Fifty Years of Language Planning for Modern Hindi
FIFTY YEARS OF LANGUAGE PLANNING FOR MODERN HINDI
The Official Language of India
1. ABSTRACT
Hindi - according to the 1991 Census of India, is the mother tongue of 233,432,285 persons (22% of the entire Indian population), and is spoken as a language (which includes 47 or so mother tongues cobbled up under it) by 337,272,114 persons (42.22% of the entire Indian population). It is also used as a second language by another 6.16% of the population, and as a third language by yet another 2.60% by other language speakers. In total, in India, Hindi is known officially to 50.98% of Indians and, thus, has the status of the major language of the nation.
The adoption of the Indian Constitution in 1951 that accepted Hindi as the official language of the Indian Union radically changed the course of the development of Hindi. Hindi lacked even any standardization at that juncture. The history of Modern Hindi, thus, is the history of 50 years of planned development. As official language of the Union and several states, Hindi is used from the lowest unit of administration panchayat (village government) to the National Parliament, and has replaced English to a great extent. Now, Hindi is taught as a language in the domain of education. The Three Language Formula, adopted as an educational strategy to foster national integration in multilingual situations, has made Hindi a part and parcel of the educational system of the country. It is used as a major medium of instruction from the lowest level to the doctoral level, excluding technical education. It is extensively used in the mass media - print, television, cinema and defense services. It has absorbed the technological developments in the fields of printing and computer technology. It has web pages, and it can be used for search in search engines. This has made Hindi one of the richest languages of independent India and the world.
Today, though Hindi is not recognized as a national language, is the lingua franca of
The Official Language of India
1. ABSTRACT
Hindi - according to the 1991 Census of India, is the mother tongue of 233,432,285 persons (22% of the entire Indian population), and is spoken as a language (which includes 47 or so mother tongues cobbled up under it) by 337,272,114 persons (42.22% of the entire Indian population). It is also used as a second language by another 6.16% of the population, and as a third language by yet another 2.60% by other language speakers. In total, in India, Hindi is known officially to 50.98% of Indians and, thus, has the status of the major language of the nation.
The adoption of the Indian Constitution in 1951 that accepted Hindi as the official language of the Indian Union radically changed the course of the development of Hindi. Hindi lacked even any standardization at that juncture. The history of Modern Hindi, thus, is the history of 50 years of planned development. As official language of the Union and several states, Hindi is used from the lowest unit of administration panchayat (village government) to the National Parliament, and has replaced English to a great extent. Now, Hindi is taught as a language in the domain of education. The Three Language Formula, adopted as an educational strategy to foster national integration in multilingual situations, has made Hindi a part and parcel of the educational system of the country. It is used as a major medium of instruction from the lowest level to the doctoral level, excluding technical education. It is extensively used in the mass media - print, television, cinema and defense services. It has absorbed the technological developments in the fields of printing and computer technology. It has web pages, and it can be used for search in search engines. This has made Hindi one of the richest languages of independent India and the world.
Today, though Hindi is not recognized as a national language, is the lingua franca of
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