NEW DELHI, INDIA, February 27, 2017 (Press Information of Bureau): India is one of unique countries in the world that has the legacy of diversity of languages. The Constitution of India has recognised 22 official languages. Multilingualism is the way of life in India as people in different parts of the country speak more than one language from their birth and learn additional languages during their life time. Though officially there are 122 languages, Peoples Linguistic Survey of India has identified 780 languages, of which 50 are extinct in past five decades. The twenty two languages that are recognised by the Constitution are: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri, Kannada, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu are included in the Eight Schedule of the constitution. Among these three languages, Sanskrit, Tamil and Kannada have been recognised as classical language with special status and recognition by Government of India. The classical languages have written and oral history of more than 1000 years. In comparison to these, English is very young as it has the history of only 300 years.
In addition to these scheduled and classical languages, The Constitution of India has included the clause to protect minority languages as a fundamental right. It states “Any section of the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part of thereof having a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same.” The language policy of India provides guarantee to protect the linguistic minorities. Despite these efforts by the central government minority languages are under threat of extinction due to multiple causes. In Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the death of Boa in 2010, the last speaker of Bo language is one of those instances that have lead to extinction of Bo language with the history of 70000 years.
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