The rise of Hinglish: How the media created a new lingua franca for India's elites

Hindi is muscling in where English was the chosen tongue, making speakers of regional Indian languages jittery.

Shoaib Daniyal

· Jun 18, 2017 · 09:00 am

The man behind a 9,000-page, eight-volume Kannada dictionary that took 54 years to write

Professor G Venkatasubbiah, at a sprightly 104, is still the man for all Kannada-related linguistic crises.

Srinath Perur

· Mar 20, 2017 · 11:30 am

Biggest BBC World Service expansion in 40 years aims to extend British soft power

The BBC will add 11 new languages, including Gujarati, Punjabi, Pigdin and Korean.

Abdullahi Abubakar, The Conversation

· Nov 25, 2016 · 11:30 pm

Bongo, Bangla and Bengal: A short guide to the confusing world of Bengali nomenclature

There’s much more to it than musical instruments.

Shoaib Daniyal

· Aug 07, 2016 · 08:00 am

Podcast: Several Indian languages face the risk of dying. Here's what we stand to lose

Several indigenous languages across India are merging with more dominant ones.

Padmaparna Ghosh and Samanth Subramanian

· Jul 28, 2016 · 03:30 pm

No longer lost for words: How researchers rediscovered the mother of all mother tongues

Researchers have developed a method that uses sound waves to rediscover the long-lost Proto-Indo-European language, from which most modern languages evolved.

University of Cambridge

· Jul 25, 2016 · 09:30 pm

How exactly does the Indian media define a terrorist?

The English-language media's use of the term seems to be dictated by muscular nationalism and an anti-Kashmir bias rather than any objective parameters.

Shoaib Daniyal

· Jul 19, 2016 · 08:00 am

If the name 'Bombay' was erased for being a relic of colonial rule, why do we still use 'India'?

A short history, and the politics, of the many names of the country.

Shoaib Daniyal

· Jun 24, 2016 · 08:00 am

Why are Indian Muslims using the Arabic word ‘Ramadan’ instead of the traditional 'Ramzan'?

Increasingly, Indian Muslims are looking to a globalised Saudi brand of Islam for inspiration.

Shoaib Daniyal

· Jun 14, 2016 · 06:30 am

How common Malayalam slang words evolved from foreign languages

Words from English, Dutch, Portuguese, Arabic, Hebrew and several other languages made their way into the local dialect through trade, colonial rule.

Anoop Sankar

· Jun 05, 2016 · 08:30 pm

In defence of English: Blame the Indian education system, not the language

The argument that the stress on English-medium education is to blame for problems of inequality and poor levels of understanding is faulty.

Akshat Jain

· Jun 05, 2016 · 04:30 pm

The death of Urdu in India is greatly exaggerated – the language is actually thriving

After a wall with Urdu slogans was defaced in Delhi by RSS workers, unfounded doubts are being raised about the state of the language in India.

Shoaib Daniyal

· Jun 01, 2016 · 08:00 am