Ram's Cafe

From time to time, a foreigner would ask me, "How do you say this in Indian?". And whenever there is time, I make it a point to let them know that there is no one language called "Indian" a la Korean or Japanese. Officially, there are 18 languages and several hundred dialects. Many of these have their own script for writing. Of course, I also tell them that Hindi is sort of a link language in several states, especially in the north. I have come across some foreigners who might have heard of Hindi, but in their mind, they get it mixed up with 'Hindu', so they ask me, 'How do you say in Hindu....' - then I tell them that's the religion....

While doing some search, I came across some interesting reading material:

India is unique, and the idea of replacing English with Hindi fraught with dangers. India has over 18 recognised languages, and about 800 dialects. Hindi is not the national language of India as is often mistaken, it is only a national language of India, along with 17 others, including Sanskrit (spoken by how many is still a guess). However, Hindi and English are the official languages. Hence, Hindi's advantage is that it is India's language for official purposes. (This is a bit dated).

Here's more on Wikipedia:

While 22 major languages are recognized as "Official Languages" by the Constitution of India, Hindi, in the Devanagari script, is often, undeservingly and wrongly assumed by many people in india to be the only national language of the federal government of India.

Urdu, the official language of Pakistan, is actually pretty close to Hindi - so much so that Indians who can speak Hindi and a Pakistani could have a conversation without using English and with no problem whatsoever. Indian and Pakistani solidiers who come in contact with each other at the border do exactly this! Hindi/Urdu could play a role in bringing together the peoples of India and Pakistan - more than it can unite the people within India. The reason for this - which is not appreciated and understood by the Hindi speakers from the north - is that there have been so many languages in many parts of India for at least a couple of thousand years, and to the brain of an average non-Hindi speaker, Hindi does sound like a completely different language, if not a foreign language.

I plan to write more on this subject, and how this beautiful diversity sometimes gets whitewashed by one cultural and linguistic brush! So please check back...