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Home , Andamanese languages, Andh language, Bagri language, Braj Bhasha, Bundeli language, Chhattisgarhi language

Chapter one: Social, Cultural and of

1.1 Introduction: India also known as Bharat is the seventh largest country covering a land area of 32, 87,263 sq.km. It stretches 3,214 km. from North to South between the extreme latitudes and 2,933 km from East to West between the extreme longitudes. On this 2.4 % of earth‟s surface, lives 16% of world‟s population. With a population of 1,028,737,436 variations is there at every step of life. India is a land of bewildering diversity. India is bounded by the

Indian Ocean on the Figure 1.1: India in south, the Arabian Sea on the west and the Bay of on the east. Many outsiders explored India via these routes. The whole of India is divided into twenty eight states and seven union territories. Each state has its own cultural and linguistic peculiarities and diversities. This diversity can be seen in every aspect of Indian life. Whether it is culture, , script, religion, food, clothing etc. makes ones identity multi-dimensional. Ones identity lies in his language, his culture, caste, state, village etc. So one can say India is a multi-centered nation. Indian is unique in itself. It has been rightly said, “Each part of India is a kind of replica of the bigger cultural space called India.” (Singh . N, 2009). Also is not considered a barrier but a boon.

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

Languages act as bridges because it enables us to know about others. Indian multilingualism is multi layered and complex. Every single language has many variations, which are based on caste, region, gender, occupation, age etc. Like „‟ has as many as forty nine varieties based on region. Indian multilingualism is like a flower pot whose beauty enhances only when it has of flowers, flowers of different shades, different size, etc. Indian multilingualism cannot be understood under a single heading of „Language Families‟. The real essence of Indian multilingualism can best be defined in terms of „variations‟, .. knowing about the language families, tribal , races, script, regional languages, dialectical variations, idiolectal variation, registral variation, stylistic variation etc. According to Khubchandani (2001:22) In multilingual societies of the , one notices an inevitable measure of fluidity in the verbal repertoire of many speech groups who command native like control over more than one language. The demands of active bilingualism in a plural society expose an individual to „doing‟ language activity by accomplishing diverse task through a variety of speech styles, registers, dialects, and even languages.

1.2 Language Families (Genetic Variation): India is a home to five major language families of the World: Indo- , Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Tibeto-Burman and Andamanese. Earlier only four language families were identified, but now from new researches the Andamanese has also been included.

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

Indo-Aryan: It is the largest both in geographical spread and numerical strength. It has a total of 790,627,060 speakers constituting 76.86% of the total Indian population. It consists of 21 languages. They are 1. Assamese 12. 2. Bengali 13. Maithili 3. Bhili/Bhilodi 14. Marathi 4. Bishnupuriya 15. Nepali 5. Dogri 16. Oriya 6. Gujarati 17. Punjabi 7. Halabi 18. 8. Hindi 19. Shina 9. Kashmiri 20. Sindhi 10. Khandeshi 21. 11. Konkani Out of 21 languages 15 have been recognized by the Constitution as Scheduled languages. They are Assamese, Bengali, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, and Urdu. The Indo-Aryan languages basically cover the northern and the central region of India.

Dravidian: It is the second largest language family. It has a total of 214,172,874 speakers constituting 20.82% of the Indian population. It consists of 17 languages. They are 1. Coorgi/Kodagu, 2. Gondi, 3. Jatapu, 4. , 5. Khond/Kondh, 6. Kisan, 7. Kolami, 8. Konda, 9. Koya, 10. Kui, 11. Kurukh/Oraon, 12. , 13. Malto, 14. Parji, 15.

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

Tamil, 16. Telugu, 17.Tulu. Out of all these 4 are Scheduled languages. They are Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu. These languages are mainly spoken in the Southern part of India, with an exception of Kurukh which is spoken in the District of .

Austro-Asiatic: This family has 11,442,029 numbers of speakers constituting 1.11% of the total population of India. It consists of 14 languages, which can be divided into groups: Khmer-Nicobarese and Munda. Khmer-Nicobarese consists of 2 languages, i.e., Khasi and Nicobarese. The Munda group comprises of 12 languages, i.e., Bhumij, Gadaba, Ho, Juang, Kharia, Koda/Kora, Korku, Korwa, Munda, Mundari, Santali and Savara. Languages of this family are spoken in the islands of Andaman and Nicobar and some states like Jharkhand, Madhya , etc. Among all these languages only Santali has been included in the Eighth scheduled, under the 92nd Constitutional Amendment in 2003.

