this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not to take away from this but often these 4 are very similar languages that could be easily interpreted as dialects if not the identity politics.

[–] emergencyfood 1 points 1 year ago

It is complicated. India has at least four language families - Indo-European, Dravidian, Austroasiatic and Sino-Tibetan. So Hindi (I-E) is closer related to English or Greek than to Tamil (Dra), Santali (AA) or Zeme (S-T). While it is rare for people to speak languages belonging to all four families, I know at least three people who can passably speak six languages from two or three families.