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The 1937 linguistic
survey of India shows a total number of 179 languages and 544 dialects.
Out of this 116 dialects were that of Burma then a part of India. However
while talking of literature, dialects attain less of an importance and
only 15 major languages of Bharat need to be considered namely, 1) Hindi
2) Bengali 3) Urdu 4) Marathi 5) Oriya 6) Assameese 7) Gujarathi 8)
Sindhi 8) Punjabi 9) Kashmiri 10) Nepali 11) Telugu 12) Kannada 13)
Tamil 14) Malyalam.
These languages fall in to two groups- Indo Aryan and Dravidian. Spoken
respectively by 73 and 20 percent of total Indian population. Three
other languages contributed to Indian literature viz. Sanskrit, Arabic
and Persian. None of these was a spoken language and inspired a great
deal of nineteenth century India.
Primary importance in maintaining and strengthning Indian culture and
political unity. Sanskrit till today continues to be a great unifying
factor, which links the basic stream of Bharatiya Dharma. Also it is
a great treasure house for all Indian literary languages, to pool and
draw words of higher culture. Any word in a Sanskrit dictionary can
be the word in a prospective Bengal, Marathi, Telugu or Malyalam word.
It is a language useful for scientific & technical vocabulary much needed
these days.
Sanskrit literature written during the 19th century embraced various
branches of literature, such as grammar, lexicography, encyclopedia,
poetry, drama, religion etc.
The onset of literature in the other languages owes it's root to the
renaissance in Bengali literature & Marathi literature written in the
19th century. They in turn have been inspired a lot by the Western impact.
European models of literacy approach were adopted in this period. An
expressive prose style drama, the short story and the essay were born
during the sixteen and nineteenth century European blank verse and forms
like Italian 'sonnet' were introduced & well adapted.
19th century bharatiya literature seems to be influenced apart from
Western impact, with three factors, first was the development of printing
press, 1st set in 1800 and Serampore in Bengal and later in Goa and
Malabar. It created a huge reading audience. Second factor was growing
facilities of transport and communication which led to a gradual realization
of common nationality. Also to an exchange of cross cultural ideas.
Third factor although not major, is literally activity of Christian
Missionaries as a part & parcel of their proselytizing propaganda. With
the mission to translate bible in local languages they had to study
this and the general interest they had in literature, to some extent
helped.
Each of these literatures, whether in Marathi, Telugu or Tamil, Bengali
enriched the total 'form' and matrix of the linguistics strength. In
addition, the regional folk art forms, also got flourished, because
of such a strength. E.g.'Yakshagana' the Telugu art form, revived. In
Marathi lexicography, encyclopedia and journalism flourished.
It is interesting to trace these developments, language wise and the
same has been done under various links of this chapter.
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