Comments
Hapankaali t1_irt2o7b wrote
Most of what is today India was controlled by the Mughals before the British conquered it. So there was a "country," just not one with a dominant single language. The idea that a nation state should be associated with a single culture and language didn't gain traction until the advent of nationalism. As a second example, French was not spoken as a native tongue by a majority of the French population until about 100 years ago. The adoption of a single lingua franca was accelerated by the start of WW1 and the popularization of radio in the 20th Century.
Smart_Ass_Dave t1_irt45x4 wrote
That's all true, though I'd like to add that the Mughal empire's dominion over the whole subcontinent was uhhh...short lived. Here's the place 51 years after your map, as an example: LINK
Hapankaali t1_irtewmd wrote
The Mughal Empire lasted about 2 centuries, so not that short-lived.
Anyway, that the ruling class doesn't speak the language(s) of the people they are ruling was the norm until quite recently - colonialism didn't invent this. The Qing court used Manchu - a now practically extinct language - until the 20th Century.
Smart_Ass_Dave t1_irtg2md wrote
My point about the Mughals is that while the empire itself existed for hundreds of years, it did not cover the whole of the continent for hundreds of years. Your points about China is a good one though.
I do feel like you've missed my overall point however, so I'll explain it more clearly. India was not a homogenous entity when Europeans arrived there. It was a bunch of different people all slammed together by foreign empires. The Mughals were as foreign to a Mysorean or Bengali as the British were. We as westerners (meaning your average Redditor, I don't know you specifically) would do well to imagine them as complexly as they deserve.
Shturm-7-0 t1_is3u47u wrote
Manchu was almost extinct by the late 19th century, even by the late 18th century a big chunk of Manchus couldn't speak Manchu.
tipdrill541 t1_irtist4 wrote
What language did the French speak 100 years ago
djn808 t1_iru4cnf wrote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergonha
lots of them
innergamedude t1_iry4tv8 wrote
This. "French as a language" doesn't really mean anything in a strict sense. You had a whole continuum of dialects and the powerful interests in the national government declared one of them the "real thing" and all others basically Kirkland-brand French. This is actually the case for basically any Old World country with a nationalized language. The notion that "German" is one language is laughable.
Hapankaali t1_irv0m6u wrote
As mentioned, Occitan was a major one. Other languages with formerly large minorities include Alsatian, Basque, Breton, Dutch, Provençal (the latter is sometimes considered a variation of Occitan) and others. Of these, only Breton and Alsatian survive with a significant number of speakers today, though Alsatian is also rapidly dying.
Napoleon Bonaparte was from Corsica and not a native speaker of French.
deeptull t1_irtk3ia wrote
Smart_Sherlock t1_isgefxw wrote
Everything correct, except that between the 100 years of Mughals and British, India was mostly ruled by the Maratha Empire.
Hapankaali t1_isgotty wrote
Yep - but that empire was much smaller. My point was just that the British didn't glue together some disparate small realms, there was a precedent for a (mostly) unified Indian subcontinent.
Smart_Sherlock t1_isgpdc2 wrote
Not that much smaller. It was comparable to what Mughals controlled for most of their existence.
Concept of Bharat was indeed there, even in times of Chandragupta as documented by Chanakya himself.
Places can have same culture (including religion) but at the same time be politically divided. This has happened many times in history
Ani1618_IN t1_iudvran wrote
By the time the Brits began establishing a serious presence in the subcontinent, the Mughals had withered away and became puppets of various states including the Marathas, the Afghans, and various North Indian warlords and ministers.
iamawesome001 t1_iuixqze wrote
Small correction by the time British colonalism started Mughals were already faded. Marathas were major forces (very much decentralised though) and Mughals were only namesake rulers with their influence only in Delhi
deeptull t1_irtkhb9 wrote
The minor matters of having the same religion, myths, contiguous cuisines, massively shared vocabularies etc
dinoroo t1_irsvu90 wrote
That’s the history of most countries, even in Europe.
