Talk:Languages of India/Archive 1

message: There are no corresponding sounds in Indian languages to the English "th" sounds. "th" in English is used to represent two sounds: (1) an unvoiced dental fricative (as in "thin") and (2) a voiced dental fricative (as in "this"). Neither sound exists in Hindi. Hindi speakers for whom English is a second language often substitute the Hindi th (unvoiced aspirated dental plosive) for the first sound, and the Hindi d (voiced unaspirated dental plosive) for the second sound, but note that these sounds are both plosives, not fricatives. 
Also please note the corrected term "fricative" rather than "aspirant." Also, the ch chh j jh sounds are affricates, which represented blends of plosives and fricatives, and should be noted as such.
Also, please note that the English t and d are alveolar plosives, which also do not exist in Indian languages. They are close to the retroflex t and d of Indian languages and are often substituted for each other, but they are not the same. It is also not correct to say that the aspirated versions of these sounds do not exist in English. They do exist, but they exist as morphemes of the same phoneme. Think about how a native English speaker pronounces "tank" and "can't." In the first case, you have an aspirated "t" and an unaspirated "k" and in the second case, you have an unaspirated "t" and an aspirated "k," but most English speakers will not recognize the difference between the sounds because the differences are not phonemically significant. In other words, aspiration in English is mostly a function of the position of a sound in a word, not as a function of meaning. 149.79.146.138 20:13, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: "Indian language" means language spoken in India. It does  not necessarily mean Hindi Alone.
The "th" sound is well represented in the language Tamil, which is more than 2000 years old. Doctor Bruno 07:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Remember that Indian languages mean NOT only Hindi

message: Tamil has been declared as a Classical Language by the Government of India in 2004 Doctor Bruno 07:24, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Tamil is a Classical Language

message: This article needs to use a consistent transliteration scheme, proper grammar, and proper capitalization.
Arun 07:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup

message: I'm no expert but I stumbled across the article and I think it's an important subject, so I've tried to improve the following:
* Literature changed to literature
* "Both of them has a very large collections of Literature of 5000 and 2500 years old repectively (Tamil literature)" changed to "Both of them have very large collections of literature, with the earliest Sanskrit texts dating from 5000 years ago and the earliest Tamil literature from 2500 years ago." No idea if this is right but it's the only sensible thing I could make from the existing sentence. I think some references should be added to give some credence to these dates.
* "it is interestingly being revived" changed to "it is being revived".
* "having more than 74 million speakers, which is 1000 times larger than 6,106 fluent speakers (1981 census) of sanskrit" changed to "having more than 74 million speakers, which is 10,000 times larger than 6,106 fluent speakers of Sanskrit (1981 census)". I'm pretty sure that 1,000 x 6,000 = 6 million. Begs the question whether it's actually 7.4 million speakers of Tamil, but I'm assuming not.
* On a side-note, is this saying that there are 74m speakers in India? Or globally? I don't think an article on the languages of England/UK should spend valuable space noting that English is spoken quite a lot in the USA, so we should make this India only if it isn't already. On the same basis, I've removed the additional comment "Tamil has the official status outside india also" because it's irrelevent.
* Since mellifluous apparently means "pleasing to the ear" I've left it in but I'm slightly concerned at the assumption that Italian is more beautiful to the ear than, say, Celtic and that it is used more in music than, say, English. Again, some references should be added to stop this looking like a POV bias.
Kayman1uk 10:08, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Small cleanup 

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

message: "This classification is observed in all the languages under discussion" - what about tamil, which doesn't even have aspirated consonants except when special characters are used for writing Sanskrit (Granthakshara)?--Grammatical error 06:47, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. Please reword it. See Tamil language#Phonology. I'm not an expert on such issues; but, one can ask Arvind for any clarifications. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 08:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  tamil aspirates 

