Languages ‘have a span of existence which is granted by human society and culture rather than by natural laws’ (Edwards 1994). This observation can be clearly seen in the context of the ‘co-existence’ of different languages in a multilingual society. The general picture that one would like to imagine of multilingualism might be of languages co-existing in a society, each language having an important role to play and also an equal chance of survival in the multilingual set up. This picture, sadly, may be far from being true considering that it overlooks certain issues such as the division of languages into majority and minority languages and the conflicts between the two, situations where a language or some languages (hence the speakers) assume more important, powerful, privileged and prestigious role rendering the rest unimportant, weak, underprivileged and not prestigious counterparts. Besides, the efforts of speakers of some languages to save their languages as well as the unavoidable, sometimes inadvertent, sacrifice of their languages by some others, often result in identity related issues, due to socially, economically, politically motivated reasons which also include various language planning (LP) measures taken. These LP issues may be furthermore motivated by factors which are also causes of multilingualism, such as, modernization, globalization, urbanization, etc.

Within this context, the paper attempts to look at the sociolinguistic and multilingual situation of Tripura, one of the North-Eastern states of India. Besides several scheduled languages reported to be spoken in Tripura, there are various non-scheduled languages belonging to 19 different tribes. The heavy influx of the Bengali speaking population from the neighbouring states and country (Bangladesh) rendered the indigenous tribal population of Tripura to a minority of 23.50% as against 68.88% of Bengali population of the total population as early as 1961 (Census of India 1961) and the Bengali speaking population has emerged as the numerically, economically, culturally, politically and linguistically more powerful group. One of the major fallouts of this contact is that the Tripuris have been reduced to a minority status and their languages are under threat. However, there have been recent attempts to further the cause of Kok Borok and extend its use to various institutional domains.

Given this, the paper however focuses on a recent trend that deserves attention. Among the non-scheduled languages of the state, namely, Chakma, Jamatia, Kok Borok, Tripuri, Reang, Mogh, Bishnupriya, Halam, Garo, Munda, Lushai, Kurukh, etc., the 1961 census listed Jamatia, Kokborok, Murasing, Noatia, Reang and Tripuri under the name of Tripuri. Grierson in his Linguistic survey of India however classified Kok Borok as Tipura under the Bodo group of the Tibeto-Burman language family. In course of time, the term Tripuri has become synonymous with Kok Borok. This is also evident from the fact that while only 3 (female) speakers returned Kok Borok as their mother tongue in the 1961 census, the figure amounted to 5,16,749 in the 1991 census report. This undermines the fact that Tripuri actually represents several separate languages of a larger group, which may be significantly different from each other. In the drive to create a larger Tripuri identity with a common language against the dominant Bengali speaking population, Kok Borok, which itself is reeling under the threat of Bengali, has put other tribal languages under threat.

This paper is an attempt to address the associating problems which arise from this chain reaction in the not so balanced multilingual setting of Tripura and also look at it through the necessary evils of language planning measures (almost often with shortcomings) which are well known from the various writings on language planning policies and development in India (Agnihotri 1992, Das Gupta 1970, Dua 1985, Khubchandani 1988, 1981, Pandit 1988, Pattanayak, 1981, etc.)

Reference:
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Das Gupta, J. 1970. Language conflict and national development: group politics and national language policy in India. Oxford University Press.
Dua, H.R. 1985. Language Planning in India. Harnam Publishers, Delhi
Edwards 1994, Multilingualism, Routledge, London
Khubchandani, L.M. ed. 1988. Language in a plural society. Motilal Banarasidas, Delhi.
Khubchandani, L.M.1981. Language education and social justice. Centre for Communication studies, Poona.
Pandit, P.B. 1988. Towards a Grammar of Variation in Khubchandani, L.M. ed. 1988:40-49.
Pattanayak, D.P. 1981. Multilingualism and mother tongue education. Oxford University Press. Delhi