8urnMeTwice t1_irsy73j wrote
Where the hell did Yugoslavia go?
smeppel t1_irt6ykc wrote
😔
AnonymousPerson4 t1_irtdsk2 wrote
Some farmer "fell" on a bottle naked and they split up afterwards
Smart_Ass_Dave t1_irt676f wrote
Sure, a lot of European countries are newer than most Americans think, but those are much smaller than the entire Indian subcontinent and often much more closely tied as a culture or ethnicity. This is not like German Unification, this is what happens when people decide that Swedes, Germans, the French, Spanish and Portuguese should all be one country, and then throw on Turkey because fuck you I guess.
Moose_Hooves t1_irssqja wrote
Do Indians embrace a national identity? Do they respect the authority of their national government?
It’s such a beautiful country with such an amazing history. I didn’t know this but apparently when the British arrived, India was the wealthiest nation in the world by a hige margin. To this day the people who own the most gold in the world are Indian houswives.
dragerslay t1_irtdbl2 wrote
India does have siginificant national identitiy, verging on nationalism. Strogn national identity was something pushed by governments since India's independance. Still there are large differences in food, language, religious practices and other cultural pillar between states, especially north vs. south.
pinkcheems t1_iruib0l wrote
Indians always embraced a national identity. It was unfortunate that India failed to unite under one king in the history. The connecting link between indian states was dharmic culture or religions. vishnu puran (sacred book in Hinduism which talks about life of vishu (krishna) mentions that उत्तरं यत्समुद्रस्यः हिमाद्रेश्चैव दक्षिणम् ।
वर्षं तद् भारतं नाम: भारती यत्र संततिः ।। The country
that lies north of the ocean and south of the
snowy mountains is called Bhāratam (India);
there dwell the descendants of Bharata. So we can say that concept of India as nation is not new.
SeleucusNikator1 t1_irtj9d4 wrote
> I didn’t know this but apparently when the British arrived, India was the wealthiest nation in the world by a hige margin
Note that this depends on what you mean by "wealthiest". India was wealthy the same way China and the USA are wealthy today, but not wealthy in the sense that Switzerland is a country of rich people.
Before the Industrial revolution, virtually almost all of the population (across the world) would have been peasants living in pretty primitive conditions, be it in Qing China or in Habsburg Spain. Urban populations were only a tenth of the population at best, and the wealthy merchants within them would of course be an even smaller minority.
Moose_Hooves t1_irtje05 wrote
Of course, I was talking about the wealth held by India’s elite. Like their rich people were weakthier than any other nation’s rich people.
Extension_Ad6338 t1_irup8tn wrote
>Do Indians embrace a national identity? Do they respect the authority of their national government?
Yeah as we've been diverse way before you Westerners made it a trend to flex on
Smart_Sherlock t1_isgf35x wrote
India does not have any strong secessionist movement, except those openly funded by the PRC and Pakistan.
Indians in general are very strongly nationalistic. People may question the party of power in the Center, but will never raise questions on India as a State
RedSonGamble t1_irv5ww2 wrote
Imagine if aliens showed up. Like eventually the subject of tickling would come up. How would you even describe why people tickle each other?
briefnuts t1_irwi00p wrote
"What is this tickling? " the alien asked.
"Oh, it's just when people lightly stimulate the nerve endings in each other's skin to make their sensory receptors pass signals through their anterior cingulated cortex which in turn releases euphoria-promoting brain chemicals."
"That makes perfect sense, thank you earthling"
RedSonGamble t1_iry2ktx wrote
Ehhhh I know a lot of people that don’t like tickling
critfist t1_irtqod3 wrote
> India was not a country when the British arrived
I dunno if that's totally applicable though. Since it was more like a geographical region. Germany was a geographical region for a very long time until it coalesced.
dudewiththebling t1_is26bxp wrote
> Germany was a geographical region for a very long time until it coalesced.
Germany was a collection of small kingdoms and similar states before kinda sorta becoming the Holy Roman Empire.
critfist t1_is34428 wrote
Which only really held dejure influence over the region. It was more of a nebulous concept with a figurehead than a unified state.
dudewiththebling t1_is39dc5 wrote
It wasn't holy, roman, or even an empire.
darthveda t1_irvh6tp wrote
Really? Are we going to go down that road again? most of the nations in Europe, whose boundaries are defined as of today, didn't exist like this as well, going by your logic.
India as a nation defined by boundaries didn't exist but it did as an identity, culture, people etc.
You give too much credit to colonial powers than they deserve.
