How many Indian languages do you know other than your mother tongue? Okay what's mother tongue? It's the language in which mother spoke to you when you were a baby, toddler and growing up? So you would have picked up that language easily. It means you know how to speak that language if not reading and writing. What if your mother tongue is different from the local language? When you join a play school to start with and then a primary and secondary school, you are required to learn the local language and English (Don't forget we were ruled by the British for almost 200 years who dumped their language on us!). Now we are so happy to learn English as a language and all other subjects too in the same medium. It's another matter that Mughals and Islam rulers were also ruling us for 500 years prior to the British Even as per our constitution, English is designated as one of the official languages to overcome the issues concerning linguistic diversity in the Indian union. It's all because majority of the world do business in English language. Added to it, for some reason, Indian engineers came out in large numbers and picked up the computer lingo. Probably logical thinking is in indian’s blood. When Bill Gates’ Microsoft came out with personal computers and technology brought in cell phones and smart phones with software applications for all actions and transactions, we now don’t have the ability to go back on this decision..

Even before Jesus Christ, Malabar Jews had migrated and settled in Kerala coast probably due to the destruction of their Second Temple. In Jerusalem by the Romans. Malabar Jews are the descendents of King Solomon of Israel who had business acumen and came here some 3000 years ago to get involved in trade. St Thomas, a disciple of Jesus Christ, is reported to have arrived in the Malabar coast as early as 52 AD and established congregations and synagogues in seven villages. Arabs were reportedly first to arrive at the Malabar coast to trade for spices. They were followed by Babylonians, Assyrians and Egyptians for the same as early as 3rd century BCE All these people were probably familiar with Syriac and Arabic languages. They must have taken help from local Jews and Christians who spoke English and local language Malayalam. Much later in 610 CE, Prophet Mohammed, also a merchant, announced that he received revelations from angel Gabriel at Mecca. When he didn’t receive much support, he migrated to Medina in 622 CE and started attracting followers. Subsequently the whole of Arab peninsula decided to follow his dictum of monotheism as against Christian trinity and Islam got established in the region. Some of these Arab Muslims followed their ancestors and arrived at Kochi to trade for spices.

In the north of India, Afghans and Turks, Ghazni being a popular one among them, also arrived in 7th century CE to annex western part of Indian subcontinent. Mohammed Aibak is credited to have established Delhi sultanate starting the Muslim dynasty in the region. The people in northern region spoke in different language dialects like Bhojpuri, Mithili, Khadiboli, Haryanvi which were based on ancient Sanskrit and Prakrit were spoken. The elite spoke Arabic, Turki and Persian. Mughal rulers comprised all these languages and developed a new language and called it Urdu (meaning Army) that enabled them to speak to the army in one language. Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese traveller arrived in Kozhikode in the 15th century that paved the way for several other traders from Portugal and other European countries to visit the Malabar Coast later. This followed several other Muslim rulers conquering parts of West, North and East India during 16th and 17th centuries. All these rulers mainly spoke in Turki, Persian, or Arabic. But they had not been able to fight against the Rajasthani and Maratha armies and they had a grudge against them. When Aurangzeb, seventh in line, established his rule in Delhi, he planned to invade the Deccan region to avenge his defeat at the hands of Maratha rulers from Pune. This went on for several years and he managed to annex Bijapur and Golconda. After Aurangzeb's decline and finally death in Nagpur, Golconda came under the control of Nizam shah. Portuguese managed to establish their colonies in Kochi, Cannanore, Diu, Daman and Goa. Even after British established their colonisation in most parts of Indian Territory and lost Malabar Coast to the Dutch, Portuguese continued to occupy Goa till 1961. Most of these people from Europe spoke Persian or Arabic or they used interpreters who knew Persian and Arabic. Hindi, as is spoken these days, is considered a direct descendent and admixture of Prakriti and Sanskrit and got evolved out of other languages like Persian, Turki, Arabic and Urdu. This must have happened around the 7th century. It adopted the Devanagiri script used by Sanskrit. Hindi became distinct around 12th century and modern Hindi became a literary language only in the 19th century.

The Tamil rulers Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas in the sangam period lasted a long time from 3rd century BCE to 3rd century CE. They mainly spoke Tamil and their territory centred only around Madurai, parts of Kerala and Sri Lanka. Probably, because of mountainous terrain and poor military capabilities, they did not venture beyond Tamilakam. In the 6th century, Thanjavur was initially ruled by Mutharaiyars. In the 9th century, Cholas took over the reins and ruled up to 9th century when Pandyas won over Cholas and ruled for a few decades. Later it was taken over by the Vijayanagara Empire who belonged to Tulu dynasty and subsequently by Bhosle dynasty of Marathas. Briefly, it was ruled by Balijas who were Telugu nayakas.