message: I've refactored the lead per WP:LEAD. This article needs a lot of improvement. Currently, beyond the lead, there's nothing except the alphabets. We need to somehow shed our inclination to mention data about individual languages and [instead] create a proper encyclopaedic article on the subject at hand. We need good maps as in African languages and the layout could be a modified version of Gbe languages. Because all the Gbe languages are linguistically related, they were able to talk about language features, whereas, we need to have smaller summary subsections talking about features of the 4 linguistic families plus Andamanese languages. A good test for not wavering beyond the topic is the extent to which we avoid mention of individual languages in favour of language families. The lead section should ideally be the only place for their mention. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 08:27, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, you've hit the nail on the head, and good job on the lead, that looks very good. The alphabets section needs to be shortened (and/or split into writing systems and phonology which is what much of it is really about), and then you're right the article needs some expansion on the various families. They should get space relative to the number of speakers of each family, though not exactly proportional. The Gbe languages article is a good model for what to cover, but we should work on a proposed outline of what the article should ideally cover, then we can go do some research to get good sources to cite. General linguistis topics would be history, writing system, phonology, morphology, syntax (grammar), and maybe a bit on corpus linguistics and translation. I fear that if we cover that four times the article may be unwieldy, though maybe not it we don't create that many subsections for each of the language families. The smaller families could just have one or two paragraphs that summarize all of that. Should the major subsections be the topics I listed above or should it be the 4 or so language families and then cover those topics in each section? - Taxman Talk 11:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Taxman, thanks for your outline above and the copyedit done by you. The outline sounds good. We could add a distribution map if there's a definitive source. This book and others from CIIL can be useful. This, being an important main article related to India, merits good attention. Hope more editors join in the effort to improve it. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 12:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, but which outline do you think would work better (my last question)? It would be hard to switch. - Taxman Talk 12:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thinking of the semantics, I lean in favour of the former. But, we need not have subsections for each language family; we could just have paragraphs. The other outline doesn't sound bad either. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 13:10, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In principle, I support the former.  The article will need to discuss how the language families have influenced each other in grammar (e.g. the Tolkappiyam's rather strained identification of seven cases), phonology (retroflexes in Indo-Aryan), morphology and vocabulary, and it will need to do so in the context of theories such as Murray Emeneau's model of the Indian linguistic area. It seems to me we can best do this with a structure that discusses the families together, rather than separately.  -- Arvind 16:07, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Good question. I suppose it depends on the data for the number of speakers. I would propose the coverage should be balanced by that and importance/ other factors. The article would be remiss without mention of English's role, but it seems like it would be better off without a linguistic coverage of it, instead just a survey of the role it has/had. Pali is Indo-European, so it should be covered in that context. What do you mean by NE - Northern European? And please comment on which approach to the layout you prefer based on the above. - Taxman Talk 15:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: NE = North East India, one of the most poorly documented regions of India. Sundar, maps shouldn't be a problem anymore since we've got a featured SVG map. Basic drawing using inkscape would solve the problem. Having subsections for each language family might lead to the page becoming too cluttered. =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

text: If we get some data on Portugeese, French, Dutch and possibly Hebrew speakers, we could, in the interests of completeness, make a mention in a single line or a short paragraph. Yes, even I've observed the poor coverage on NE here and elsewhere. Let's do proper justice to those language families as well. Glad to know that maps are not a problem. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 10:11, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Cochini jews had a special dialect, often called Judaeo-Malayalam which might be interesting enough to mention.  We should also at least mention the existence of pockets of native speakers of Goan Portuguese (does it differ from "Standard Portuguese"?) and English since those have deep roots.  Chinese and other immigrant languages probably don't merit a mention.  -- Arvind 16:07, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup 

message: I removed the following text as too detailed on one language and innacurate anyway:
:Urdu is unique among Indian languages. Grammatically it is 'genetically' linked to the older language of Prakrit. Much of its vocabulary is derived from neighboring Arabic, Turkish, Farsi and Sanskrit. Indeed, Urdu is the Turkish word for "camp", "tent", or "military encampment". Urdu arose due to contact between the Mughal armies and speakers of the local derivatives of Sanskrit and Prakrit. It has since evolved into a rich independent language. The modern Urdu script evolved from the Arabic script. It was introduced via Persia by invading Mughal armies, and was fitted to the local Indian phonology.  Thus, even though Urdu is deeply connected with other Indian languages, and its phonology differes from that of Hindi by only six sounds, its script shows no influence from neighboring Indian alphabets.
It has grains of truth but makes it sound like Urdu is unrelated to Hindi, which no scholars would support. Besides it's too much detail for one language and I'm not sure it should be in even if properly balanced. I made other changes to start working towards what was discussed above. I'll need to go get some more sources to do much more. - Taxman Talk 18:27, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with you, Taxman. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 10:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed section 

message: I have removed "italian of the east" . Telugu is much more sweeter and italian does not stand anywhere near it. There is no need to add such old colonial phrases in the languages of India article.Bharatveer 14:11, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Telugu

message: Can Nichalp or someone else go to this site, select "culture" in the "journey highlights" and grab the information required for creating maps for linguistic distribution, by clicking on "modern language distribution" etc., Since it's in flash, I'm not able to get absolute URLs. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 14:14, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've uploaded the screenshot of an enlarged version (showing Asia) here. --  thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK 16:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maps 

message: Bengali language has numerical classifiers similar to the East Asian languages, and does not have masculine/feminine grammatical gender like most Indian and European languages do. Is this also true of other languages in eastern India? --JWB 17:40, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gender vs. measure words 

