How Annie Ernaux’s story parallels the struggles of local languages in Bihar

IT MIGHT SEEM cheeky to bring up France when talking about India’s language politics. After all, France went maniacally monolingual after its Revolution. The one-nation-one-language approach the country followed until the late 20th century wiped out hundreds of regional tongues in what can only be called a linguistic massacre. Two centuries ago, at least 80 percent of mainland France spoke regional languages like Basque, Breton or Alsatian. Today that number is barely 2 percent.

When it comes to linguistic diversity, India sits in a whole different galaxy. The People’s Linguistic Survey of India, a community-driven initiative launched in 2010, has so far documented over 780 living languages across the country. During my doctoral research in Purnea, in the state of Bihar, between 2021 and 2025, I personally counted 18 spoken languages – quite cosmopolitan for a city of just about 200,000 people. There was Hindi, Angika, Maithili, but also lesser known Thethi, Surjapuri, Santali, Sadri, Kurukh, and many more. Whether you call them languages (bhasha) or dialects (boli) is beside the point – each has its own voice, and that’s what interests me here.