A few months back, the Indian government made available the Language Demographics of India (as per the Census carried out in the year 2011)
I referenced the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Census_of_India#Language_demographics to know a little more about the numbers.
This blog post title "Pair Mein Chakkar" is a common way to describe, in India, for someone who does not stay at one place. In English, this may be translated to "Wanderer", or "Nomad", or "Vagabond".
Why such a title? First you have to know that in India there are, currently 29 States and 7 Union Territories. And, all these States were formed to house a certain Language Demographic. For example, the State of TamilNadu comprises of people who speak the Tamil language while the state of Gujarat comprises of people who speak the Gujarati language, and so on.
Of course there is no restriction on the movement of people from one State to another, but generally you will find there are overwhelming native speakers than other language speakers in a State.
So, I was just wondering, which Language Demographic are the most scattered across India. A simple way is to see the difference in the total population in a State and the number of corresponding language speakers in India. While this is not an ideal way, but then I am no number cruncher or a scientist.
So, lets begin. First I will list down the States, their native Language, and their Population:
The below table shows the "First language by number of speakers in India (2011 Census)":
Ok, so, there are some problems in the Language Demographic information. Like the language "Kashmiri" is nowhere stated in any State and is not even stated as the Official Language of "Jammu and Kashmir" State. Like this, there are other languages that have no mention in any State (even as an additional language) like Manipuri, Sindhi, Dogri, Maithili, and maybe others. And, there is a reverse problem too, like the stated Official or Other Language not even finding its way in the Language Speakers section, like Mizo, Kokborok, Santali, Khasi, and more.
Now, lets do some comparisons. I will add up the population of the native language States and compare the numbers with the language speakers. For example, Hindi is the native language of 9 States, the total population of these 9 States is 545,922,727 and the total Hindi speakers are 528,347,193. In this case, the 9 States can accommodate the total Hindi speakers. What does this say, does it say that there are no Hindi speakers in other States, absolutely not, but they do not stand out as "Pair Mein Chakkar" people to me.
Please bear in mind the problems I stated above. So, I will show a subset of the languages:
From the above table, we can see that 3 language speakers are more than the population of their native language States:
I referenced the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Census_of_India#Language_demographics to know a little more about the numbers.
This blog post title "Pair Mein Chakkar" is a common way to describe, in India, for someone who does not stay at one place. In English, this may be translated to "Wanderer", or "Nomad", or "Vagabond".
Why such a title? First you have to know that in India there are, currently 29 States and 7 Union Territories. And, all these States were formed to house a certain Language Demographic. For example, the State of TamilNadu comprises of people who speak the Tamil language while the state of Gujarat comprises of people who speak the Gujarati language, and so on.
Of course there is no restriction on the movement of people from one State to another, but generally you will find there are overwhelming native speakers than other language speakers in a State.
So, I was just wondering, which Language Demographic are the most scattered across India. A simple way is to see the difference in the total population in a State and the number of corresponding language speakers in India. While this is not an ideal way, but then I am no number cruncher or a scientist.
So, lets begin. First I will list down the States, their native Language, and their Population:
The below table shows the "First language by number of speakers in India (2011 Census)":
Ok, so, there are some problems in the Language Demographic information. Like the language "Kashmiri" is nowhere stated in any State and is not even stated as the Official Language of "Jammu and Kashmir" State. Like this, there are other languages that have no mention in any State (even as an additional language) like Manipuri, Sindhi, Dogri, Maithili, and maybe others. And, there is a reverse problem too, like the stated Official or Other Language not even finding its way in the Language Speakers section, like Mizo, Kokborok, Santali, Khasi, and more.
Now, lets do some comparisons. I will add up the population of the native language States and compare the numbers with the language speakers. For example, Hindi is the native language of 9 States, the total population of these 9 States is 545,922,727 and the total Hindi speakers are 528,347,193. In this case, the 9 States can accommodate the total Hindi speakers. What does this say, does it say that there are no Hindi speakers in other States, absolutely not, but they do not stand out as "Pair Mein Chakkar" people to me.
Please bear in mind the problems I stated above. So, I will show a subset of the languages:
From the above table, we can see that 3 language speakers are more than the population of their native language States:
- Bengali (2,287,637)
- Malayalam (1,432,758)
- Punjabi (5,381,388)
From my above information, Punjabi speaking people are the most scattered across India and definitely have "Pair Mein Chakkar"
