Talk:Languages with legal status in India

could anyone bring any citations, when Santali becomes official language? --Rrjanbiah 08:28, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

i found this source, outlining the addition of Bodo, Dogri, Santali and Maithili as official languages in India. http://www.mid-day.com/news/nation/2003/december/72086.htm

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Is there any list telling which family (Indo-european, Dravidian, etc.) these languages belong to?

Number of official languages: The first paragraph says 23, but then later on the article lists 22 languages apart from Hindi and English (bringing the total to 24). Which one is right? - Shiva

Examinations conducted for national government service?

The article says examinations conducted for national government service. I have difficulties in understanding what this means. This article is the translation of the week so I really don't think I am the only one who wonders. / Habj 02:13, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

The exams that are referred to so include the following:

• UPSC exam - Union Public Service Comission exams for entry to various positions under the federal government
• RRB - Railway Recruitment Board
• Some recruitment board for nationalised banks
• Armed forces recruitment board
• ...

-- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 03:52, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Ah, exams/tests done/required to get certain employments/positions. Thanks. / Habj 09:51, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Scheduled languages

The article doesn't really accurately represent the correct legal status of languages listed in Eighth Schedule. According to the article, languages in the Eighth Schedule:

• can be officially adopted by different states for administrative purposes: this isn't correct - under Article 345 of the Constitution of India, any language used in a State may be used as its official language. There's nothing in the Constitution that says it has to be listed in the Eighth Schedule, so states (in theory) aren't limited to the 22 which are in choosing their national language.
• as a medium of communication between the national and the state governments: as far as I know, under Section 3 of the Official Languages Act, Hindi will be used if the State in question has adopted Hindi as its language or requests the use of Hindi, and English will be used otherwise. I do not think the other languages in the 8th Schedule can be used for this purpose. This seems to be borne out by the Official Language Rules.

What being listed in the Eighth Schedule does give is:

• representation on the Official Languages Commission (under Art. 344(1) of the Constitution).
• as the Article already notes, the right to use the language in UPSC exams (under Paragraph 4 of the Official Languages Resolution).

I've reworded the first paragraph of the article accordingly. Also, isn't Bodo formally an "associate official language" of Assam? -- Arvind 19:07, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Punjabi

Is Punjabi not also an official language of Chandigarh? Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 13:23, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

French and Pondicherry

French is an official language of Pondicherry. You can read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pondicherry

Non availability of languagewise population figures

Still we are unable to know the language wise population of India as per census in 2001.When can we see these figures ? -Noorbasha Rahamthulla, Visakhapatnam.

Help add input for Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Indic)

Help add input for Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Indic)--Dangerous-Boy 04:49, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Is gondi official language?

http://rajbhasha.nic.in/8thschedulehin.pdf

This official document doesnot show gondi as official language. Does any body knows the truth?

Article name

The current article name is "List of national languages of India". As such, the article does not talk about "national languages"; instead it talks about the "official languages" of India, through out the article. Also, the constitution and other official websites, always refer to Indian languages as "official languages" and not as "national languages".

• http://www.constitution.org/cons/india/p17.html
• http://rajbhasha.nic.in/dolruleseng.htm

On this basis, I propose redirecting this page to Official languages of India OR List of official languages of India. Any suggestions / thoughts? - KNM ^{Talk - Contribs} 03:28, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

No responses? If there is no opposition by tomorrow, then I will be bold and move it to List of official languages of India and provide redirect from Official languages of India. Thanks. - KNM ^Talk 16:50, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

You have my support (for what it is worth :-) ).

I suggest that it be simply titled "Official languages of India" since the article is not only a list, but also discusses the concept of official (as opposed to national) languages. Abecedare 09:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Thats a good alternative, and logical too considering the paragraphs (and not really lists) in the beginning of the article.

We could have the article titled as "Official languages of India" and provide redirects to it from other titles mentioned above. - KNM ^Talk 15:56, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

But the article also talks about other languages with no official status. And what is the "national" supposed to mean ? Someone needs to rethink how this and Languages of India work together ? -- Beardo 12:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the articles are distinct since Languages of India is primarily concerned with linguistic aspects, while this one is mainly on the official status (or lack thereof) and demographics of languages. I think an encyclopedia needs to have both kinds of information, however I welcome suggestions for naming the two articles aptly ? Abecedare 13:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree! - KNM ^Talk 15:56, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Great ! KNM, can you take the lead on making the move happen ? Of course, I'll be happy to be of any help if you let me know what to do. Abecedare 18:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I completed the page move that I saw at WP:RM, but only after I'd moved the page to Official languages of India did I notice Beardo's comment that "this needs more discussion". If I need to move it again, please feel free to let me know, and I'll be happy to help out. Sorry if I was too hasty there. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

