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With the development of almost instant means of communication, knowledge and use of more than one language is increasingly becoming a desired and imperative behavioural goal in the present day world. Linguistic repertoires are now found to contain a number of languages over and above the varieties of a language. this is true as much in the case of nations as individuals. Thus individuals, societies as well as nations can be bilingual. In the earlier phases, scholars paid more attention to the study of individual bilingualism. With the exploration of the nature and patterns of inter-relationships between language and the social milieu of its use, and the need and urge of different countries, mainly plurilingual ones, the study of societal bilingualism and national bilingualism, which received scant attention earlier, has become a significant area of study. In case of individual bilingualism definable patterns of specificable contexts for the selection and use of a particular language exist and are revealed by study, while in the case of national bilingualism, different sections of populations within a nation may be monolingual but the national policy and its implementing agencies, including the national administration, use more than one language as in Switzerland. thus individual bilingualism is at one end of the spectrum while national bilingualism on the other.

Bilingualism has been defined more and more broadly since the beginning of this century. Thus what was at one time referred to more or less equal mastery of more than one language, is now applied to situations in which one has a passive knowledge of a language or languages other than his native language National bilingualism is a further extension of this concept. Thus bilingualism is a relative concept. it involves the questions of degree, function and alternation. Another important feature of bilingualism is the question of interference. Thus "bilingualism is a behavioural pattern of mutually modifying linguistic practices varying in degree, function, alternation and interference".

Bilingualism can be either coordinate or compound. This distinction applies only in the case of individual bilingualism. Societal bilingual can hardly be understood in terms of this distinction and national bilingualism not at all.

India, being a pluriethnic, pluricultural and plurilingual country, manifests a fairly high degree of bilingualism (including multilingualism). The census figure 9.5% bilingualism incidence (according to 1961 census of India) does not really portray the actual situation. Bilingualism is not practised only by the educated Indian but also by the illiterate and the semi-literate. This is why the Indian scene has been characterised as having 'grass-root' multilingualism. Bilingualism in India is not a recent phenomenon but is attested throughout the different stages of its history.

Another significant feature of Indian bilingualism is that it is 'complementary'. Thus an individual may use a particular language at home, another in the neighborhood and bazaar and still another in formal domains, viz., education, administration and the like. This is not true of an individual only but such definable patterns of selection of different languages are revealed by sets of populations as well. Apart from the home language, regional/stage language (if it is not the same as the home language), and languages of national and international communication, Hindi and English, are constituent members of the linguistic repertoire of a sizable number of Indians.

Hindi in some form or the other has been a means of mass communication in the country for quite some time. In the post-independence period, it has also been accepted as the official language of the Indian union. In stating that Hindi should develop by incorporating the linguistic features and vocables of other Indian languages, the realistic, ongoing process of the development of lingua franca Hindi has been accorded an explicit acceptance and no more. It is thus encumbent that detailed studies be made of the linguistic characteristics of this pan-Indian medium of communication.

The present study is a step in this direction. In studies the significant characteristics of Hindi as used by the speakers of south Indian languages. This study, however, restricts itself to the study of Hindi written by such users. A study of the colloquial form will separately follow in due course.

Data has been collected from different genre of written Hindi, fiction, criticism and the like. Not only has original and creative Hindi works of such writers been studied, Hindi translations from the mothertongues of such writers have also been taken into account. This has added the exploration of the carryover of linguistic features, modes of expression and cultural vocables which have formed part of the translation process has also permitted a comparative study of the quantum and nature of the interference involved in original writings on the one hand and the translations on the other.

The first four studies are on Kannada-Hindi, Telugu-Hindi, Malayalam-Hindi and Tamil-Hindi. The first study is coauthored by Narasimharao and Jaswal, the second and third by Narasimharao and the fourth by Jaswal. These studies reveal the linguistic features resulting from interference of the mothertongue on the one hand and the influence of the carryover of features of regional cultures of the specific language communities on the other.

The fifth and the last study on Kannada-Hindi is by Sanyukta Koshal. The approach, analysis and presentation is different in this study. This study analyzes the data as a synchronic body of materials. It further states the deviations and the degree and nature of such usages exclusively on the linguistic level. The carryover of linguistic features of the mother tongue are thus more clearly set out in this study thus showing the nature and extent of interference.

It is necessary to conduct studies of the Hindi written by users of other major Indian languages. It is further necessary to study the linguistic features of Hindi used as the means of spoken communication by the speakers of all the major Indian languages. This needs to be done for Hindi used by speakers of an Indian language (other than Hindi) while speaking to a person of his own speech community, e.g., Hindi used by a Tamil speaker to another Tamil speaker at the spoken level (and there are contexts in which it is done). Furthermore, studies need to be made of Hindi used by a speaker of a major Indian language while speaking to another Indian language (other than Hindi) speaker, e.g., Hindi used by a Telugu speaker while speaking to an Assamese speaker. Moreover, no less significant will be the study of Hindi used by a non-Hindi speaker while conversing with a Hindi speaker. Thus it will be important to study the characteristics of Hindi used by all the three types of dyads. Only after such studies are made, shall we be able to synthesize the results and determine the nature and form of the pan-Indian Hindi. This will also help in answering the question whether there are regional standards of pan-Indian Hindi, i.e., South Indian Hindi, East Indian Hindi, etc., or at least there are grounds to hold the view that such standards are emerging. Such studies are being made for Indian English and are no less significant for Hindi. Studies of attitudinal type also need to be simultaneously made. This programmatic plan will not only bring forth important data for the study of pan-Indian Hindi and help in planning and promoting its development, it will also have significant theoretical implications for the study of the development of lingua francas and national languages. if this exploratory study marks the beginning of such studies, our efforts would have been amply rewarded.

Our thanks are due to M/s Samskrita Sahitya Sadana, Mysore, for neat and prompt printing of this book, and also to Shri. R. Narasimha for the cover design.

BAL GOVIND MISRA