Mother Tongue Survey of India

What’s in today’s article:

• Mother Tongue Survey of India (MTSI) – About, number of mother tongues in India, mother tongue in education

Why in news?

• The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has completed the Mother Tongue Survey of India (MTSI) with field videography of the country’s 576 languages.

Mother Tongue Survey of India (MTSI)

• It is a project that surveys the mother tongues, which are returned consistently across two and more Census decades.
• It also documents the linguistic features of the selected languages.
• The National Informatics Centre (NIC) and the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) will be documenting and preserving the linguistic data of the surveyed mother tongues in audio-video files.

Number of mother tongues spoken in India

• According to the 2011 linguistic census data released in 2018, there are more than 19,500 languages and dialects spoken as mother tongues in India.
• These 19,500 languages were further grouped into 121 categories of mother tongue after linguistic scrutiny and rationalising.
• According to 2011 linguistic census data, Hindi is the most spoken mother tongue by 52.8 crore people of the country, accounting for 43.6 per cent of the population.
• Following that, 9.7 crore people or 8 per cent of the population spoke Bengali, making it the country’s second most popular mother tongue.
  • It should be noted that mother tongue is a designation given to a language by the respondent of the survey.
  • It need not be identical with the actual linguistic medium.

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Mother tongue in education

• In September 2022, President Murmu emphasised that talent development in science, literature and social sciences can be more effective if taught in one’s mother tongue.
• In July 2022, Union Home Minister said that pursuing education in a language other than one’s mother tongue prevented 95 per cent of Indians from achieving their true potential.
• Keeping this in mind, the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, aims to promote mother tongue and regional languages.
• The new National Curriculum Framework (NCF) for the foundational stages (ages 3 to 8) of education has recommended that mother tongue should be the primary medium of instruction in schools for children up to eight years of age.
  • The new NCF, launched by Education Minister last month, deals with pre-school and classes I-II.
  • It emphasises the virtues of the mother tongue as the primary medium of instruction.

Linguistic Survey of India (LSI)

• LSI is a regular research activity in the country since the 6th Five Year Plan.
• The primary objective of the present Linguistic Survey of India is to present an updated linguistic scenario.
• It further aims to provide necessary inputs to the social/educational planners in respective States for their planning to attain the envisaged goals.