"Minority" languages

There are hundreds of languages with less than a million speakers. What does this subsection intend to include? deeptrivia (talk) 05:26, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

English as "official" language

I thought English was no longer an official language of India, according to the CIA, https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/in.html it's an 'associate language' - i got the impression when i was over there that they were really trying to phase out the use of English, for example in Mumbai (they changed the name for starters) they've changed loads of street names and renamed lots of places. It is a bit odd as there is no other language that allows states in the north to talk to states in the south but i guess it's about throwing off the shackles of colonialism. Can anyone clarify this? the constitution itself only says that English shall be used for 15 years before being re-examined (i assume the constitution is the one from 1948? so 15 years expired a long time ago) Am i being a bit dipsy here? Thanks Gazzelle 15:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The correct (official) way to define the status of English as per the Constitution is as you have said : "associate language". It is not an official language nor is it a National language (as defined in the 8th Schedule of Constitution of India). The ground situation is entirely different. English is in many ways the de-facto official language, and although many hardcore Hindi loyalists rant against this de-facto dominance , the fact is that Hindi and English together enjoy a dual status. Eg: someone who is fluent in both will easily switch from one to another depending on the other person he/she is conversing with. Businesses mainly use English and higher education is not possible without English.

Here's the constitutional lingo: Part XVII(CHAPTER I.—LANGUAGE OF THE UNION) :The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script .

Surprisingly the very next part :CHAPTER III.—LANGUAGE OF THE SUPREME COURT, HIGH COURTS, ETC. says that: (rephrased) all proceedings in Supreme courts and High courts and all bills introduced in parliament shall be in English --Deepak D'Souza 05:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Contradiction

The first table suggests that Portuguese is an official language of Goa, whereas the section "Goa, Daman and Diu" states that it isn't. Which one is right? Marcoscramer 00:50, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Nope, Portuguese is no longer used for any official purpose. Its use if any is unofficial. --Deepak D'Souza 05:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Bihari languages

The section on Bihari languages states that none of them have any official status (which was my understanding). The section on official languages of states says that they are official languages of Bihar. The section on official languages of India includes only Maithili as an official language of Bihar. Which is it? The article is full of messy shit like that. john k 19:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup tag

This article is totally off track and inaccurate. The Title says : offical Languages of India, but it discusses all languages, not just official ones.

Take the list of Offical languages for Goa is stated as Konkani, Marathi, Portuguese, English. The facts are: Portuguese is non existent, Marathi still has to be added as an official language(the process is underway) English is NOT an official language anywhere in India. It is an associate language.

Next take the entry for Maharashtra: Marathi and Konkani. In Maharashtra Konkani is treaded as a dialect of Marathi and not as an independent language. There are no govt organisation working on Konkani.Konkani is only spoken in pockets on the coast.

This and most messages above point to a very sloppy and misinformed style of writing. The content will be more correct for "Languages in India" than "Official languages of India". either rename this article or clean it up thoroughly.

--Deepak D'Souza 06:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

One ore point: India has a list of 22 official languages (including Hindi and English). English is not an official language --Deepak D'Souza 06:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Question: states and union territories have Hindi as the principal official language.

I cannot tie up the statement in the heading:

"Out of the 28 states and 7 union territories, only 10 states and 3 union territories have Hindi as the principal official language."

with the tables, which show Hindi as the official language of 12 states

1. Arunachal Pradesh
2. Bihar
3. Chhattisgarh
4. Gujarat
5. Haryana
6. Himachal Pradesh
7. Jharkhand
8. Madhya Pradesh
9. Rajasthan
10. Uttarakhand
11. Uttar Pradesh
12. Delhi

It is also given for the two Union territories

1. Andaman and Nicobar Islands
2. Chandigarh

I can see how two of the states might have Hindi as an official language, but not the principle one. I cannot see how the two union territories listed can equate to the three mentioned in the heading -- Q Chris 11:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't Delhi a territory? And Gujarat doesn't have Hindi as its primary language, so that'd about do it, no? john k 16:07, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Repeated removal of other POV

User:Sarvagnya is repeatedly removing cited content which presents other POV in classical languages of India section. I request him to stop doing so. Thanks. Praveen 22:07, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

POV in History section

The article is wrought with several POV statements and uncited material. Let me start by addressing this one in the History section:

However, due to protests from South Indian states where there is low Hindi penetration, the "twin language" system is still in vogue.

