Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Official scripts of the Republic of India

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus‎. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:01, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Official scripts of the Republic of India[edit]

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I'm not sure how to classify what's wrong with this article. As far as I can tell, most of these scripts are not "official". They are simply the conventional writing systems for the named languages. It's not quite nonsense, but it's pretty close. PepperBeast (talk) 22:09, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Language and India. PepperBeast (talk) 22:09, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I just looked through the sources with "Language Act" or "Languages Act" in their titles (except for the one in Hindi). One of them, Manipur's does provide for the use of Meetei Mayek as well as the Bengali script for writing Manipuri. But the others say nothing about scripts or writing. So I'd say this nomination is correct. It's mostly synthesis, a scan down the list of official languages and then compiling a list of the scripts that they're written in. At the very least there's nothing directly official about most of them, only by association with one or more official languages. The same goes for Template:Officially used writing systems in India and Category:Officially used writing systems of India. The template is perplexing in that it includes a link that purports to lead to an article called Writing systems of India but that's just a redirect that leads to Brahmic scripts, which does not cover all the scripts of India. Largoplazo (talk) 23:09, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How would you (and @Pepperbeast?) feel about reworking this article into an article that actually is titled Writing systems of India? Removing the redirect that is on the page currently, of course. You make a good point that not all writing systems in India are Brahmic- and conversely, not all Brahmin scripts are predominantly used in India.

To truly be about all writing systems in India, the article under discussion would of course have to be edited to include the scripts of languages which aren't official, but it is a half decent starting point.

I don't like that Writing systems of India currently points to Brahmic scripts, but I also wouldn't feel great deleting the redirect without having something to replace it with. Brusquedandelion (talk) 09:28, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep : The official script topic is of great significance because there are numerous languages, which uses multiple writing systems but regarding officialisation, they use either of them or both or more than 2 or 3. For example, Punjabi language uses Gurmukhi officially in India and Shahmukhi officially in Pakistan. Sindhi language uses Arabic script officially in Pakistan and Devanagari script officially in India. Santhali language uses Ol Chiki script officially in India, but it's widespreadly using Devanagari as well. Meitei language uses both Meitei script and Bengali script officially. Kokborok language uses both Bengali script and Latin script (recently enacted) officially. Bodo language officially uses Devanagari script but they're using Latin script more widespreadly and are demanding for its official status in decades long protests, becoming a huge political issue in India. Hindi should be officially written in Devanagari script but its numerals should be written in international 1-9 format (Hindu-Arabic numerals) and not in Devanagari numerals officially. Of course, we need improvement in the article but deletion is not the solution. How can one deny or marginalize these valuable information of multiple official languages and their official writing systems of India? --Haoreima (talk) 17:43, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You say the writing systems are used "officially", but what makes them official as opposed to, as with the use of the Roman alphabet for English, merely customary? Largoplazo (talk) 17:57, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Things that happen in Western world are pretty much different in India. Indian languages uses multiple scripts, unlike European languages. So, regarding official usages, these languages need certain writing systems to be used officially, and Latin script is most of the time discarded in preference to the native Indian scripts. But Latin script is specifically officialised in many cases as well. Moreover, more than one native script are also employed officially multiple times. --Haoreima (talk) 18:10, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You're reiterating that they're official and adding a reason why it's necessary for one to be official (presupposing that one is official), but I'm questioning the claim that they are official and you haven't pointed to evidence supporting that claim. As I wrote here earlier, of all the language acts listed as references, only the one from Manipur says anything about an official writing system. Largoplazo (talk) 18:45, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, scripts that are official are mentioned explicitly in their official language acts and bills, passed by their state governments as well as the Union Government. For example,

here, in the Assam Official Language Act, it is mentioned that Bodo language should be written in Devanagari script.
here, in Maharashtra official language act, it is mentioned that Marathi language should be written in Devanagari. By the way, Modi script was not chosen for Marathi.
here, in Haryana official language act, it is mentioned that Hindi should be written in Devanagari and Punjabi should be written in Gurmukhi script.
here, in Chhattisgarh official language act, it is mentioned that Chhattisgarhi language should be written in Devanagari script.
here, in Punjab official language act, it is mentioned that Punjabi should be written in Gurmukhi script. This is contrasting to Pakistan's official language act legalising Shahmukhi script instead of Gurmukhi script for Punjabi language.
Haoreima (talk) 19:18, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ha, thanks, you are indeed correct. In other words, only (except for Manipur) acts from states and union territories that aren't included as references in the article! Ironic. Even Assam doesn't, unless I missed it, specify the writing system to use for Assamese. Well, so far, that gives us Meetei Mayek, Bengali, Devanagari, and Gumurkhi. Manipur, Assam (partly), Maharashtra, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, and Punjab specify scripts; Assam (partly), Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Goa, Gujarat and Pondicherry appear not to. I wonder about the rest. Largoplazo (talk) 21:32, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Most Hindi speaking states specifically mention that Hindi be written in Devanagari script, in addition to the same being said in national level. Haoreima (talk) 21:58, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Could you provide sources for that claim? Brusquedandelion (talk) 01:14, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Himachal Pradesh official language act mentions that Hindi and Sanskrit be written in Devanagari. However, Sanskrit is unofficially written widely in Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Gupta Grantha, Brahmi scripts. Haoreima (talk) 04:19, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Devanagari is one of the four I already noted. What I'm getting at now is, if this article keeps its current title, how many of the scripts it currently covers are going to need to be removed as off-topic. Largoplazo (talk) 01:21, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Those whose legal acts didn't explicitly mention their writing systems could be removed. But if another reliable third party sources backed their claims, they could be readded. Haoreima (talk) 04:08, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I added the actual official script info over at Languages with official status in India. PepperBeast (talk) 23:17, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:50, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, The Herald (Benison) (talk) 02:26, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.