Geographic distribution of the Bengali language in India and Bangladesh

Geographic distribution of the Bengali language in India and Bangladesh

2806 x 2080

‘Is there mutual intellibility to some extent between Bengali and Hindi?

(Native/good Bengali speaker, poor Hindi speaker)

Not really for the most part. My Hindi vocab is much smaller than my Bengali, so when I have to guess what the Hindi word is by knowing the Bengali word (think of English/French words with Latin roots), I can for some of the bigger/more complex words, but a lot of common words don’t even have a cognate, partially due to the Austroasiatic substratum in East Aryan languages.’

Most Common Spoken Languages in Inḍian States

Most Common Spoken Languages in Inḍian States

8752 x 5257

‘There are almost no native speakers of English (0.02%). Everyone speaks it as a second or third language

I would caution you from making a connection between mother tongue and first language. In big cities like Bangalore and Chennai, the rich and upper middle class usually send their children to English-medium schools, so their children often end up better at English than their mother tongue(they can speak both well, but reading and writing in their mother tongue is often poor since they don’t take it in school or only as a second language). However, even if they speak English fluently and are not as proficient in their mother tongue, they would never say English is their mother tongue’

The Languages of India (1862)

The Languages of India (1862)

2117 × 3056

‘It’s interesting to see how many there are. I’m sure there are thousands of sub-dialects in those families.

A friend at college is Tamil he would often discuss how he is not Indian. He did that because I asked he wasn’t angry it was a historical discussion. He even said look at how his Indian friend has light skin and a large nose (compared to his) just like I did. It was true there is a sharp contrast between north Indians and the southern Dravidian speaking peoples’–dghughes

Population density heatmap of India

Population density heatmap of India - one of a new series of maps by Robert Szucs of Grasshopper Geography

2000 × 2000

‘Chronology of Bihar

  1. Rich and developed Bihar with best universities in the world, a place for intellectual thinking and spiritual awakening —>
  2. Then Islamic invaders burned universities, chased away the scholars and we lost thousands of years worth of knowledge —>
  3. Then the British came and looted all the wealth causing great suffering and famines —>
  4. Then the British forced the farmers into Indigo and Opium cultivation(Secret plan to destroy China) causing loss of quality of soil and the traditional art based industries like handloom, sculpturing etc were destroyed causing loss of skills.
  5. After Independence, a lot of corruption happened due to poverty and illiteracy causing it to grow slowest among all states —>
  6. Now one of the poorest and least developed places.
  7. A story of tragedy after tragedy from being one of the richest and most developed places in the world’–Fdsn

Percent of People Speaking Primary Languages in India

Percent of People Speaking Primary Languages in India

“Nagaland’s only having 12.9% of people speaking their plurality language I found interesting. It turn’s out that’s only about 250,000 people and one of 16 or so tribes, making Nagaland no more populated than a large city elsewhere in India. According to wikipedia there is no majority language but English is typically used in government and higher education – When I lived in Nagaland, the blanket term for all their languages was nagamese lol …. In my time spent travelling in India, I never met anyone from Nagaland (or, for that matter, from the Seven Sisters in general). It’s such a fascinating and unique place!”

Andaman Islands Tribal Distribution (1923)

Andaman Islands Tribal Distribution (1923)

“When the missionary died last year from visting the Sentinelese it was something that could have been prevented had he listened to common sense. Those people have made it clear as a community that they wish to be left alone and the Christian thing is to respect those wishes”–CaptainObvious110