A large part of the population in India, speaks and understands Urdu including Punjab, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh, but only 24,821 people speak Sanskrit in the country.
A large part of the population in India, speaks and understands Urdu including Punjab, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh, but only 24,821 people speak Sanskrit in the country.
The language department of the Union Home Ministry’s Registrar General and Census Commissioner’s office revealed this information, in response to an RTI application filed by an Agra-based surgeon and social activist Dr. Devashish Bhattcharya. According to the information revised by him, as per the census of 2011, only 0.002 % of the Indian population speaks Sanskrit.
Indian speaks Sanskrit
According to Dr. Bhattcharya, Sanskrit is listed as one of the 22 official languages of the country in the constitution, and not as a minority language. Uttarakhand became the first state in India to list Sanskrit as its second official language in 2010. But, it is hardly spoken by anyone in the state, while Hindi is a fusion of several languages including Sanskrit, and is spoken by crores of Indians.
Dr. Sapna, a linguist at the Kendriya Hindi Sansthan (KHS), said that the KHS is working on preserving not just Sanskrit, but 18 other regional languages, including Avadhi, Braj Bhasha, and Bhojpuri. Dictionaries for these languages are being prepared. Three dictionaries have been prepared already, while 15 others are underway.Â
Social activist Sameer told India Today that the local district magistrate’s court in the Hamirpur district of Uttar Pradesh created history on September 9, 2022, by passing an order in Sanskrit. The DM’s order brought the Sanskrit language back into the headlines.
He said that the Hamirpur District Magistrate, Dr. Chandrabhushan Tripathi holds a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and this order written by him in Sanskrit has inspired many Sanskrit scholars to put effort and bring this endangered language back into daily practice.