Tibeto-Burman: It is „Smallest in population strength and largest in the numbers of languages‟. It has 10,305,026 speakers constituting 1.0 % of the total population of India. It consists of 66 languages. It has three main sub branches:

Tibeto-Himalayan: consists of two groups, i.e., Bhotia and Himalayan. The languages of Bhotia groups‟ are- , Bhotia, Ladakhi, Lahauli, Monpa, Sherpa and Tibetan. The Himalayan group consists of 3 languages: Kinnauri, Limbu and Lepcha. North- consists of 3 languages: Adi, Nissi/Dafla and Mishmi.

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

Assam-Burmese is divided into 4 groups – Bodo, Burmese, Kuki-Chin and Naga. Among these languages two have been recognized by the Eighth Scheduled. They are Bodo and Manipuri. Basically these languages are spoken in the North-Eastern region of India.

Andamanese: The language spoken by the people of Andaman and Nicobar Islands has been termed Andamanese. Andamanese languages can be divided into two broader parts- and . is also there which is unknown and hence unclassifiable. Many of the Great Andamanese languages had become extinct. The Andamanese languages are:

Great Andamanese (spoken by Great Andamanese people) Southern Aka-Bea or Bea (extinct) Akar-Bale or Bale (extinct) Central Aka-Kede or Kede (extinct) Aka-Kol or Kol (extinct) Oko-Juwoi or Juwoi (extinct) A-Pucikwar or Pucikwar (extinct) Northern Aka-Cari or Chari (extinct) Aka-Kora or Kora (extinct) Aka-Jeru or Jeru; 36 speakers in 1997, bilingual in Hindi Aka-Bo or Bo (extinct)

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

Ongan Önge or Onge; 96 speakers (Onge) in 1997, mostly monolingual Jarawa or Järawa; estimated at 200 speakers (Jarawa) in 1997, monolingual. Also there is Sentinelese whose population is unknown and is unidentifiable. (, retrieved on 02/09/2009)

Apart from these five language families, researchers are showing the possibility of having a sixth language family. Scholars like on the basis of survey done on Andamanese languages talks of Great Andamanese being a distinct language family from the one that Jarawa and Onge belong to, in her paper „Vanishing Voices of the Languages of the ‟ presented at the Max Planck Institute, Leipzig, June 13, 2003. Based on researches done by geneticists and with enough pieces of evidence, she has tried to establish that „Great Anadamanese is an isolate which constitutes the sixth language family of India‟; in her paper published in www.sciencedirect.com (Language Sciences) under the heading “Is Great Andamanese genealogically and typologically distinct from Onge and Jarawa?” But still there is no exact count of Andamanese languages and so the Census of India 2001 lists only four language families.

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

Table 1.1: Family-Wise Grouping of the 122 Scheduled and Non- Scheduled Languages – (2001 Census). Language Number of Persons who % to total Families Languages returned the population of languages as India their tongue 1 2 3 4 Indo-Aryan 21 790,627,060 76.86 Dravidian 17 214,172,874 20.82 Austro-Asiatic 14 11,442,029 1.11 Tibeto-Burmese 66 10,305,026 1.00 Languages of 4 200,573 0.03 foreign origin (English and )

Total 122 1,026,847,940* 99.82*

* The balance of 1,762,388 (0.17%) population out of total Indian population 1,028,610,328 comprises of 1,635,280 speakers of those languages and mother tongues which were not identifiable or returned by less than 10000 speakers at all India level and the population (127,108 persons) of which was not included in language data since the Census results were cancelled in 3 sub-divisions of Senapati district of Manipur in 2001. (Census 2001, Statement 9)

