Talk:Himachal Pradesh

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Elevation 2,319 m (7,608 ft)

merge with Geography of Himachal Pradesh?

The article Geography of Himachal Pradesh looks small enough. Wouldn't it make sense at this stage to merge it here? – Uanfala (talk) 03:42, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

State stats

@Vibhss:: Himachal is considerably smaller than those states. I didn't see all details except for GDP (total and per capita) being mentioned in any of those state articles. Also, I removed just the values not rankings.

• All the "smaller" state articles do not have these statistics mentioned. Uttarakhand, which is also similarly sized and populated has no stats in the article lede. Probably we should remove these things from this article as well.
• All the states that have GDP and per capita mentioned also have precise values along with it. In my opinion rankings are rather vague if not supported by values. And this seems to be the norm in the articles. We should either keep ranking with values for the stats or remove it altogether.
• No other state but Kerala has literacy rate, HDI mentioned. So I guess this line Himachal Pradesh has the 9th-highest Human Development Index (HDI) and 11th-highest literacy rate among the states and union territories of India. could be removed as well.

I've added GDP and per capita rank values and removed HDI and literacy rate in conformity with all other Indian states articles. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 15:25, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: Since GDP and per capita GDP have been mentioned in this article's Economy section as well in the same detail as lead section and you've already removed content about HDI and literacy rate from the lead, I think it would be fair enough to remove GDP and per capita GDP as well from the lead section to avoid repetitiveness. Let the mention of all these stats be restricted to their specific sections in the article. Also, "22nd largest state economy" doesn't appear to be something big enough worth mentioning in the lead as well as economy sections. As you said, most of the similarly sized articles don't mention these stats at all in the lead. Even among bigger states, GDP and per capita income have been mentioned for only a few. So, I'm removing GDP and per capita also from the lead of this article. Actually, I had added the stats on HDI and literacy primarily because Himachal happens to be leading hilly state in these parameters. Vibhss (talk) 18:08, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

December 2019

@Uanfala: Hi, regarding this edit of yours. Since most of the state articles have official/additional official languages mentioned in the infobox, for the sake of parity, I believe we should keep it. As for "Spoken languages", will it be that hard to add those in the infobox using "Hlist" or something like that? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 15:23, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

My removal might have been too bold: I was only objecting to listing Sanskrit and Hindi to the exclusion of the actual native languages. If you would like to list them all, feel free. – Uanfala (talk) 15:32, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

@Uanfala: It would be better IMO to list only the most commonly spoken languages i.e. "Hindi dialects/Pahari languages" like Mandeali, Kangri, Kullu, Bilaspuri using a parm titled something like "Commonly spoken". Or do you want me to list Punjabi, Nepali, Kashmiri, Kinnauri, Tibetan, Lahauli? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 16:25, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Well, that's for you to decide :) You might want to avoid labelling the Pahari languages as "dialects" of "Hindi" (as that wouldn't be true when the usual meanings of those two words are involved, and the infobox doesn't have the space for an explanation of what exactly is meant). And as for which of the other languages to include, it's up to you to decide where the line should be drawn. Languages spoken by larger populations have a stronger claim than ones belonging to smaller communities, and regardless of numbers, indigenous languages (like Kinnauri) have more reason to be included than languages of immigrant groups (like Nepali). – Uanfala (talk) 01:32, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

@Uanfala: Obviously labelling Pahari languages as "dialects of Hindi" would be a counter productive thing to do since Hindi will be mentioned already under Official. I've decided to have a parm called "Native" under which I'm going to mention Mandeali, Kangri, Kullu, Bilaspuri, Kinnauri, Lahauli and Pattani which are native to that region, alongwith the Official and additional official language parms as before. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:20, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Languages

I've removed the pie chart (ping to Nik9hil). Census figures for the Pahari languages here aren't of much use because speakers of one and the same variety will variously identify their language using either the name of that variety, or the broader "Pahari", or sometimes even "Hindi". The census figures are only meaningful for languages that are consistently identified as such by their speakers (like Nepali or Pattani, and for them the figures are already given in the text).

