What is the common uneducated langauge in India?

[Meh_Gerbil]

My wife and I are developing some odd notions about helping the 'Untouchables' in India.
It's only a fancy at this point - but it got me to wondering what langauge these people speak.
If we start helping out I'd like to learn to read and write the common language.

[Minnesota]

My wife and I are developing some odd notions about helping the 'Untouchables' in India.
It's only a fancy at this point - but it got me to wondering what langauge these people speak.
If we start helping out I'd like to learn to read and write the common language.

Unfortunately, there is none.

india-map-languages.jpg

For A BRIEF BACKGROUND OF THE LANGUAGE ISSUE IN INDIA Click HERE

[rolmer]

Unfortunately, there is none.

Well, this is partially true. India has not one but twelve (i think) official languages. Each state basically has its own language. In northern India, Hindi serves as somewhat of a lingua franca. In southern India, English might be a better bet.

But what did you mean by uneducated language gerbil? I suppose that marginalised people would most likely not receive the benefit of a formal education and thus would not speak English or Hindi. So you can A) pick a specific part of India and learn the local language B) do A, except choose an area where Hindi is spoken...then you have the local language and a lingua franca. or C) do A but choose a part of India where English is (more) widely spoken, then you already have a lingua franca.

I am currently staying in Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India, and learning the Tamil language. It's fairly common for people here to speak more than one language. If a Gujarati who grew up in Maharashtra married a Gujarati who had grown up in Gujarat and they settled in Tamil Nadu and had two children, you might end up with a family, that, among the four of them could speak Gujarati, Hindi, Tamil, English, and Marathi. These are good people to know :)

A good first step might be to find an organisation to work with. There are plenty of churches run by nationals already ministering to slum dwellers, tribal villages, people affected by leprosy, etc. They could probably teach you more than a missionary could.

But it might be a bit early for that if it's just a wild hare. Sorry if I've bored you to tears or spouted my own ignorance. It's possible some of my facts are slightly skewed by my very limited experience. I've only been here a month and a half...

P.S. Tamil Nadu is nice.

[papas]

I want to be a missionary in India too..someday. There are many dialects, but from what I know Hindi and Punjabi and maybe Tamil to a certain extent are the most common languages there. Maybe someone who knows more will answer this as well as give pointers as to what is needed to do. (I was gonna start a thread, but found this one :) )

[gharfish]

The one most used across India, AFAIK, is Hindi. So too in Pakistan. Each state in India does have it's own language. My wife is from Gujarat state (in the NW) so she speaks Gujarati and Hindi. I understand that there was a push by some for a while in the South to replace Hindi with Urdu as the national language.