| People of India |
India is a land of great diversity, more
heterogenous than any other country in the world.
Four major racial groups have met and merged in India resulting
in a complex demographic profile. The pale-skinned Europoid
entered from the western mountain passes, encountering settled
populations of Dasyu, the dark skinned ones of Rig Vedic
description.
The Aryans established a dominant presence in the northwest and
the Gangetic plain, but the people of Mongoloid descent remained
undisturbed in the Himalayan region and the highlands of the
northeast. Their affinity with the southeast Asian world is
remarkable and is reflected in the motifs used in the crafts.
Though the Mongoloid people influenced the racial pattern of
tribes in the eastern provinces of Orissa and Bihar, by and
large, they stayed within central India. Southerners in
peninsular India might have had a link with Negroid racial
elements, as deduced from contemporary populations with dark
skins and tightly curled hair. But the only true Negrito are
isolated in the Andaman Islands.
The ethnic diversity is reflected in the variety of languages
and dialects used in India - 17 major languages and 900 dialects
or closely related subsidiary languages. The Indo-European
group, particularly the sub-branch of the Indic languages,
concentrated as dialects of northwest India and the Gangetic
plains, share a linguistic pool with modern French, English,
Greek and Persian, indicative of migrations of Europoid people.
The Dravidian language family alone consists of 23 languages.
Tamil is spoken in Tamil Nadu, Telugu in Andhra Pradesh, Kannada
in Karnataka and Malayalam in Kerala.
Tribal groups of Oraon, Munda and Santhal scattered through the
highlands of eastern and central India use the languages of the
Austro-Asiatic family, but many of the dialects with only oral
traditions have lost.
Less than one per cent of modern India's population - comprising
the Mizo, Naga, Lushai and Khasi , to name a few tribes - is
inheritor to the languages of the Tibeto-Burman family. Secluded
by geography and, later, protected by policy, their ethnological
and linguistic identity has survived. Christian missionaries
have contributed to the standardization of some of these
languages. |