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

Figure 1.2: Linguistic Map of India

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

1.3 Language and Tribe: Indian multilingualism is not only talking about the major or the Scheduled languages. Talking of multilingualism and diversity without referring the tribal languages will not be justified. But before talking about the tribal languages we must know or define the term „tribal‟. The term „tribal‟ is used for people living or confined in jungles or isolated surroundings. They are often being called as , vanajati, janajati, janajamati or displaced. Earlier in medieval English it had a neutral sense, i.e. „a primary aggregate of people claiming descent from a common ancestor.‟ (Khubchandani, 1992). The meaning of the term „Tribe‟ has been narrowed in recent centuries. Now by the term „tribal‟ one mean primitive, undeveloped, etc. and their language is perceived as speech without , which is a misnomer. Their unique identity and language enriches the nation‟s heritage. There is no linguistic definition of the term „tribal‟. Khubchandani (1992) has defined „tribal community‟ as people living in isolated surroundings from the rest of the population adhering to a routine of seasonal movements. Many claim that those referred as tribal people are the real inhabitants of India. Their presence in India has been traced out before the coming of the . Time to time many different races and tribes came to India and had their own space in the , resulting in the displacement of the aboriginals i.e., the „tribal people‟. Thus they were segregated from the mainstream and were left in isolation.

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

Figure 1.3: Tribal Population in India Retrieved from http://tribes-of-india.blogspot.com/2009/01/tribal- population-percentage-in-india.html on 04/08/10

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

The presence of the tribal community can be felt everywhere in this country. The percentage of tribal people is dense in the North-Eastern part as compared to other parts of India. Every state consists of at least some tribal population. Leaving aside a few, most of the tribal language speakers are in minority. They can be divided into five territorial groupings: i. The north-eastern part comprising of Assam, , , , , Manipur, ; ii. The middle India or the central belt comprising of , , Orissa, , Jharkhand, consisting of 55% tribal population; iii. consisting of , , , , ; iv. covering , , , , which consists of 6.4% of tribal population; v. The islands such as Andaman, Nicobar and . (Abbi, 1997:6) The tribal languages can be grouped under the four language families i.e., the Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman. Some scholars like Anvita Abbi, E. Annmalai, etc classifies these tribal languages under five language families adding up the fifth one i.e., Andamanese. In the North-Eastern region mainly the tribal languages belong to Tibeto-Burman family except Khasi in Meghalaya which belong to the Mon-Khmer group of the Austro-Asiatic family. In the central belt one can mainly find languages of Austro-Asiatic family, Indo-Aryan and some Dravidian except Bhutia, Lepcha and Mech groups

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India which belong to Tibeto-Burman group. In the southern belt the languages mostly belong to Dravidian language family. It is mainly the tribal languages which add up more to India‟s linguistic diversity. For example the presence of Kempti in Arunachal Pradesh which is a automatically widens the horizon of genetic family from Tibeto-Burman to Sino-Tibetan. Also the presence of Onge in Andaman and Nicobar islands adds up the possibility of fifth family i.e., Andamanese. “The census of India 1991 lists 96 non-scheduled languages which include 90 tribal languages.” (Koul, 2009:165)

Table 1.2: Tribal Languages Speakers, According Families: 1971-1981. Language No. of No. of speakers % of the total tribal Families languages (millions) population

1981 1981 1971 1971

Austric 14 7.9 6.9 15 18 Tibeto- 54 4.3 3.4 8 9 Burman 11 4.6 4.0 9 11 Dravidian 2 5.0 3.7 9 10 Indo-Aryan 0.5 0.4 1 1 Other Total 22.3 18.4 42 49 languages

(Khubchandani,1992)

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

These are the number of tribal languages with speakers largest in number. But there are many more tribal languages whose number of speakers left is very less even with a single . Like tribes such as Haisa Tangsa, Hotang Tangsa, Katin Tangsa, etc have returned only a single soul. According to the finding of „people of India‟ project conducted by the anthropological survey of India the tribal communities speaking Indo- Aryan are 163, Dravidian 107, Tibeto-Burman 143, Austro-Asiatic 30 and Andamanese 4. In spite of being so many in numbers, the speakers of these languages are very few. And there is a gradual decline in the number of speakers of these languages. One strong reason for this can be their pressure of becoming bilingual or multilingual in order to sustain their identity. “The average bilingualism claims among tribal (15.7%) run much higher than the national average (9.7%).” (Khubchandani, 1992:49). In this developing world there are various issues which are affecting one‟s identity. And in the present scene the most striving for identity are the tribal communities. In order to compete in the race of dominance the speakers of tribal languages are shifting to non-tribal mother tongues. Basically the tribal communities living in the central belt are more prone to assimilation. The central belt is basically a non-tribal or Hindi dominant area. The case is somewhat stable in the North-Eastern region i.e., among the Tibeto-Burman tribes. They are quite conscious of their ancestral identity. One reason for this can be that in spite of their being in minority, they dominate in most parts of north-east. The pressure of becoming bilingual is less there. In the central belt because of the heterogeneous communities‟ instances of monolingualism is very less.

