कोस-कोस पर बदले पानी, चार कोस पर बानी।
Kos-kos par badle paani, chaar kos par baani.
An old Indian saying goes: the water changes every few miles, and the language changes every four.
India’s linguistic diversity is so vast that even the way we speak can change over relatively short distances.
The Census of India attempts to map this diversity by asking people about the languages they speak. In 2011, one of its questions asked respondents to identify their mother tongue: the language they spoke in childhood.
The Constitution of India, meanwhile, recognises 22 languages under its Eighth Schedule. These are known as Scheduled Languages.
But there is an interesting gap between the languages people speak and the languages the Constitution recognises. There are no explicit constitutional criteria that determine which languages qualify for inclusion in the Eighth Schedule.
Consider two examples.
Santali is a Scheduled Language, with approximately 73.7 lakh mother-tongue speakers.
Bhili/Bhilodi, on the other hand, has approximately 1.04 crore mother-tongue speakers, yet it is not included in the Eighth Schedule.
In other words, having more speakers does not necessarily mean having constitutional recognition.
The 2011 Census identified 121 languages that met its criteria for classification as languages. Of these, 22 are Scheduled Languages, leaving 99 Non-Scheduled Languages.
These languages are no less real, nor are the communities that speak them any less significant. Non-Scheduled simply means that a language is not included in this particular constitutional list.
The numbers tell us one part of the story. But the more interesting question is how this recognition is distributed across India.
Which states have a greater number of Scheduled Languages? Where do Non-Scheduled Languages account for a significant part of the linguistic landscape?
कोस-कोस पर बदले पानी, चार कोस पर बानी
While the saying most definitely captures diversity, the article would like to reiterate that a change in dialect/language does not necessarily mean the absence of a shared one.
The Eighth Schedule provides an important framework for understanding constitutional recognition of languages in India. While the distinction between Scheduled and Non-Scheduled Languages reflects their status within this particular constitutional framework, not their cultural significance or the legitimacy of the communities that speak them.
So by looking at the languages that may be shared across places, we explore the linguistic landscape from a more experiential angle.
To explore this, we use language data as a proxy for the possibility of finding a shared language. We are not measuring actual conversations or guaranteeing mutual understanding. Instead, we are using the languages people report speaking to estimate the potential for linguistic connection across places.