message: Surprised to see that there are very few mentions of Marathi language in this article.There's very few information given about Marathi.Im not a expert but perhaps what's relevant to Hindi,Bengali,Punjabi and Gujarati is also obvious to Marathi,but those mentions have not been given.
Marathi is an important language hence please give an comprehensive information about it here(just like Tamil/Kannada and Hindi).
(mahawiki 20:02, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In an article on a country with so many languages there is very little space for each individual langauge. The answer is probably not to add more information on a particluar language, but to remove some of the mentions of others and replace it with general information about language families. The only time a specific language should be mentioned is when some unique feature of them is important enough to justify it. - Taxman Talk 14:01, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Less mentions of Marathi language 

message: While I agree that NPOV needs to be brought in the "classical" languages section, are people willing to work towards improving this very important article? There have been discussions in the past at #Cleanup and #Going forward. Any volunteers? -- Sundar \talk \contribs 06:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Beyond the conflict 

message: This section needs to be renamed and the coverage needs to be broader. For example, if it doesn't mention the struggle by Potti Sreeramulu, it's incomplete to say the least. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 06:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Where's this section gone to? Communalism (South Asia) links to it and it seems to have disappeared.. Secretlondon (talk) 00:05, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It was removed in this edit. It was so poorly cited and imbalanced, that I can't say I disagree with the removal. While there does need to be a section covering language conflict, and some of that does need to cover the Hindi issue, it needs to be redone I think. Sundar, what did you have in mind for a proper section title? - Taxman Talk 19:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

text:  removed misleading mentioning of the state along with the Anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu. There's no such conflict ever reported in any part of the state. Anu Raj (talk) 20:15, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language conflicts 

message: Languages of India → Indian language — Move to a standard language-type article's name —Wikipedian 05:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *Support or *Oppose, then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.
* Support FinaleFever 05:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Any additional comments:
* I support. It should be move to Indian language so it matches the other language-type articles like English language, Spanish language, etc. FinaleFever 05:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested move (old)

message: :Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *Support or *Oppose, then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.
* Support FinaleFever 05:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: :Any additional comments:
* I support. It should be move to Indian language so it matches the other language-type articles like English language, Spanish language, etc. FinaleFever 05:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: I suggest switching the position of "Official Languages" and "Classical langs of India" sections. What say thee? Amit@Talk 10:43, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changing section order 

message: Why does the map title say people's republic of china in chinese? 154.20.115.35 00:35, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  map title? 

message: Can we get a map showing the locations of the actual languages (not language families)? 131.123.121.146 (talk) 18:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map needed 

message: It needs to be stated which language(s) are Austro-Asiatic in India (the purple areas on the map). 131.123.121.146 (talk) 18:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Austro-Asiatic

message: :The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by Station1 (talk • contribs) 11:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No. ～J.K. 07:23, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: In view of that and subsequent arguments, changed from weak to to unqualified support. Andrewa (talk) 19:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move back to "Languages of India" 

message: As suggested at Talk:List of Indian languages by number of native speakers, it would be useful to have a "List of Indian languages by total number of speakers", which could either be separate or integrated.  Right now, it's impossible to use Wikipedia data answer questions like, "What fraction of the population can speak English?" because second and third languages aren't counted. -- Beland (talk) 21:07, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Total speakers for each language 

message: user:Kalarimaster,  Since I subscribe to 1RR, I won't revert you, but from the time the section on "Classical languages of India" was first introduced on this page a year and a half ago, to the same time last year, to six months ago, to until as recently as [ November 6], no mention was made of the Government of India's criteria.  The only criteria that have been mentioned during this period of 18 months are the ones of George L. Hart, which are also to be found also in the lead of Wikipedia's page Classical language.  Even when the Government's criteria of 2006 introduced by user:Dineshkannambadi in this edit, the Government's criteria were at the end not in a separate section, and so they had remained until you chose to make your edit.  Need I remind you that this page has long been a controversial page.
Need I also remind you that Wikipedia's injunction to be bold comes with important caveats, that among these are: 
*You have not sought any such consensus; moreover, in the edit in which you made these changes, the edit summary only said: "structure," and provide no clue why such a major change of order of presentation (and therefore of emphasis was being attempted).  Will you explicitly state here what you are attempting with providing that structure in that order, and why you have consensus for this edit?
*I had initially supported changing the name of the section to "Official classical languages" from "Classical languages," however, this section has a long history and is meant to be linked to the Wikipedia page classical language, so we can't make it only about official classical languages; consequently even if there was consensus to have a separate section for criteria, and to have that section precede the other section, there is no reason why George L. Hart's criteria that occur in the lead of the classical language page shouldn't come first.  Will you explicitly state here why you have only included the Government's criteria of 2006 and not the criteria mentioned in Wikipedia's page on classical languages? 
I will look forward to hearing your explanations here.  I would recommend that you restore the section to its previous "structure" until such time as these issues have been resolved.  Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:38, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Criteria

