Art & Culture Quiz: Languages and Scripts of India

The correct answer is B, African-Asian. There is no language family by that name in India. The Afro-Asiatic family, which the name echoes, covers Arabic, Hebrew and the Berber and Cushitic languages of West Asia and North Africa, and no Indian language belongs to it. Option A is wrong because the Tibeto-Burman family, a branch of the Sino-Tibetan family, is very much present in India and covers Manipuri, Bodo, Lepcha, Ladakhi and the Naga languages of the north-east. Option C is wrong because the Dravidian family is the second largest family in the country and covers Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tulu and Gondi. Option D is wrong because the Austro-Asiatic or Munda family is spoken in Jharkhand, Odisha and Meghalaya and covers Santali, Mundari, Ho and Khasi. The families actually found in India are Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Tibeto-Burman, and the small Andamanese and Tai-Kadai groups.

The correct answer is A, Kannada. Kannada is one of the four major Dravidian languages, the others being Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam, and it is the official language of Karnataka. Option B is wrong because Hindi belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family and descends through Prakrit and Apabhramsha from Sanskrit. Option C is wrong because Oriya, now written as Odia, is also an Indo-Aryan language and is the official language of Odisha. Option D is wrong because Manipuri, also called Meitei, belongs to the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan family and is written in the Meitei Mayek script as well as in the Bengali-Assamese script. A useful rule for the exam is that the four southern State languages, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, are Dravidian, while almost every northern and eastern State language is Indo-Aryan.

The correct answer is B, Austro-Asiatic family. The tribal languages of Jharkhand and the neighbouring belt of central and eastern India, namely Santali, Mundari, Ho and Kurukh's neighbours in the Munda group, belong to the Austro-Asiatic family, whose Indian branch is called Munda. Santali, written in the Ol Chiki script, is the best known of them and was added to the Eighth Schedule in 2003. Option A is wrong because Indo-European, through its Indo-Aryan branch, covers Hindi, Bengali and Odia, the regional languages of the plains, not the tribal languages of the plateau. Option C is wrong because the Tibeto-Burman family lies along the Himalayan belt and the north-east, far from central India. Option D is wrong because the Dravidian family is concentrated in the south, although the Dravidian language Kurukh is indeed spoken by the Oraon of the same region, which is what makes this option a tempting trap.

The correct answer is A, Urdu. Under Article 345 a State may adopt any language in use within it as its official language, and Uttar Pradesh has adopted Hindi as its official language and Urdu as its second official language. Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language written in the Perso-Arabic script and is in the Eighth Schedule. Option B is wrong because Awadhi, the speech of the Awadh region and the language of Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas, is counted as a dialect of Hindi in the census returns and has no official status. Option C is wrong because Bundeli, spoken in the Bundelkhand region, is likewise treated as a Hindi dialect. Option D is wrong because Bagheli, spoken in the Baghelkhand tract on the Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh border, is also a dialect and not an official language. The examiner is testing the difference between an official language and a regional dialect.

The correct answer is B, the 92nd Constitution Amendment Act of 2003. That amendment added four languages, Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali, to the Eighth Schedule and took the count from 18 to 22, where it stands. Option A is wrong because the 73rd Amendment of 1992 is the Panchayati Raj amendment, which inserted Part IX and the Eleventh Schedule; the language amendment of that year was the 71st, which added Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali. Option C is wrong because the 103rd Amendment provides reservation for the economically weaker sections and has nothing to do with language. Option D is wrong because the 101st Amendment introduced the Goods and Services Tax. Remember the three language amendments in order: the 21st of 1967 added Sindhi, the 71st of 1992 added three languages and the 92nd of 2003 added four.

The correct answer is A, 14. When the Constitution came into force in 1950 the Eighth Schedule listed 14 languages. Option B is wrong because 18 was the count reached only in 1992, after the 71st Amendment added Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali to the 15 that existed then. Option C is wrong because 16 was never a stage in the list at all; the count went from 14 to 15 in 1967 when the 21st Amendment added Sindhi, and then straight to 18. Option D is wrong because 22 is the present number, reached in 2003 when the 92nd Amendment added Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali. Candidates lose this question by reading the word initially carelessly and answering with the current figure, so read the stem twice: 14 at the start, 22 today.

The correct answer is A, Article 343. It states that the official language of the Union shall be Hindi in the Devanagari script and that the form of numerals to be used shall be the international form of Indian numerals; it also allowed English to continue for fifteen years from the commencement of the Constitution, a period Parliament extended through the Official Languages Act of 1963. Option B is wrong because Article 345 deals with the official language of a State, not of the Union. Option C is wrong because Article 348 fixes English as the language of the Supreme Court, the High Courts and of Bills, Acts and ordinances. Option D is wrong because Article 351 only lays a duty on the Union to promote the spread of Hindi and to enrich it by drawing on Sanskrit. Note that the Constitution nowhere uses the phrase national language.

The correct answer is B, James Prinsep. Prinsep, an officer of the East India Company mint at Calcutta, deciphered the Brahmi script in 1837, which made the edicts of Ashoka readable and opened up the early history of India. Option A is wrong because Alexander Cunningham was the first Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India and surveyed and excavated sites, but he did not decipher the script. Option C is wrong because John Marshall headed the Archaeological Survey much later and is remembered for announcing the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilisation in 1924. Option D is wrong because William Jones founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 and showed the kinship of Sanskrit with Greek and Latin, a different achievement altogether. Brahmi is the parent of nearly every Indian script, including Devanagari and the Tamil script.

The correct answer is B, Santali. Santali is an Austro-Asiatic language of the Munda group, spoken mainly in Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha, and Pandit Raghunath Murmu designed the Ol Chiki script for it so that it need not borrow a script from a neighbouring language. Santali entered the Eighth Schedule through the 92nd Amendment of 2003. Option A is wrong because Bodo, a Tibeto-Burman language of Assam, is written in the Devanagari script. Option C is wrong because Maithili is written in Devanagari today, though its older Tirhuta or Mithilakshar script survives in ritual use. Option D is wrong because Konkani is written in Devanagari, which is its official script in Goa, and also in Kannada, Roman and Malayalam scripts by different communities. Ol Chiki plus Santali is a favourite pairing in language and script matching questions.

The correct answer is C, Tamil. Tamil was declared a classical language in 2004, the first language to receive the status, on the strength of its ancient Sangam literature and an independent literary tradition. Option A is wrong because Sanskrit received the status in 2005, a year after Tamil, which makes it the commonest wrong answer here since candidates assume the oldest language must have been recognised first. Option B is wrong because Telugu was recognised in 2008. Option D is wrong because Kannada was recognised in the same year as Telugu, 2008. Malayalam followed in 2013 and Odia in 2014, and in 2024 the status was extended to Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali. Keep the classical list separate from the Eighth Schedule list, because Pali and Prakrit are classical languages but are not in the Eighth Schedule.