Contrary to the belief that predominantly agricultural India was a Static Society before the modern times, India has always been in ferment because of different ethnicities and practising different religions.  Respect for the different permitted each group to retain its cultural distinctiveness and yet establish linkages either by being bilingual developing a pidgin or adopting a language of wider communication. In all cases languages in contact had to give up some of their angularities and adopt features of the other, leading to convergence which has resulted in India being considered a single linguistic area.  It is therefore to be expected that Tamils living in Bangalore for several generations would speak a language which would show features of convergence with the state dominant language, Kannada.  What is, however, interesting in the studies of Dr. Sam Mohan Lal and Dr. M. Bayer is the differing response of Iyengars and Mudaliars towards the majority state language and English.

 

            Both the studies also indicate that the reinforcement of Tamil is due to successive waves of migrants and cannot be attributed entirely to the retention of Tamil by the first settlers.  It is study throws light on the process of integration, then the efforts of the Institute would have been rewarded.  I congratulate Dr. Sam Mohan Lal and all those responsible for bringing out the monograph.

 

 

                                                                                                            D. P. Pattanayak