Adil Shah established his dynasty in Bijapur and ruled for almost 200 years during 15th to 17th centuries. In the same period, Krishnadevaraya set up his Vijayanagar empire and had annexed several parts of South india in present day Kerala, Tamilnadu and Telengana regions. Briefly the Maratha rulers from Pune also captured some parts in Tamilnadu which were later won back by Krishnadevaraya. Krishnadevaraya belonged to Tulu dynasty from coastal Karnataka. He knew, besides Tulu, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and even Persian. Wodeyar dynasty was ruling the Mysuru kingdom at that time and then became a vassal of Vijayanagara Empire. Wodeyar’s mother tongue was Kannada. But they also knew Sanskrit. Hyder Ali and his son Tipu usurped Wodeyar’s throne and ruled over Mysuru kingdom for around 38 years. Hyder Ali died of illness and handed over his reins to Tipu who managed to win back many parts of Kerala, Tamilagam and Telangana from the Maratha rulers. Both Hyder Ali and Tipu knew Kannada, Persian, Tamil and Telugu. By this time, British had firmly established their rein in large parts of India and set up Madras Presidency because of its port facilities. This facilitated export of textiles, spices and also slave labour to Britain. In a war Tipu fought against the British army in his capital Srirangapatna by the end of 18th century, he was captured by the British soldiers and killed. After winning this war, the British handed back the Mysuru kingdom to Wodeyars, their rightful rulers for 600 years. The last Wodeyar king of Mysuru Sri Jayachamaraja Wodeyar, was well educated and proficient in Kannada, Sanskrit, Tamil, Persian and English as well.

Thus we see that Hindustani, Urdu and later Hindi were spoken in the north Indian regions while the languages spoken in the southern region were dispersed and included Persian, Urdu, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam during the period of foreign interventions. These south Indian languages consisting of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam and also Marathi, Bengali and Assamese have had a very long history and classical status and have therefore survived in spite of invasion and reign by Mughal or Islamic rulers. But these mughal or Islam rulers did not bother to impose their own language on the people in the southern region.

The British’s East India Company arrived at Surat port to trade in spices. But they started waging war over other invaders and gained control. They bought land in Madras and built Fort St George in 1639. Their victory in Plassey gave control over Bengal in 1757. This helped them transport labour, textiles, spices, precious materials from these ports. They might have thought they would rule the Indian Territory for a long duration. This was a vast empire and the British needed a large workforce. To facilitate their governance, they decided to create a class of educated Indians who could work as clerks and low level administrators and learn English language to assist fewer British personnel. They introduced English as medium of instruction for higher education. This was done through an act of parliament as early as 1835. The British also wished to introduce their culture, their tastes, values and opinions. They wanted to see Indian blood and colour but British in all other senses, behaviour, and personality. They wanted to spread the superiority of the British culture so that the British rule would last a long time. The Christian missionaries also helped by establishing educational institutions all over India. They took over firm reins in 1857 after their military victory in Sepoy Mutiny and the actual British raj started over Indian Territory.

During the rule by the British and even after they departed from India granting independence, English continued to be the language of communication in administration and courts here to facilitate transmission of power from British to India over several months as per their demands..The country was also made a union of states based on majority languages spoken in regions. In order to have a consensus across the country, English was accepted as language of communication between the states. However, education and literacy was very low in India. It was hardly 12% in 1947. Although this has increased to 78%, this is limited to urban areas. Rural areas still impart education in regional languages. Hence there is wide spread disparity in access to education in English across the country. This is the main reason for English speaking people accounting for hardly 10% of the population (about 140 million) in 2025. As central rule is based in Delhi, most communications and activities take place in Hindi and/or English. Over a period of time, this has caused violence, disturbances and disagreement with perceived language imposition by the centre in Delhi on regional states. For the southern region, mainly, English has become a safe haven as language of communication. In the present context, with technology and widespread computerised devices operating on Apps based on inputs in English, we are left with no option but to accept it as normal medium of communication in our daily lives.

But it is worthwhile to note that we gain immensely in learning Indian languages other than our own mother tongue or the state language. This helps in lessening language disparity to study, do trade or business when we move around within the country. There are reportedly 121 languages with 19500 dialects of which only 21 are officially recognised by the government. Learning more than one language improves cognitive ability (i.e. memory and brain functions), betters problem solving skills and provides access to other cultures and perspectives besides increased career opportunities within the country itself.