I see several issues with this statement:

1. First, the protests were not only in South Indian states. Bengal had its share of violance too, as can be seen from the last paragraph of this article.

2. To say that it's due to the protests that the twin language system is still in vogue, is POV unless citation is provided.

3. "Low Hindi penetration" is weasel. How does one define "low" and "penetration" ? Has there been a published survey of the amount of "Hindi penetration" in all the states and does the South come out as "low" ?

I suggest removing this statement, if it cannot be reworded properly. Lotlil 04:06, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Reorganisation

Hi,

A lot fo this article has very little to do with the topic of "Official languages of India" and belongs instead in Languages of India. For example, the national language debate has nothing to do with which languages are official. The decision to call Sanskrit, Tamil and any other languages "classical" also has no bearing on the official use of the language. The official recognition granted to a language is not the same as the status of a language as an official language, if you see what I am trying to say. The section on "other popular languages" and on the use of Portuguese in Goa etc. also has no bearing at all on their official status.

Apart from that, there are a lot of claims that are wrong. The Consitution does not recognise the languages in the Eighth Schedule as "official languages". They are only entitled to representation on the Official Languages Commission, and their character is to be taken into account in developing Hindi. There are other similar issues with the article. I am prepared to spend the time correcting these problems, but because I am new here I wanted to consult other contributors for their views before I did anything. -- Lexmercatoria 14:46, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Should I say "anishedam anumitam" and conclude that nobody has any objections to my proposed changes? -- Lexmercatoria 15:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I have now done this. I hope everybody agrees that it is an improvement. The section on classical languages was moved to the article Languages of India, which is where it belongs. I don't know what to do with the section on "other popular languages of India". It doesn't belong here, since none of them are official in any way. If anyone wants to put it in any other article, you can find it at this link -- Lexmercatoria 11:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Since it seems what I did was original research, I have reverted the article to the version as it stood before I intervened. The article is riddled with factual inaccuracies, but due to the paucity of secondary sources I will not try to fix them. I have added an appropriate tag. -- Lexmercatoria 23:20, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the right path to further wikifying this article, is through reversion to a less encyclopedic version. Rather since the main issue with the article is the lack of secondary sources, we should concentrate our efforts on locating such sources. Of course, we will be highly dependent upon your access to Indian law books, journals etc where such issues are more likely to be addressed with sufficient accuracy. Thanks. Abecedare 00:11, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

This issue is in a rather peculiar position. Because it is not an issue which is likely to be litigated, the standard commentaries on the Constitution don't discuss it. At the same time, because it is so obvious, it isn't the type of thing academic journals will publish. So locating secondary sources to support what I'd written isn't feasible.

There may, however, be something in political science or other social science journals, even though they will not analyse rules in this detail. What we will need to do is completely set aside what I've done so far, start by taking a look at whatever is available in journals and other secondary sources, and write a fresh article based only on that. This, in a nutshell, is why I undid my changes. I'm not planning to abandon the article. -- Lexmercatoria 00:22, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your analysis of the problem, but not necessarily with the solution. I would recommend that we search for secondary sources (in political and social science publications, as you say), and then replace/supplement the primary sources as and when we locate secondary publications. In the meantime, the current text of the article can serve as a guideline for what "facts" we need to get properly sourced. I don't see how reverting to a less encyclopedic version, which anyway was largely unsourced (except for the single issue of Tamil being declared a classical language) serves the reader or the wikipedia ideal. Abecedare 00:41, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment - First of all, this "no primary sources" or "primary sources will be allowed only if supplemented with a secondary/tertiary source" is taking wiki policies and guidelines too literally.. to the extent of being detrimental to article quality. Secondary sources as we have seen display wide differences in the way they treat the subject. Some even have taken the liberty to call Hindi the "national" language, which we all know is "factually incorrect". I would at this point like to point out WP:IAR here. There is no need to follow wiki policies and guidelines even when they are so patently detrimental to article quality. Lex's rewriting of this article is to be appreciated without any qualifications. For the first time in the article's history, it is 'looking' and 'reading' like an encyclopedia article. This nitpicking by some who claim to follow wiki P&G to the tee is proving detrimental to article quality and seems like a bad faith attempt to me. Sarvagnya 04:11, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Secondary Sources

I am collecting secondary sources (appropriate for this page) in the collapsible box below. Some of the links may not be accessible for everyone, but I will add relevant quotes from the. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:17, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

State languages

A big round of thanks and applause to everybody who pitched in to create a complete, and well-referenced, list of official languages at the state level! -- Lexmercatoria 23:28, 16 July 2007 (UTC)