Mother Tongues in India 

                                           Ben Antao 



Did you know that India is a polyglot nation with as many as 1652 mother tongues?

That interesting curiosity came to light when I was flipping through an old issue of Goa Today (August 1979) this afternoon.

According to the article, the preponderance of languages presents insurmountable problems in spreading literacy. "Incidentally, the country has almost 50 percent of the world's illiterates. For the first time a picture of this veritable tower of Babel has been presented in an atlas by the Central Institute of Indian Languages at Mysore," it said. 

The atlas brings out the fact that no state or union territory in India is monolingual.

Something to think about. Now for a brief comment:

The mother tongue of Goans is Konkani. Konkani is great if you wish to live and work on the Konkan coast. However, if Goans in Goa wish to develop themselves socially, economically, culturally, and technologically in the global village, they will need to acquire proficiency in more than one language.

For Americans and Canadians, the English language is sufficient for a lifetime. Not so for the Third World if it wants to share and integrate into the First World. Without putting too fine a point on it, I'd strongly recommend the study and mastery of English to everyone in the Third World.

Ben Antao
Toronto
Sept. 26, 1999