message: The title of this section was simply "Classical languages" until I and a few other people (after discussion on Talk:India) changed it to "Official classical languages."  However, clearly, given the history and content of the page, and given its links to the Wikipedia page classical languages, it can't be just about the official languages.  I am therefore proposing that we change the section title back to "classical languages," which it had remained for over a year and a half.  Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:38, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There is already a page "Official languages of India."  There is a good reason why this section is not included there.  Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:45, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

text: I'm against this move. This makes it "international". The thing is, that India has its own criteria, not compatible with the international view.--Kalarimaster (talk) 18:33, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: kalarimaster, you just dont get it. There is only one standard, academical standard which you choose to call "international". This standard involves high level of antiquity and independence in literature. This standard has to be mentioned first and fore and any deviation from that for according classical status to Indian languages should be mentioned accurately and explicitly. It would be better off for people who dont understand how wikipedia works and what classicality is to just lay it off. I support moving to classical languages again. Docku: What up? 18:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No Docku, there are two standards, the western international standard, and the Indian standard. This is nothing unencyclopedical.--Kalarimaster (talk) 19:27, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Name of classical languages section

message: take care not to confuse this "classical language of India" label with the common concept of a classical language. They are without direct relation.
*In common use, a classical language is a specific stage within a language's history. For Sanskrit, this is Classical Sanskrit (say, 400 BC to 600 AD). Sanskrit texts before or after this period are pre-classical or post-classical. Similarly, "Classical Tamil" is the language of the Sangam literature. Any Tamil text post-dating 600 AD or so isn't classical but post-classical.
*the 2004 "classical language of India" label doesn't make this distinction. It just declares "Sanskrit" or "Tamil" as "classical" by definition. This is an issue of language politics and has nothing to do with the notion of a classical stage discussed at classical language. 
--dab (𒁳) 09:04, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: "Classicity"

message: I will try to find the list. --Kalarimaster (talk) 12:47, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  There should be also a section of the non-scheduled languages 

message: The image :File:Languagepanel.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here.  In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page.  Please check
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This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --15:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Image copyright problem with File:Languagepanel.jpg

message: Acording to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_languages_of_India the official language is Hindi, and not Tamil as mention in this article.
I also remember more people speaking hindi than tamil on my visit there last summer...
But I am not 100% sure, so I don't edit it - hope others will do it after a full research --77.212.188.15 (talk) 17:38, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Andaman and Nicobars Island

message: Can anybody help me please with what Indian children use as a truce term or word use to call a temporary halt to a game for respite? Fainites barleyscribs 21:24, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Truce term]]

message: hi everyone, as you all may know Wikimeida is in the midst of its strategic planning process (see http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page for more information).  As part of this process, I have been developing a fact base on South Asian languages and their Wikipedias.  The purpose of this fact base is to help the Wikimedia community understand the importance of South Asian languages as they develop strategies to expand the reach of Wikimedia worldwide as well as to discuss the specific barriers to growth of South Asian language projects.  If any of you are also editors of the South Asian language Wikipedias, I would really appreciate it if you took some time to look at what I've put together and make any changes or additions that you thought were appropriate.  It would be especially great if anyone had some thoughts or ideas to add to the section on barriers to growth of South Asian language Wikipedias. I want to make sure that we have the most accurate information possible to inform the strategic plan as it is developed. This is the link http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reach/Regional_Analysis Thanks!!! Sarah476 (talk) 17:06, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Input needed for strategic planning process 

message: The Dogri article states the language has 2 million speakers, but the chart in this article states 0.1 million -- seems like a problem. . . --71.111.194.50 (talk) 21:26, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps the other 1.9 million are in Pakistan. --Heron (talk) 08:56, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dogri language 

message: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Languages_of_India&diff=344391159&oldid=343969275. Is Tamil really the ancient living language in India in terms of script or literature? --CarTick 12:56, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think he is referring to Adichanallur inscriptions Though ASI and Iravatham Mahadevan have commented on its similarity to Tamil Brahmi, i don't think it has been accepted in scholarly circles yet.--Sodabottle (talk) 13:24, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Seems something funny is going on. Deccan Chronicle has a confusing report from a clueless correspondent. Usually hindu does a good job with either T. S. Subramanian or Srivathsan writing articles related to Tamil history and archaeology. But there is no report in Hindu about this. I will mail the varalaaru.com people if they know what happened to the report on the Script. --Sodabottle (talk) 13:31, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Soda. What about in terms of literature antiquity? --CarTick 13:44, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ahh there we will enter even murkier water of dating Tolkappiyam. While Tamil "nationalists" try to push its age back before Common Era, Other language "nationalists" (Kannada, Sinhalese for example) try to bring it down to 8th Century CE. Totally murky picture there. Since it is the oldest piece of surviving Tamil lit, It gets such treatment. So if the later view is taken into consideration, sangam literature itself is dated to somewhere near earliest Kannada literature and Tamil loses the claim to being the "earliest living language". One often finds much mirth in the history pages of language articles :-) --Sodabottle (talk) 13:55, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

