India Culture & Language

India recognises twenty-two languages in its constitution and many hundreds more are spoken. Hindi and English serve as link languages, but a Tamil speaker and a Bengali speaker share no more vocabulary than a Portuguese and a Pole.

Four world religions began here — Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism — and Islam and Christianity have been present for well over a thousand years. Religious practice is visible and daily rather than private.

Food divides broadly at the rice-and-wheat line and then subdivides endlessly: the coconut and tamarind cooking of Kerala has little in common with Punjabi dairy and wheat or Bengali freshwater fish and mustard. Vegetarianism is widespread and well catered for as a default rather than an accommodation.

Classical music and dance survive as living disciplines with formal training lineages, and the film industries — plural, in many languages — are the largest in the world by output.

Hindi and English are the official languages of the union, and English is widely used in business, higher education, signage and among educated speakers across the country — visitors manage in English almost everywhere.

It is not, however, universal: outside cities and the service economy many people speak only their regional language. English usage also has its own conventions here, and Indian English is a distinct and complete variety rather than an approximation.

A greeting in the local language is appreciated everywhere, and what that is changes every few hundred kilometres.