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

“According to „People of India‟ report out of 623 tribal communities, only 123 (19.47%) have been reported as monolingual.” So traces of bi or multilingualism can be found more among the tribal. Multilingualism among the tribal are rather natural than imposed. It is the heterogeneous environment which governs the verbal repertoire of the tribal. The inter group communications among tribal record a wide range of variation in the claims of bilingualism, mostly depending upon the degree of heterogeneity in their contact environments and their attitude to languages surrounding them. (Khubchandani, 2001:26)

1.4 Language and Race: There is no proof of who are the original inhabitants of India. It is assumed that all have migrated from outside. All the are an outcome of different races which came to India many years back. Some historians say that, at least, six racial elements have contributed to the formation of India‟s heterogeneous population. They are: 1. The oldest are the or Negroid race, immigrants from Africa. They are believed to be disappeared from Indian soil. However anthropologists have found traces of Negroid admixture in the North-East Assam hills and in South India. 2. The next are the Proto-Austroids, who came from the western in the ancient time and were an off-shoot of the Mediterranean race. They might have mingled with the Negrito and transformed to Austro-Asiatic people, who now are represented as Kol or Munda

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

speaking Aadivasis. They are believed to be the oldest surviving group. 3. The Mediterranean people had arrived India before 3500 B.C, and now are represented as Dravidian language speakers. 4. The Mongoloids were the Sino-Tibetan language speakers. They came to India through Assam and the and confined themselves in Assam, Chittagong Hills, and the Indo-Burmese frontiers. 5. The Alpine, Dinaric and Armenoid, mainly in Bengal, Orissa and . 6. And finally after 1500 B.C came the Nordic group from the west. They brought the Aryan languages with them. (Chatterji, 1963:9-11) Apart from these races and languages, many foreigners and foreign languages too came to India. Though not in a strict chronological order, India has heard speakers of Hebrew, Chinese, Greek, Sanskrit, Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Armenian, Portuguese, Dutch, English, French and many more. And all of these languages, spoken by more than one ethnic group have added to the cultural diversity of India. Some of them stayed on, others went away. (Chaudhary, 2009:3)

1.5 Language and Script: The same case is with regard to script. India is not only a country of linguistic diversities, but also has many scripts. Script plays an important role in distinguishing languages. For example script defines Hindi and Urdu; also it categorizes the language used by a Hindu Punjabi and a Muslim Punjabi. Punjabi written in Gurumukhi is a marker of 31

Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India and in Perso-Arabic represents the Muslim lot. According to the finding of „People of India‟ Project conducted by the Anthropological Survey of India there are twenty five scripts in total out of which eleven different scripts are employed to write the Scheduled languages such as Assamese, Bengali, Devanagri, Gujarati, Gurumukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Perso-Arabic, Tamil and Telugu. Also there are thirteen minor scripts which have been returned are: Sl. Name of Scripts Name of States/UTs No 1. Baital Nagri Rajasthan 2. Balti and Kashmir 3. Bodhi Jammu and Kashmir, and 4. Burmese Tripura 5. Hingna Arunachal Pradesh 6. Meitei-Mayak Manipur 7. Mon Arunachal Pradesh 8. Ol-Chiki Jharkhand and west Bengal 9. Takri/Tankri Himachal Pradesh 10. Tana/Thana Lakshadweep 11. Tibetan Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and west Bengal 12. U-Chhen Sikkim 13. U-Med Sikkim and west Bengal

Many of them are drawn from a common source, , which further bifurcated into two types, the Northern and Southern types. (Singh and Manoharan, 1997). But earlier some scholars like Suniti Kumar Chatterji have recognized seven to eight scripts of native Indian origin. They are Nagari or Devanagri, Bengali-Assamese, Oriya, Gurumukhi, Telugu-Kannada, Tamil-Grantha and Malayalam. Also two are of foreign 32

Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India origins i.e., Perso-Arabic and Roman script. But there are languages which do not have any script and are of equal importance. But people are becoming conscious of and are thus inventing new script for their language. For example Raghunath Murmu invented the script of Santhali language named Ol Chiki. Likewise more attempts are going on in the formation of script of different languages. The relationship of language and script is very deep. For some languages their script is their mark of identity. Mostly across the world, people consider a language and its script inseparable. But now this boundary is disappearing very fast. One can use different scripts to write the same language and also one can use same script to write different languages. For e.g. Devanagri is used to write several languages, likewise Sanskrit can be written by Devanagri, Kannada, Telugu etc. This is an outcome of the pluralistic tradition of India. But this kind of trend can be a threat for many languages. Like the threat Urdu is facing these days and many other oral languages can face in future. By many, Urdu and Hindi are considered same on the basis of grammar but the strong point of differentiation is their scripts, i.e. Hindi is written via. Devanagri and Urdu is written via. Perso-arabic. So many a times one cannot segregate a language from its script.

1.6 Language and Caste: Caste is one of the social variables responsible for the variation of language. Caste system is a form of social stratification where an individual gains a position or status by birth. Each caste has its own rituals, food habits and dressing style. It is also termed as jaati or varna. In India caste system prevails everywhere, whether its North or South, 33

Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

Hindu or Muslim, Urban or Village etc. The notion of purity and pollution is attached with caste. Generally people of high status are associated with purity and people of low status with pollution. Earlier the low caste and the high caste people did not live together. It is still prevalent in many villages till date. In caste hierarchy, the Brahmins are considered the upper caste. They are priestly and learned class, so their language contains more Sanskritized words. Then are the Kshatriyas, the warriors and rulers, so terminologies regarding war are more in them. After them comes the Vaisyas, the farmers and merchants. Then the Sudras, Peasants and laborers and at the lower end comes the Untouchables, now known as Scheduled Caste. Many works by different Scholars at different point of time have been done on caste variation. A very eminent work has been done by Gumperz (1958) on a North Indian village named Khalapur located in District of . He divided the inhabitants into thirty one endogamous caste or jatis. He found differences in the village of three types- differences in phonemic distribution, etymological differences and phonetic differences. He concluded, “Members of the same caste living in different sections of the village speak the same dialect.” Also William Bright (1990) in his book “Language variation in ” has discussed about the linguistic variations found between two Kannada dialects of District on the basis of caste. One spoken by a young Brahmin woman born and raised in the city of Bangalore and the other of Agricultural Okkaliga community. The differences were there at the level of phonology, grammar, lexicon etc. Also Tulu, another Dravidian language of South India is spoken totally different by a

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

Brahmin and a Non-Brahmin or Shudras. Similar work on caste dialects has been done by Scholars like .H.B. Den Ouden on “Social Stratification as expressed through language: A Case study of a South Indian village.” (Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol: 13, no- 1, 1979) and P.M. Girish on “Castelect: A critical study”.

1.7 Language and Dialect: Language varies in space and time. There are no fixed criteria for distinguishing a dialect and a language. Variation in language is often known as dialect. Dialects are mutually intelligible. We can say that every person speaks a variety of language. So we can say language is an abstract notion and dialect is concrete. Language and Dialect has always been an issue of great political conflict. So many a times this expression is used, “A language is a dialect with an army and navy.” It is totally political to consider one variety as language and other as dialect. Linguists try to distinguish between language and dialect on the basis of , script, standardization, functional dominance, lexical and stylistic elaboration etc. It is still difficult to differentiate between a dialect and language. The boundary between a dialect and language is very conflicting. In India there are many languages which are grouped as dialects under dominant languages. Among them many are striving hard to achieve the status of a language. This criterion of inclusion of smaller languages under one umbrella term has been termed as „inclusive criterion‟ by Khubchandani (2001). For e.g. Hindi is a cover term for approximately forty-nine dialects.

