As per a 2018 analysis of the 2011 Census of India, while there are 19,569 languages or dialects that are spoken as 'Mother Tongue' in India, only 121 of those are spoken by 10,000 or more people. 121 by no means is a small number, though. Of these 121, our constitution gives special recognition to 22 languages - 96.71% of the population have one of these as their mother tongue.
Using a tutorial posted on Learn ArcGIS, I've recreated a thematic Map-based Web Application of The Languages of India which can be accessed from this link.
May 2023 update: The link has expired and the project is inaccessible now although the features and design of the Web Application are highlighted in this post
The landing page of the Web Application (Figure 1 above) shows a map of the major mother tongue languages of India (21 barring Sanskrit) represented by different color schemes. On the right, you can see bookmarked views that lead to customized Map views to where some of the main languages are individually spoken in the country.
For example, Figure 2 above - accessible from the bookmarks - shows the customized view of the 'Bengali' language. The color density plays an important role in conveying the message. Denser the shade of the color, greater the percentage of native Bengali speakers there are in the population of that district. As you will observe, the Bengali heartland of West Bengal is represented by a deep blue shade whereas the North-Eastern states, which have a significant Bengali-speaking community but do not form a large percentage of the overall population of that district, are shaded in a paler blue.
As I had indicated, the data is segregated District-wise. Clicking on any District opens an information pop-up which indicates its population's composition based on the mother tongue spoken. Hyderabad district, as shown in Figure 3 above, has the maximum chunk of its population speaking Telugu and Urdu languages at 87% (the remaining 13% is spread across 14 other mother tongue languages).
Language Density Map: You can arrive at this page on the Web Application by clicking on the button located on the top-left of your screen. To me, this map is representative of the diverse cultural heritage of India. As you'll observe from the Map's Symbology classification as mentioned in the legend pane, the lightest shade of yellow indicates that the district has only 1 language spoken as mother tongue whereas the darkest shade of red indicates the presence of 30 or more languages being spoken as mother tongue!
On the left of your Web App (Figure 4), you'll see List Cards which contain facts about the Languages of India. Clicking on a one of them will dynamically lead you to the particular region on the map where that information belongs. For example, in Figure 5 above, you can see the List Card highlighting an amazing fact pertaining to Dimapur district in the north-eastern state of Nagaland - its population is the most diverse - they speak 44 different mother tongues!
One can gain interesting insights exploring the Map-based Application. For example, I spotted that Dungarpur district, located on the southern tip of the western state of Rajasthan (adjacent to Gujarat), has a significant (21%) Punjabi speaking population. Quirky! as typically one considers Punjabi to be the dominant mother tongue in the Northern states only.
Hope you tried experiencing the Languages of India Web Application on your device and found it informative as well as convenient to use. Creating and conveying information through Maps has never been so effective! I have used Esri's ArcGIS Experience Builder to create this Web Application. You can view it across devices - Television, Desktop, iPads, Tablets and on Mobile Phones.
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Much Thanks to Esri for the Training Material