There are umpteen examples of celebrities and professionals knowing multiple languages who have increased their visibility because of their ability to speak in more than one Indian language. We have Dr Chiranjeev Singh, Former Ambassador of India to UNESCO and Additional Chief Secretary of Karnataka, who, besides knowing Punjabi and Hindi is very fluent in Kannada and has also authored a book in Kannada about his love towards Kannada culture. He is credited to knowing 12 Indian languages in all. This is purely out of love for Indian languages and cultures. Our own Prime Minister Modiji knows Hindi, Sanskrit, Marathi and Rajasthani besides his mother tongue Gujarati. Politicians like Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and External Affairs Minister Jaishankar are familiar with Hindi besides their mother tongue, Tamil. Mamta Banerjee also knows Gujarati, Oriya, Assamese, Manipuri, Nagamese, Marathi, Punjabi, Nepali, Gorkhi, Vietnamese besides her mother tongue Bengali. Omar Abdullah, Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir has learnt to speak Hindi, Urdu as well as Kashmiri. This is a necessity for their ministerial activities. Former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao is known to be fluent in sixteen languages (both Indian and foreign) besides Telugu, his mother tongue. Sri Aurobindo knew Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati besides Bengali, his mother tongue. Former Minister George Fernandes knew Konkani, Marathi, Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Tulu besides English, his mother tongue. All these people have learnt multiple languages on their own because of opportunities and necessities. It is so heartening to hear Annamalai, former IPS officer of Karnataka cadre and now BJP state president in Tamil Nadu, speaking in his broken Kannada so boldly and unhesitatingly while his mother tongue is Tamil. We don’t mind it at all.

If we explore Indian film industry, there is a plethora of artistes who know multiple languages. There is Dr Jayalalithaa who knew Tamil, Kannada and Telugu besides English. We have Rajnikanth who is born a Maharashtrian, lived and studied in Bengaluru and prospered in Tamilnadu and is therefore familiar with Hindi, Kannada and Tamil. Prakash Raj leads them all knowing Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Hindi besides Kannada, his native language. Madhavan knows Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam besides Tamil, his mother tongue. Nitya Menon can speak Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Hindi. Kamal Haasan can speak in Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam besides Tamil, his mother tongue. Ananth Nag is fluent in Kannada, Marathi, Hindi besides Konkani, his mother tongue. (Kichha) Sudeep is a famous Kannada star who also knows Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. Both Vidya Balan and Priya Mani know Hindi, Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam too. Jr. NTR, the famous Telugu super star of Naatu Naatu fame, speaks Hindi and Kannada as well. Prabhu Deva is well versed in Tamil besides Kannada, his mother tongue. Ramesh Arvind, a leading Kannada superstar, is well versed in Kannada besides Tamil, his native language. Arjun Sarja, famous Tamil actor, speaks Telugu besides Kannada, his mother tongue. Jahnvi Kapoor knows Hindi, Telugu besides Tamil, her mother tongue. Most film personalities pick up Indian languages besides their mother tongue for business and popularity as a necessity. Late famous singer PB Sreenivas knew Kannada, Tamil and Telugu although he sand in Hindi and Malayalam. Singers like Lata Mangeshkar, Usha Uthup, Shreya Goshal, Sonu Nigam, etc. have sung songs in many Indian languages other than their own mother tongues although they don’t claim fluency in all of them.

Hiremagalur Kannan is a litterateur, priest and writer who is proficient in Sanskrit and Kannada besides Tamil, his native language. He has translated all Sanskrit shlokas into Kannada and recites them in his temple. He anchors a popular talk show in Kannada on an FM channel. I myself claim to know Kannada and Hindi besides Tamil, my mother tongue and have a basic understanding of Telugu and Malayalam. I didn’t get an opportunity to work in the East. Otherwise I would have learnt Bengali as well. I have enjoyed watching Kantara, KGF, Ponniyin Selvan, Roja, Bombay, Bahubali, Drishyam, Singham, Chaava, in their respective languages in the theatres. Nowadays, we can watch films on OTT which are dubbed in most of these languages and one can watch in language of choice with subtitles also in English or any language of one’s choice But the real thrill comes in watching the film in its original language. I also celebrate Sankranti, Pongal, Holi, Ugadi, Onam, Ramnavami, Janmashtami, Deepavali as well as Christmas with equal elan. I speak in Tamil with my first samdhi/samdhan and in Hindi with the other samdhi/samdhan. I enjoy listening to film songs in Hindi, Bengali and any south Indian language, watching Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathak, Odissi, Bhangra and Garbha dances, appreciate Carnatic and Hindusthani music and revel in sher and shayari too. I now have the pleasure of understanding cultural differences from different regions.

There may be several other polyglots or bilingual, trilingual and multilingual personalities in India whom I may not be aware of. I need not mention that all these personalities are fluent in English as well in addition to their familiarity in Indian languages. Intent is just to make people aware that learning a new language itself is an art besides necessity. One must develop passion and interest to explore other cultures through respective languages. One can treat learning a new language as a wellness therapy and a way of self healing mechanism. One should treat this as an advice from a common senior citizen. It does good for oneself as well as the nation at large. This piece is written in English so that it attracts the attention of the elite and the educated. Once that is done, automatically the word will spread and the content is taken in right spirit.

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