text: interesting, the battle is between Tamil and Kannada then. It is a shame what is happening. Indian government probably doesnt care. well, what happens then if we remove the estimation from pseudo-Tamil and Kannada historians. --CarTick 15:27, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  addition by anon 

message: Telsam143 (talk) 19:47, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second Largest spoken language in India 

message: It is "spoken by around 200 million people"( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravidian_languages) Then how come it has become 25% of the 1,028,610,328(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India), So it would be more than 250 millions(2571525822) ????? This is plain Stupid.
RANJITH, BANGALORE.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.166.52.183 (talk) 06:41, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  25% Speak dravidian languagess? 

message: From the paragraph in question: 
"The constitution of India states that "The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script."[4] Neither the Constitution of India nor Indian law specifies a national language..."
Please fix or clarify.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.84.125.52 (talk) 03:21, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it is pretty clear. India has  "Official" languages and no "national" languages. There is clear distinction between the two in indian context.--Sodabottle (talk) 03:57, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  2nd paragraph has conflicting information 

message: Youngson (talk) 17:21, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  English language section 

message: In Section language conflicts ,
central government overstepping its constitutional authority is not neutral. Also it doesn't make sense making Central Government sounds like an external entity. Anyone? Anu Raj (talk) 19:45, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I would think the reader would know that these are not facts, but the opinions of those who oppose compulsory teaching of Hindi. But if you feel that is not the case, then just add something to make it clear this is an opinion. Perhaps a quote from someone? The paragraph is about conflict; one expects it to describe a point of view. It would be better to show who is opinioning what. Rather then "Central Government" perhaps it should say "Federal Goverment". How do they refer to it in India? Richard-of-Earth (talk) 05:52, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: * Flesh out the main body of the article. How about a set of tables giving the number of people speaking each language as their first tongue?
* Each state should be listed in a table, with the first (and, if possible second) language(s) listed
* The detailed work on phonetics and alphabet should be moved to a sub-article once the main article has been expanded. It's really far too detailed to be of any use to a casual reader but I suspect it's not rigorous enough right now to avoid offending an expert.
* Despite the suggestions above, we should avoid turning this into a massive set of lists (which is what has happened to the Native American languages article)
Sadly, I'm nowhere near knowledgeable enough to act on my own suggestions here, so I'll go and try to be more useful somewhere else. However, I'd love to see this article get on the main page someday... Kayman1uk 10:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested Improvements 

message: Looking at the continuous un referenced edits by IP users, I would suggest the page to be semi-protected.
Comments anyone?
Anu Raj (talk) 22:42, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protection 

message: Hallo to everybody here. I am interested in hydronyms and toponyms especially of the old world. I have read many articles in order to collect more and newer information on the subject. As I expected the issue of hydronymy is very vexed as it goes back to prehistoric times: German linguist Hans Krahe tried to give a systematic overview of the subject. After researching European hydronyms I started to look at those of India, Pakistan, Iran and Syria. I came to the provisional conclusion that the etymologies given by western scholars or local Asian erudites may in some instances be sometimes arbitrary and that perhaps there was indeed some sort of ancient unifying protolanguage behind them. An idea which is not new and was already floated by Italian linguists since the twenties and more recently by H. Krahe and T. Vennemann, who thinks of a Protovasconic substrate. I will give these instances that I find typical:
Narmada (India): interpreted as "giver of pleasure" in Sanscrit (article). Looks instead to mean "river": from "nar" basis for river from Spain to Italy to Syria (and cfr. Arabic nahar, river) and south Indian languages nir(u/e).
Alvand < *Harvant (article) from root *har high and band cognate to German bund group, league. Looks to be an instance of Krahe' Al(a)va+ant/d.
Alborz (Mounts, Iran): interpreted as a corruption of Hara Barazati, Hara from a root *ser (article). Looks to be cognate with Albula fl. m., Albion (oros), Albioara fl. etc.
Orontes (Syria); from ancient Persian "Haeravanta" that of the high (article). May be in fact from basis ur water common to Sumeric, Hittite and PIE. Urvent rich in water. Cfr. Tiliamentum (Italy) rich in tilium lime trees; Malamantus (Pakistan) rich in mountains from substrate basis mal very widespread throughout Europe; Maleventum/Maloeis now Benevento, place of rocks. The alternating of suffix -amentum/eventum was present already in Sanscrit, noted e.g. by A. L. Prosdocimi.
I append here below a list of names I consider interesting in this respect:
India:
Mula, Hoara, Surma, Someshwari, Dorika, Son, Sarayu, Gori Ganga, Mandal, Sabari, Sileru, Varada, Sal, Savitri, Som, Sebarmati, Durduria, Dras, Neelum, Suru, Beas or Vipasha, Khambhat, Son/Saun/Sawan, Pamba, Mandovi, Ulhas.
Pakistan:
Malir, Indus/Sindhus, Neelum, Soan/Swan/Sawan/Sohan, Haro, Lora Haro, Stora Haro, Neelan, Swat/Suvastu (Vedic), Sarayu (Vedic), Gauri (Vedic), Susoma Vedic, Sohan, Saraswati (Vedic).
Iran:
Karum, Karkheh, Shaur, Sirwan, Ghareh Soo, Alwand, Mand, Shur, Aras, Balha, Tulun, Alamut.
Syria:
Orontes, Wadi Jerrah, Barada, Awaj, Arwand.
Burma
Salween/ (in Thai: Salwine/Salawin)
Thailand
Swaria/Sawan
Cambodia
Tonle' Saap
If anybody is interesated in the subject, I would be pleased to exchange information and opinions, relevant bibliography etc. Thank you for reading.Aldrasto11 (talk) 04:42, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hydronymy and ancient toponymy 

