Bilingualism and sometimes trilingualism is common in both rural and urban areas even among the unlettered. This is because when a family, a kin group or a community moves from one region to another, its members acquire the language of their new place of domicile without giving up their native dialect. Settlement of outsiders has also helped in spreading bilingualism or trilingualism in the region. The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India recognised 18 Indian languages. There is no provision to protect the minor languages, especially the tribal languages of the North-East.
Any language signifies a vocal system by which members of a social group interact with one another.
It has immense social and political implications. Coercion by the dominant community to impose its language could invite political turmoil. But the advocacy of a single language for homogeneity or cohesiveness classification has been challenged. The geographical distribution of the major languages in India neatly fits into a scheme of linguistic regions. Hence the linguistic re-organisation of States that took place in 1956.