Cultural Diversity - The Civil Service

Land Registry Cultural DiversityLanguages of the Indian sub-continentAccording to the last published Census, almost 1.5 million people now living in the UKdescribe themselves as being either Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi. Most of thesepeople will therefore speak at least one (and very often more) of the vast number oflanguages that come from the Indian subcontinent.India is one of the most linguistically complex areas in the world. More than 150languages are spoken there, none with speakers comprising more than 30% of thepopulation. Hindi, the most popular language, is only the joint national language ofIndia – along with English. Pakistan and Bangladesh also have a bewilderinglycomplex mixture of languages and dialects, differing from region to region.Fortunately, the linguistic situation in the UK is less complicated. Most immigrants inBritain come from a relatively small number of regions and most Indians, Pakistanisand Bangladeshis in the UK speak one or more of the five main “Indic” languages:Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi or Gujarati. Each of these languages has a high mediaprofile, being used extensively in film, TV, radio and the press. What, then, are thecharacteristics between them?Almost all Bangladeshis speak Bengali (or one of its dialects), most Pakistanis speakUrdu to some degree (though many prefer to speak Punjabi) and many Indiansunderstand Hindi, but may well prefer to communicate in one of the other languagesmentioned.Indic language speakers are to be found in all parts of the UK, but there areparticularly large communities in East London (chiefly Bangladeshis), in the North West(chiefly Pakistanis) and in the Midlands (Pakistanis and Indians).Here are some brief notes on the five main Indic languages spoken in the UK:HindiHindi is one of the national languages of India and is spoken by some 225 millionpeople from the north and central parts of India. There are also large populations ofspeakers in Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad, Guyana and Surinam, which all in all makes it oneof the major languages of the world. It is estimated that only Chinese, English andRussian have more speakers world-wide.Hindi is one of several Indic languages spoken today that is derived from Sanskrit, theancient literary and classical language of India, which is still widely studied and whichis also associated with the Hindu religion. Hindi grew from a dialect used in India forover 400 years, called Hindustani. It is written in a script known as the Devanagriscript.31