message: I noticed that the section "Other languages and dialects" appears to claim that all non-scheduled languages with more than 1 million speakers are dialects of Hindi or Oriya.
Meanwhile, it ignores the source it cites, in which at least the following non-Indo-Aryan languages have more than 1,000,000 speakers:
* Gondi - 2,713,790
* Kurukh - 1,751,489
* Tulu - 1,722,768	 
* Khasi - 1,128,575
* Mundari - 1,061,352
* Ho - 1,042,724
Additionally the Wagdi, Bhil, and Khandeshi languages are all Indo-Aryan languages with more than a million speakers which aren't Hindi or Oriya.
Am I missing something?  If the point of the section is to list the Hindi "dialects" that may be separate languages, I'm pretty sure we have an article for that.  If it's to list the most important non-scheduled languages, I'd note that that's partially covered in the "Inventory" section. (The omission of Kurukh and Tulu in that section, both of which may now have more than two million speakers now seems like an oversight, but one that could be easily remedied by lowering the cutoff to 1.5 million and/or finding more recent sources.) I'd fix the section to include these nine languages if I thought it were worth saving, but again, I don't really see why we have it in the first place. —Quintucket (talk) 05:26, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Other local languages and dialects" section: What's the point? 

message: Substituted at 15:13, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: Census results aren't always linguistically sound and therefore tend to be rather unreliable sources when it comes to determining the number of languages in a given country. This is especially true when the census uses open-ended questions. Whenever you ask a crowd questions like "What is your mother tongue?", you're doomed to get unprecise, biased or even nonsensical replies. This is exactly what happened in the 1961 Indian census, which lists 124 native speakers of "Islami" as well as 118 "African", 77 "Canadian", 42 "Belgian", 39 "Congolese", 12 "Sikhi", 6 "Pakistan" and 5 "Prakrit" speakers. The number of languages is further inflated by including migrant languages such as Luxembourgish (with a whopping 2 speakers) or Latin (anyone who believed Latin was a dead language apparently never studied the Indian census of 1961). Let alone the dozens of village vernaculars declared by barely one or two folks. I think this should be pointed out in the article as readers might take those inflated, unscientific numbers for real. I made an attempt by shedding light on the ominous, much-quoted 1961 census numbers in a footnote. Feel free to rewrite it if you think it's not clear enough.--Colomen (talk) 20:41, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inflated number of languages in the 1961 census 

message: This article would not be worth its salt if it ignores Urdu and doesn't explain the relationship between Hindi, Urdu and Hindustani. Kautilya3 (talk) 13:09, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: We'll add it during the INCOTM. In case we dont make it to INCOTM, let me have the refs & I'll add it! :)
AshLin (talk) 14:56, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Urdu 

message: This article has been chosen collectively for improvement by Wikiproject India editors here. Everyone is welcome to collaborate and make this a GA article. --AmritasyaPutraT 13:47, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Collaborations of the month -- 2014 December 

message: What's the policy on official name? I recall that it is to retain the most widely known name. I suggest we mention "Odia" in the beginning of the article but as per WP policy, other refs, especially not in an official context, it should be "Oriya". Comments please, AshLin (talk) 15:36, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I would prefer "Oriya" at all places, except at the first mention where we can put "or Odia" in parenthesis. --AmritasyaPutraT 17:16, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Oriya" or "Odia" 

message: I excised the text below for want of referencing. It is also not available in Languages with official status in India. If reliable sources can be provided, the text can be introduced. AshLin (talk) 13:30, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Excised unreferenced text : OR 