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

Table: 1.3: List of Dialects Covered under Hindi. Name of the dialects of Hindi Hindi 1. Awadhi 26. Laria 2. Bagheli/Baghelkhandi 27. Lodhi 3. Bagri Rajasthani 28. Magadhi/Magahi 4. Banjari 29. Maithili 5. Bharmauri/Gaddi 30. Malvi 6. Bhojpuri 31. 7. Bhasha 32. Marwari 8. Bundeli/BundelKhandi 33. Mewari 9. 34. Mewati 10. Chattisgarhi 35. Nagpuria 11. 36. Nimadi 12. Dhundhari 37. Pahari 13. Garhwali 38. Panchpargania 14. Harauti 39. 15. Haryanvi 40. Pawari/Powari 16. Hindi 41. Rajasthani 17. Jaunsari 42. Sadan/Sadri 18. Kangri 43. Sanori 19. Khairari 44. Sirmauri 20. Khortha/Khotta 45. Sondwari 21. Kulvi 46. Sugali 22. Kumauni 47. Surgujia 23. Kurmali Thar 48. Surjapuri 24. Labani Others 25. Lamani/

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

In Hindi itself there are many dialects which have now gained the status of a language, e.g. Maithili. Maithili has raised its status from a dialect to a language by getting entry in the Eighth Schedule. Likewise many are on the verge of having the status of language, e.g. Bhojpuri. But the up gradation of a dialect into a language is most of the times a matter of power and politics. The terms language and dialect are used many a times for showing dominance and suppressing others. The attitude of the speakers of that dialect is also very important in this process of standardization. Variation in language is there at the level of region also. They are termed regional languages. The twenty two scheduled languages can also be termed as regional languages. Apart from these some of the regional languages and dialects of India are Aariya, Adi, Andaman Creole Hindi, Andh, Arakanese, Awadhi, Bhadrawahi, Bhattiyali, Bhojpuri, , Birhor, , Chaura, Chhattisgarhi, Deccan, Deori, Dhodia, Dimasa, Gaddi, Garhwali, Garo, Godwari, Gujari, Gurung, Haryanvi, Holiya, Jad, Jarawa, Kanauji, Khasi, Korlai Creole Portuguese, Kumauni, Ladakhi, Lepcha, Lodhi, Majhi, Malapandaram, Maldivian, Marwari, Mizo, Mundari, Newar, Parsi, Powari, Rabha, Rajbanshi, Rongpo, Samvedi, , Shekhawati, Sherpa, Sikkimese, Tamang, Urali, Varhadi-Nagpuri, Vasavi, , Yerukula and Zangskari. Apart from geographical variations, language variation can also be seen at two levels- Individual level and Social level. At the individual level come ideolectal differences, stylistic variations and registeral variations. The way an individual uses a language is termed as ideolect. Every individual uses language in his own way. So no two individuals can speak the same way. The other is stylistic variation. Stylistic variation involves

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India variation in the speech of an individual. It can also be defined as individual‟s choice of how he uses a language i.e., using certain stylistic devices like metaphor, simili, etc or adding certain accent etc. The next come registers. Language variations based on occupation, professions or topics are known as register. The register or the jargon used by a doctor will be different from that of engineer. Registers are basically vocabulary differences or particular situations of use. Hallyday refers to register as „distinguished by use.‟ Thus specialized registers are important in a language. At the societal level comes sociolects. Sociolect is a variety of language associated with a particular social group. It is a variety of language spoken by a particular ethnic, religious, age or employment group or social class. Thus these differences in language use give proper evidences of multilingualism.

1.8 Language and Religion: Variation in the use of language can also be seen in the different religions practiced in India. India‟s diversity can be seen at every step. This plurality is not only at the level of language but also equal extent of plurality can be seen in the cultural habits, rituals, caste, religions, i.e., in every sect of life. The religious map of India is also a unique one because it contains almost all major religions of the world. Religion percentage (%) Hindu 80.4% Muslim 13.4% 2.3% Sikh 1.9% Jain 0.4% Others 0.5% (Census 2001)

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Chapter One: Social, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape of India

The relationship of language and religion mostly depend upon the liturgical and sacred texts. Sanskrit, Arabic, Hebrew etc have religious connotations. Religion too has lots of significance in shaping one‟s language. For example in India, Urdu has always been connected with the Muslim sect. so diversity is there with regard to all the social variables present in the society. An individual‟s language is groomed by all these social factors. All these linguistic, ethnic and cultural diversities lead to heterogeneity. The beauty of Indian heterogeneity lies in its diversities. So in a polity like India, one can never get instances of monolingualism. People use language differently in different domains and in different situation. The so called monolinguals too switch from one language variety to another. A person knowing only one language shows variation at one or the other level of language use. Hence there is no possibility of homogeneity in India. Thus it has been rightly said that in India at every two miles the water changes, every four miles the speech.

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