culturally beautiful. I am trying to learn Telugu, learnt bit of Bengali few years ago. Very nice representation 😊

Actually North has many languages which are originated from Prakrit/Sanskrit. kauravi (Hindi) was a language of west UP and Delhi region . Invaders mixed persian in it and the new language was called Hindustani. Later after partition of India Hindustani was divided in Hindi and Urdu. Hindi was a more sanskritized version while Urdu was more persian. Indian government accepted Hindi as no word with foreign languages. It is totally Sanskrit based. We speak Hindustani which has limited share of Persian while muslim community loves to speak Urdu. We have our regional languages and Hindi unites all them. Hindi has greatest share because of population and a communication language in North. Most of people in northeast also know Hindi. Arunachal Pradesh official language is English but they communicate in Hindi. I am very fond of learning languages. Currently I'm learning Nepali. I would love to learn Tamil. Its a great language with rich history.

Actually, Hindi DOES NOT have a 41% share. That figure is reached by including awadhi, magadhi, bhojpuri, etc. as dialects of Hindi. That is BS because these are languages in their own right, most of them far older than Hindi with their own rich literature. In fact, no one really speaks "hindi" as a mother tongue. The language actually spoken in the Gangetic plain is Hindavi/Khari Boli/ Ganga-Jamni/Hindustani. Shudh Hindi is an artificial construction that essentially came into being in the 19th century.

I am a Malayali. But, I have learned to read and write Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi

This was super interesting, it needs more views!

you justified all the languages in India. not putting one down and giving another high status . well done.

Its not easy to do such a research on Bharat, you covered major highlights well done guys...

Fantastic Presentation! I like the comparision of Indian states with sizes of Countries, I usually do that just to showcase how gigantically diverse india is. I use examples like " India is like, If you had all of Africas diverse tribes of 1billion population but fitted in a size 7 times smaller than African continent ie India" I also use EU, " Imagine EU was actually a country, with all European states with different languages and cultures merged together under one umbrella ie India" Especially true for south india, each southern state is like a different country or had been a different country as historical fact With its own official state languages kannada, Tamil Telugu, Malayalam. Also fact that There's strong Linguistic sub nationalism that impacts their state politics and also it's the secret behind south India's growth and economic development.

I recently traveled to Kolkata, West Bengal from Kochi, Kerala. Just to know better our Indian culture. One funny thing i noticed is most of the cab drivers there was in an impression that whole India speaks Hindi. When I said it's not like that especially towards south he astonished. It was a good exchange. I know broken spoken Hindi so it was not very difficult to travel in Kolkata I could easily manage. My thought was most of India can understand English in varying degrees along with there mother tongues. But it was also a realization for me English won't work all the time especially when I gone to remote areas in Kolkata. It was a good experiance though. Such a diverse country we have :hand-purple-blue-peace:

Simply, a top notch presentation🔥

This is a great presentation!