message: : My suggestion for Proposal Three: 4 languages (Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Urdu) + English, Sanskrit. I think all the other languages are more or less equal in status.  It is hard to pick among them. Kautilya3 (talk) 22:49, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure what above user means by "more or less equal in status" and what made him choose one of the above 4 over the others. As such, a language in India is given the status of "official language", regional or otherwise, only when it is considered prominent (large population, well established literary tradition etc.). However, if a choice has to be made between alternatives, Proposal two (15 languages) makes more sense.Holenarasipura (talk) 01:18, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  I picked Hindi and Bengali for being the two largest languages in the subcontinent, and Bengali for its literary prominence as well. Tamil, for being a representative of Dravidian languages, and Urdu, for being a language spoken throughout India by a minority community. We can write interesting material about these languages that might wow the reader.  I can't the same about the other languages. (By the way, if it matters, my own language is not among these four.) Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 12:57, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Any other proposals before we vote? AshLin (talk) 13:27, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, Bengali and Urdu literature are relatively new and stand no comparison to some of India's classical languages:Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Oriya. Kannada and Telugu are also 3rd and 4th in that order w.r.t number of inscriptions and classics, after Sanskrit and Tamil. As such any discussion on this issue is purely POV as I pointed out earlier. So no matter what choice is made eventually, it is not going to be acceptable to all and this section of the article is bound to keep changing as time passes. The best solution is to be as inclusive as possible right now and avoid frequent churn. This is why I chose Prop 2 earlier. That's my two cents.Holenarasipura (talk) 18:18, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: * Proposal One -  "Six official languages spoken by over 50 million Indians or more, plus English and Sanskrit - total 08" - (Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, + English, Sanskrit)
* Proposal Two -  "Eleven official languages spoken by over 25 million Indians or more, plus English and Sanskrit - total 13" - (Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi + English, Sanskrit)
:# Support 
:# Support --AmritasyaPutra[[User talk:AmritasyaPutra|T] 05:20, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: # Support Shrikanthv (talk) 06:51, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

text: # Support VasuVR (talk, contribs) 07:13, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

text: # Support Holenarasipura (talk) 11:09, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

text: # Support Yohannvt (talk) 09:44, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

text: # Support The Banner talk 14:09, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

text: # Support Vigyanitalkਯੋਗਦਾਨ  03:01, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

text: # Support. Discussing language family would be sufficient I feel. All languages have their own articles. --Tito☸Dutta 14:25, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Voting

message: *Comment on Proposal 5 - with that can we still take this article to GA status? Curious, because I felt that is important and one of the goals we want with important articles of India. VasuVR (talk, contribs) 07:13, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Why is this an option then ? --Vigyanitalkਯੋਗਦਾਨ  11:51, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Can you treat my comment as a comment on the 5th option itself, and not on the vote by User:Vigyani. My comment came as soon as I saw the item, but at that time you had already voted . Hope that clarifies. VasuVR (talk, contribs) 13:16, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

text: * Don't look at me! I'm editting daily. AshLin (talk) 10:46, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: *  it was not a comment against you or any particular editor, but a wake-up call for all of us editors who wanted to collaborate... VasuVR (talk, contribs) 12:22, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments on voting

message: Due to lack of input for last 72 hours on this RFC, I propose to close it tomorrow evening earliest after 1800 hours IST. Be sure to express your opinion before that. AshLin (talk) 13:44, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Closing the RFC

message: * The consensus for this RFC is Proposal Two - "Eleven official languages spoken by over 25 million Indians or more, plus English and Sanskrit - total 13" - (Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi + English, Sanskrit) AshLin (talk) 14:15, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Result

message: I request that this page should be semi protected by an administrator due to vandalism.Akhila3151996 (talk) 15:30, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Apply Semi-protection

message: This] edit removed content on this, but I am not incline to just restore the whole thing. The dates are at odds with the Dravidian languages and the Tamil language article. The map could be restored as well. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 21:43, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  No mention of the Dravidian languages in the history section. 

message: Before Tamil Nadu people, Odia people held protest against Hindi imposition around 1890 ~ 1895 itself. Tamil Nadu people protest is big and have impact is true but we should not omit Odia people protest. --Kurumban (talk) 21:34, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protest Against Hindi Imposition

message: "their inter-se relationships are not discernible"
What does "inter-se" mean?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:3097:1F0:4C97:C715:AF43:23A2 (talk) 20:17, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I changed it to read "However, their interrelationships are not discernible". I assume this is what was intended. It was added with this edit by . Richard-of-Earth (talk) 07:50, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur with Richard-of-Earth's edit. AshLin (talk) 10:17, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sino-Tibetan language family 

message: "The Constitution of India does not give any language the status of national language."  then "Modern Standard Hindi is recognised as the official language of India ...."  --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 14:13, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It is the official language for official documents of the government of India. It being the official language of the government is no requirement for its use on any other level in the nation of India. If it was a national language, everyone would have to learn it and use it, so it is not. The two sentences are not contradictory. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 21:55, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hindi official language or not? 

