Identity and Multilinguality
The Case of India
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23756756 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rama Kant Agnihotri (0000-0003-0878-0913, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Pages | 185-204 |
| Publication date | 2017-09-25 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Language Policy, Culture, and Identity in Asian Contexts (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.4324/9781315092034-10 |
| OpenAlex | W2890104991 |
| ISBN | 9781315092034 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
People often sustain their food, dress, birth, death, and wedding customs to assert their distinct identity; in the same way they assert their linguistic identity through their own variety of multilinguality. This chapter examines the linguistic situation in India before and after independence, and discusses how efforts to establish a one-to-one correspondence between nation, national or ethnic identity, religion and language led to political conflicts among ethnic groups. It also discusses how the efforts to achieve linguistic homogeneity contributed to an asymmetrical power relationship between the majority and minority languages, resulting in the supremacy of English over other languages in India. A dichotomy was created not only between the Hindi and Urdu languages, but also between the Hindus and the Muslims. For the British in India, Sanskrit was associated with the Hindus, and Arabic and Persian with the Muslims. India has a large bilingual population that is proficient in English.
Aesthetics · Art · Ethnic group · Hindi · Identity (music) · Independence (probability theory) · Linguistics · Persian · Political science · Politics · Population · Sanskrit · Sociology · Urdu · Anthropology · Demography · Gender Studies · History · Law · Mathematics · South Asian Studies and Conflicts
| Citations per year | 0.4 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2016 - 2025 (10) |
| Highly cited | No |