[deleted] t1_irt689y wrote
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Swellmeister t1_irtq4gr wrote
Uhhhh what? The mughals ruled like 90% of Modern India by the time the British showed up
Extension_Ad6338 t1_iruouuk wrote
It was still called India and by a lot of other names, just like how Greece, Persia and Egypt were called Greece, Persia and Egypt even before being nation states
Smart_Ass_Dave t1_irus7lu wrote
I mean...Greece has been called Greece since Roman times, but never by the Greeks who call it "Hellas" or more accurately Ἑλλάς (Ellás), so maybe it's not a great example of our understanding of foreign places.
Edit: To add, India is named after the "Indus River", which is actually in Modern Pakistan. Europeans imported the Persian name of Hindustan for a while, but the actual name for it locally is Bharat.
Extension_Ad6338 t1_iruxkeo wrote
>but the actual name for it locally is Bharat.
Along with आर्यवर्त (Aryavarta), भारतवर्ष (Bharatvarsha). I'm sick and tired of ignorants claiming there was no such as thing as India before 1947 when there was clearly a national identity/idea of भारत (Bharat) encompassing the entire Indian subcontinent during the Ancient times itself. The rulers of whatever dynasty/empire/kingdom was under power proclaimed themselves as rulers of India.
barath_s t1_iryu3is wrote
That's a very Delhi centric view.
Ask the cholas, cheras, pandyas, satvahanas, nagas etc if they claimed to be the rulers of india ?
India was not defined as being the same as your country necessarily. India as a nation defined by boundaries may not have existed necessarily but it did as an identity (one of many), culture, etc.
buzzz001 t1_irvjddc wrote
What are you basing this on? Do you have a source?
bigbabich t1_irstmpj wrote
A company I used to work at had quite a few DBA's from India (shocker). Two were from towns 20 miles away from each other. They both spoke ~4 languages but thr only common one they had was broken English. Listening to them speak to each other was painful...and hysterically funny.
avanatwoathree t1_isefz85 wrote
Hysterically funny because they both were able to converse with each other in a FOURTH language, no matter how broken? Huh. Hilarious.
PM_ME_A_PLANE_TICKET t1_irs5lb7 wrote
Are they just counting dialects as whole languages or what? how many of those 1599 languages share a large percentage of words?
Chicawhappa t1_irseq03 wrote
It's a very very old civilization with plenty of outsiders pouring in over the millenia, so the diversity of genetics and languages is hardly surprising. See the diversity in the UK between York and Birmingham, without counting the 20th century immigrants. If that can happen in 2000 years (4-7 cultures indigenous picts/celts/Welsh, Spaniards and Italians in the form of Romans, Norwegians, Danish, French, German pouring into the island from across Europe), then imagine a land that was regularly trading with pre-greek ancient Egypt and even ancient Somalia and Chad when they were prosperous cultures (mentioned in our old texts). It's not that surprising.
ZhouDa t1_irs8jhc wrote
Not sure, but I doubt their basis for classifying them as languages is different than anywhere else in the world. For example Spanish and Portuguese I hear has a good degree of intelligibility yet are classified as separate languages, same with Russian and Ukrainian.
PM_ME_A_PLANE_TICKET t1_irsi10g wrote
meanwhile, high and low German are dialects and change merely in pronunciation for the most part.
WhereToSit t1_is14tlm wrote
Russian and Ukrainian only have like a 50% vocab overlap which like you can generally convey important information with that but having a full blown conversation is a different story.
TENTAtheSane t1_irsd4ja wrote
They probably are, but sometimes it's justified. Like, I can't even understand the same language, my native language which is one of the blue ones in the op picture, spoken in the northern half of my state, while from what some friends from there tell me, different languages of different countries in Scandinavia or the Balkans are completely mutually intelligible
SystemOfASideways t1_iruqu2d wrote
The census simply recorded people's responses for what their native language was, so the number is significantly overinflated due to some languages having multiple names or people claiming for religious reasons that they spoke dead languages when they actually didn't. Most sources I can find say that India has around 450 spoken languages
The discrepancies in how the census counts languages between different years is how you end up with vastly different numbers. One year there are said to be ~2600 languages, then ~19,500 (Nearly 3 times the amount of languages estimated to exist in the whole world), and then ~1600
AmishTechno t1_irsuerg wrote
A huge percentage.
sjiveru t1_irt69ta wrote
Yeah, this seems to be using a very permissive definition of 'language'. Ethnologue - which at least tries to do things on a purely scientific basis - counts on the order of 600 or so languages in India.