message: I would like to suggest that English needs to be mentioned first before the other languages considering how even Article 343 of Constitution of Republic of India, describes that English has been and will continue to remain a Official Language of the Union (or Central Government). </br>
* A principle then renewed by the Official Languages Act, 1963 which ensured English remained the primary official language even after the proposed period of fifteen years, and continues to be the grand old official Language of India. </br> (, before Hindi was considered, and proposed for an "official" role being included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India too apart from mention in Article 343 . A role which it never assumed superseding English due to the Official Languages Act, 1963 taking effect via relevant section of Article 343.)
* Further, the most significant "Official" document, the Constitution, which is applicable to both the "Union" and the "States" which might have separate official language respectively, is also in English. </br>(Apart from the language of any jurisprudence regarding the issue also naturally being in English.)
</br>
- 110.227.108.193 (talk) 16:57, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  English needs to be mentioned before Hindi and such other Eighth Schedule languages in Official Languages of Union (or Central Government) Infobox? 

message: Hello everyone, I am currently working on a project to know more about the language of Koda spoken in both India and Bangladesh, does anyone have any information on this language?
Thank you!
Carmennnv (talk) 19:10, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Koda 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Why are the same words linked over and over? E.G. English and Persian.--Adûnâi (talk) 12:42, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why so much blue text? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: India has over 75% different languages.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.129.81.198 (talk) 22:02, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  the many languages of inda  

message: 2001:16A2:55FA:D461:311B:84F9:1106:CA3E (talk) 22:51, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Please specify the exact change you want made in the form of "Change X to Y." Richard-of-Earth (talk) 05:53, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  India is world language in tamil 

message: Pali language is the oldest language of India , pakistan, Nepal Afganistan , and Bangladesh
It's at least 600BC or much more SPhoolkumar (talk) 05:36, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  About Pali 

message: Dravidian languages have written records dating back to 6th century BCE. 987654aay (talk) 08:34, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Dravidian languages says 2nd century BCE. You should edit there first and bring a citation. See WP:V, WP:RS and WP:UNSOURCED. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 14:24, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dravidian languages have written records dating back to 6th century BCE. 

message: 22 languages instead of 122 81.138.93.89 (talk) 13:11, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: This must be a misunderstanding. The figure is about the number of languages having more than 10,000 speakers, which is 122 per the 2010 census data, and has nothing to do with the number of scheduled languages. –Austronesier (talk) 13:27, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 18 May 2021 

message: In Goa, Konkani is the sole official language; however, Marathi may also be used for all official purposes. Kind request to remove the statement since Marathi isn't used for official purpose and also Marathi being a co-official language in goa since its still debatable and has caused a lot of hurt, misunderstanding to people of goa. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goan Pav (talk • contribs) 
: This echoes what is said and cited in the Marathi language article and the Goa#Languages section. I will transfer the citation over. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 14:18, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  About Marathi 

message: Change 
The Indian subcontinent is home to the third most spoken language in the world, Hindi-Urdu; the sixth most spoken language, Bengali; the thirteenth most spoken language, Punjabi; and the seventeenth most spoken language, Tamil. Itsmesindhu (talk) 10:10, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the  template. We don't need to add even more detail to the lead. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:13, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The information on this page is inaccurate, Telugu has a higher number of speakers than Tamil. Please change the information or else it doesn't make sense. Shivaradni999 (talk) 05:20, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the whole sentence. It was not supported by the citation given per WP:UNSOURCED. It also was not "a summary of its most important contents" per MOS:LEAD. The subject of world languages is not addressed in the article. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 18:09, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 7 April 2022 

message: Please rectify the map of India 103.161.31.188 (talk) 05:51, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regarding map of India 

message: These two sentences in the introduction are confusing to me. First Article 343 of the Constituion states that the Official language of the Union is Hindi and later a Gujurati Supreme Court contests this, stating (taken from reference):
:But the court asked whether there was any notification saying Hindi is India's national language, for it's an ``official language of :this country. No notification ever issued by the government could be produced before the court in this regard. This is because the :Constitution has given Hindi the status of the official language and not the national language.
This needs to be reflected in the introduction. The paragraph is confusing and seems self contradictory otherwise. I enjoy sandwiches (talk)  05:55, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The lead states Hindi alongside English is the official language of the government and not a national language. What did you want it to say? Richard-of-Earth (talk) 06:38, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Official language of the Union" vs "national language" 

message: Hello ,
Where is the % of hindi speakers? 
Should  also include % who can speak hindi + their  native language.
This page is full of misleading content. 
And only 5% population  of india is tamil speakers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.185.232.95 (talk) 
:It is in the article: Languages of India#2011 Census India. Also see List of languages by number of native speakers in India. The figures are based mostly on the 2011 census. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 19:05, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading 

message: 171.49.131.238 (talk) 14:00, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:09, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 12 January 2023