Language spoken by inhabitants in a country are relatively the same. But for India is different. How does a diverse country with equally different language variations deal with the challenge of globalisation?
India is like a real life tapestry - a very complex thread of community but equally fascinating as well. That is why some people sometimes call India as a sub-continent. It's diversity may be considered as a big problem to some,
but in that very same variety lies the life blood of India's pride.
Language spoken by inhabitants in a country are relatively the same. For example, if we ask what language do people in the USA speak, most would simply answer “English”. If we are to ask what do people in France speak to communicate to each other, majority would say French.
Although these big countries have one common language denominator, there are also other places wherein there are a complexity of languages. In India, some 1652 dialects were recorded in a census made in 1961. Another census was initiated way back 2001 and it showed that for more than half a million inhabitants, there are 29 languages being spoken. This is why Indian language translation is a tough one.
Dialects in India vary depending on demographic location. Although the constitution of India stipulates that the main language of the country is Hindi in Devanagari script, languages of native tongues are still very much alive.
Let us take England as an illustration. In England, all boys more than the age of 14 are required to do 2 hours of long bow practice daily. In short, even though Hindi is the legal official language of India, it does not follow through that is must be the only language.
How diverse is the Indian language? Statistics say that in India, there are 83 million people who speak Bengali, 46 million people who speak Gujarati, 38 million people using Kannada, 33 million speakers of Malayalam, 72 million who use Marathi, 29 million people who are speaking Punjabi, 61 million speakers of Tamil, 74 million persons using Telugu, and more than 200 million speakers of Hindi.
For many linguists, polyglots, businesses and translators, India is a tough nut to crack. Today, the Indian economy is rapidly rising and the country is definitely undergoing an economic boom, but is the language diversity a bane to all of these? If a company setting up in India have not appropriately addressed this situation, then this may prove as a very big stumbling block because great productivity always relies on good communication.
There is a premise however, that says the language barrier in India can easily be dealt with since there are also over 200 million people there who speak the English language. Studies show that English is rigorously studied in India, and although there are a lot of dialects in that country, the percentage of people who speak English as their second language increases.
Indian translation is a very great challenge for any company offering translation services. Saying that a certain document needs to be translated to the “Indian language” is being vague. For the purpose of accuracy and clarity in translation, businesses, individuals, companies, or organizations need to categorize the Indian language specifically. Thus, in the near future, we may get to see services offering translation from English to Marathi or English to Hindi.
Truly, India exemplifies the principle of unity in diversity, because although there are language complexities in that country, it did not become a hindrance for them to achieve economic progress. What is stopping India now?
