Official State Languages query

[Narayan S. Raja]

On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, Michael Rabe wrote:

> According to the World Almanac that comes with _Where in the World is
> Carmen San Diego_ India has 16 major languages...
> 
> Can anyone confirm that this is the set and order of appearance of the 13
> that appear (plus English) on Indian currency notes:
> 
> Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Hindi, Oriya, Punjabi,
> Rajasthani, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu                  ^^^^^
                                                  Marathi
I don't have a currency note right here, but would guess 
that it is actually Marathi (not Hindi) that comes after 
Malayalam.  Also, Gujarati is missing from the above list,
and I'm pretty sure "Rajasthani" isn't an official language.  
Hindi and English are on the center and margins, and don't 
reappear in the "list" area with all the other languages.


> Presumably, Hindi gets pride of center place.

I think that's Marathi.  The list seems to be
in (English) alphabetical order.

 
> So, my related query is this: how many official state languages are there
> all told and which are the additional ones?

Marathi and Gujarati are missing from the
above list;  I don't think "Rajasthani"
exists.  I believe Konkani is the state
language of Goa; possibly Manipuri for
Manipur; English for Nagaland and possibly
some other Northeastern states; maybe Nepali
for Sikkim (there was a big controversy about
it at one time, for fear of irritating the
Nepalese government).  I believe there is a
language called "Divehi", which may or may not
be an official language in the Union Territory
of Lakshadweep.

Just some educated guesses...


Raja.