India is linguistically one ofthe most heterogeneous nations of'the world: the number of languages spoken is at least 800. It would he much higher if many dialects are considered not as varieties of the same Janguage, but as separate langueges. The languages spoken in India belong to four language families: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, and Tibeto-Burman. Languages from the first two families have by far the most mother-tongue speakers (about 70 per cent and about 25 per cent ofthe population, respectively).

After gaining independenee in 1947, the federal guvemment established the following language policy. English should be replaced by Hindi as theofficial language ofthe federation, ene ofrhe most widely used tangueges especially in North India. Furthermore, regionallanguages should be used as the officiallanguages ofthe states of India; in fact, the states were more or Iess reorganized along linguistic lines. In order to stimulate the spread ofHindi, books were translated into ir, dictionaries and encyclopaedias in Hindi were compiled, keyboards for typewriters and teleprinters were standardized, etc. Also many states paid considerable attention to the furrher development of rheir respective major languages: for instance, special committees devised new technical, legal and administrative vocabuteries. The duallanguage policy of India failed partly because of tbe politically, religiously and practically motivated cpposition againsr Hindi. As a result, in 1967 English was again adopted as the secend official langusge. Tbe educational consequence is that many children have to Iearn two languages (English end Hindi) nexr ro their mother tongue in school. Orher children, speaking a non-official minority language, are taught three languages: English, Hindi and rhe officiallanguage ofthe state they live in.

This example provides a first illustration of what governmenrs eau or must do in multilingual countries, particularly in Third World or recently independent countries. They often have to choose a natienat language, they have te further develop or cultivate it to make ir more useful fbr various communicative needs, they have to foster irs spread, they have to make decisions with regard to the position ofthe minority languages, etc. This chapter discusses various aspects of such language planning processes.

Government institutions often get or take on the task of language planning, but individuals can be active in it as weU, for insrance by creating and consistently using a new word.