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existence (Deshpande 1979). When Buddhism came into existence, it played
an important role in consolidating multilingualism. It encouraged to write all
its scriptures in Prakrit and Pali. Sanskrit gradually remained as a language of
rituals when Buddhism began spreading over central and southern Dravidian
territories. The Buddhist scripts and Official Orders were written in both Pali
and regional language. This explains further development and maintenance of
multilingualism in the Indian subcontinent. Cultural fusion between Aryan
and Dravidian tribes which has taken place almost since beginning of the
contact was further intensified. This resulted in the formation of the unique
Indian culture in which these two cultures occupy major part. The extensive
linguistic borrowing among languages and cultural amalgamation of different
tribes in India have continued in subsequent centuries. For instance, Emeneau
(1956) highlighted that many features shared between Dravidian and Aryan
at linguistic level allow formulating the concept of ‘India as a linguistic area’.
My aim of looking briefly into the linguistic and cultural history of India is
to draw attention on the fact that 1) multilinguality and multiculturality are
being unconsciously maintained in the Indian society; 2) despite amalgamation
of different cultures, each linguistic community in India preserved its specific
cultural characteristics; 3) India represents a linguistic area, where local
languages exist along with the national languages.
The unconscious existence and maintenance of multilingualism has resulted
in coexistence of diverse languages in Indian society. They can genetically be
classified into four groups; 1) Indo-Aryan; 2) Dravidian; 3) Munda; 4) Tibeto-
Burman. Due to their co-existence over thousands of years in one geographic
area, these language groups share common areal features, while preserving
their distinctiveness and identity. It should also be noted that because of
‘peaceful’ coexistence for long period, Aryan group of languages even altered
their entire grammatical system under the influence of Dravidian and became
similar to that of Dravidian (Prabhakara Rao, 2000). To put it in typological
linguistic terms, after getting in contact with Dravidian languages which are
agglutinative in type, Aryan languages which were inflectional in type slowly
converted into agglutinative type. The typological balance between the major
group of languages has contributed to maintenance of multilingualism in Indian
society. As it was mentioned, despite the fact that there is an amalgamation of
cultures among different groups in India, cultural diversity is well maintained.
Hence, scholars sometimes speak about ‘pan-Indian language’ and ‘pan-Indian
culture’. Therefore, India represents an illustration for the dialectical principle
of unity in diversity and diversity in unity, which has to be thoroughly studied.
After the independence in 1947, Hindi was declared as the official language
of Union Government. A Three Language Formula (local, national and
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