[deleted] t1_irsf87h wrote
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mayurdhemre t1_irsdq5i wrote
A real example of 'Unity in diversity.
HorsesSuck120 t1_irtimcp wrote
TIL there's over 1,599 languages.
Mindless_Archer_6410 t1_irvihvb wrote
This is why India is India and China is....communist.
[deleted] t1_is57vd8 wrote
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[deleted] t1_irvspoe wrote
Here I am thinking there are like 6 languages total , if that
HeDgEhAwG69 t1_irvvdl5 wrote
They're overpopulated and overlanguaged.
GoodLittleHinduGirl t1_irwp5en wrote
Yes this is true. For me English is my third language whereas in the south, many people speak more than three. I have a friend from the south who speaks Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam, in addition to English and Hindi.
Personally I think every should learn Hindi as their first language so that our country can more more nationalistic and then very on can understand government messages for example. The BJP would have a lot more support in the south if we required all schoolchildren to learn Hindi.
Murhayyy t1_irt2avy wrote
And not a single one of the languages includes a programming language…
[deleted] t1_irszfms wrote
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AmishTechno t1_irsudbj wrote
Sure- but a lot of those 1599 are so close to others, that it's a bit disingenuous. It would be like saying USA has 4 languages- "regular" American English, Southern drawl English, Cajun, New England English, etc.
zumbadumbadumdum t1_irva5im wrote
I think the major languages are only around 30-40.. but the tribal population does have a huge variety of languages. Most of them don't even have a script.
monchota t1_irskv3o wrote
And they will stay separated untill they speak one language.
_ALPHAMALE_ t1_irsm05c wrote
Not really. If you think so, you don't know anything about India
tamal4444 t1_irt5aum wrote
You don't know anything about my country
aalizznotwell t1_irtwc11 wrote
Linguistic nationalism in India is non-existent
TacticalNuke002 t1_irv1gw0 wrote
It does exist and very strongly in some cases but it's more about recognition and preservation of culture than secessionism.
barath_s t1_iryycqj wrote
It's pretty darn huge. States were created on the basis of language (not the only criteria), so it's basically been pushed down a level due to federation.
Fit_Access9631 t1_irwiy9q wrote
Tell that Bengalis killed in Assam over linguistic nationalism
aalizznotwell t1_irwjr8b wrote
That's not linguistic nationalism, Assamese tolerated their nuisances for long and are still tolerating. There is still anti-Bengali(people) sentiment, language is not a main reason. Illegal migrations from bangladesh, occupying of land are some of the main reasons.
Fit_Access9631 t1_irwm1ey wrote
It’s not? Then what is linguistic nationalism? If Bengalis being killed to make Assamese a dominant language or Bengalis dying to get their language recognised as official language is not? Or Tamils burning themselves to death to protest Hindi imposition?
aalizznotwell t1_irwq2ca wrote
When Tamils ask for a independence because of language, that is linguistic nationalism. And currently it is nearly non-existent
Fit_Access9631 t1_irx6k2e wrote
What about Assamese, Manipuris and Nagaland which seeks independence? The Naga insurgency is still strong
aalizznotwell t1_irxjz4u wrote
It's about ethno nationalism, language was never a motive or a primary motive
Fit_Access9631 t1_irz5lio wrote
By that logic linguistic nationalism doesn’t exist in this universe. Tell me one case where language is not associated with ethno-nationalism.
aalizznotwell t1_irzg08n wrote
Pakistan
Fit_Access9631 t1_irzs2ac wrote
And what about Pakistan?
iamawesome001 t1_iuiybdy wrote
Literally got divided to pakistan and bangladesh in 1971 because of different in languages (Urdu and Bengali)
Smart_Ass_Dave t1_irsl5bu wrote
India was not a country when the British arrived. It's basically what would happen if aliens showed up in Europe, conquered the whole thing and smashed it together saying "these are all Christians, they're basically the same," and then left several centuries later being like "Okay now please get along."