North-East of India Has Highest Per Capita Language in World: Survey

The People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) on 17 July 2013 reported that the North-East of India has the highest per capita language in the whole World. As per the survey, Arunachal Pradesh is a State that speaks 90 different languages.

Survey highlights
• There are over 780 languages and 66 different scripts in India.
• Arunachal Pradesh is the richest among the States with 90 languages and West Bengal has the highest number of scripts at nine.
• In terms of languages spoken, researchers found that with 90 languages Arunachal Pradesh is by far the richest among States, Assam with 55 languages; Maharashtra with 39, Gujarat with 48 and West Bengal with 38 are among the most linguistically-diverse States of India.
• As per the 2011 census, there were about 122 languages spoken by more than 10000 people. Of them 22 were the scheduled languages.
• The survey has come up with languages that are spoken by less than 10000 people many of whom are from tribal areas, nomadic communities and from the interiors of North Eastern part of the Country.

This is the biggest linguistic Survey in this Century. Irish linguistic scholar George Abraham Grierson had conducted the Linguistic Survey of India from 1898 to 1928.

The survey revealed that the North-Eastern parts of India have one of the highest per capita language densities in the World. According to the report, the difficult topography of the region and the history of the tribal communities could have led to such a situation.

About Peoples Linguistic Survey of India
The People’s Linguistic Survey of India is a right based movement for carrying out a nation-wide survey of Indian languages as people perceive them, to identify, document and understand them; especially languages of fragile communities such as nomadic, coastal, island, hill and forest communities.