I've expanded the list of languages in the prose. This is largely to account for the number of Pahari language articles recently created (the credits go to Nik9hil for that) – it didn't make much sense to list them before, when they were all redirects. I've followed last year's edition of Ethnologue, but I've omitted the following languages:

• Bauria, Lambadi, Mundari, Pashto, Sansi – not native to the state, spoken by very small communities (if mentioning them, we'd need a better source than Ethnologue);
• Bhadrawahi, Garhwali, Jaunsari, Dogri, Jad, Ladakhi: major languages of neighbouring regions, presumably some of them spoken by established native populations within Himachal. If this circumstance is pointed out, then they may be mentioned;
• Kashmiri and Haryanvi – like above, though these are languages of immigrant communities; better not include them, or otherwise we'd need to list many other languages, like Bhojpuri, which according to the census are spoken by comparable numbers;
• Mugom - subsumed under Tibetan.

I don't see the current version as definitive: for example, I'm not sure if it's good to give the population figures for Kinnauri as I don't know whether or not this includes the other related varieties like Chitkuli Kinnauri. But at least it's a start, and it hopefully doesn't mislead readers. Maybe some day, somebody will create a separate article, there's definitely scope for that. – Uanfala (talk) 13:38, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

I would like to take the stand that pie chart should be present & would explain you (ping to Uanfala) by giving my explanation. Let me start with the primary concern of yours, i.e. Pahari. This term in the Census 2011 data is majorly used by people of Shimla district (who speak Mahasu Pahari), Hamirpur district (who speak a variety of Kangri, Una district (who speak a variety of Kangri) & some from Solan district (who speak a Bagali, etc). The remainder from this is insignificant & are present in rest of the districts of the state. The actual language names of these remainder speakers are also mentioned in the Census like Kahluri, Kullui, etc. If you wanted I could've included the information of who majorly is constituting 'Pahari' in the Census.

People IN HP DON'T identify their language as HINDI; it is rather the diaspora who wrongly does that. I personally have had a hard time convincing people about the diversity of the languages & educate them on it. The pie chart was a long time personal effort which you have simply removed. Let me tell you more about my research on the Census. Following are the state's Pahari languages that are recorded as dialects of Hindi according to Indian Census:

1. Kullui

2. Chambeali

3. Kangri

4. Sirmauri

5. Gaddi

6. Mandeali

7. Baghati Pahari

8. Churahi

9. Pangwali

Following are the state's Pahari languages that are recorded as dialects of Punjabi according to Indian Census:

1. Bhattiyali dialect

2. Kahluri

Pattani, a Sino-Tibetan language of Lahaul is very erroneously classified as dialect of Gujarati because there is a dialect of Gujarati called Pattani. It is a commoon snese that there won't be Guajarati speakers in Pattan Valley Lahaul or even in Kullu, given that non natives of the state cannot buy propoerty. Hence there is no conflation with the Gujarati speakers here.

Saraji, a Western Pahari language of Kullu is very erroneously classified as dialect of Kashmiri because there is a dialect of Kashmiri with the name Siraji. This language is divided into Inner & Outer Saraji & then classified as dialects of Kullui & Mahasui according to ethnologue, glottolog, etc. I can give you literary sources & grammar of Saraji of Kullu, Himachal, in case you think I have made this up. Speakers of this language are not even neighbors with Kashmiri's Saraji.

I can't help it if the nation's Census can be so ignorant to the very own citizens of the country.

I can give you the guarantee that none of these speakers consider there language as Hindi/Punjabi/Gujarati/Kashmiri or its dialect. They only acknowledge some similarities that may be present with Hindi or Punjabi. It is the other way round i.e. the system considers these as dialects. Other Wikipedia pages of Indian states state Bhojpuri, Magahi, etc. (which are much more similar to Hindi than Pahari languages are) separate from Hindi. I fail to understand why there doesn't seems to be any kind of problem over there but when it comes to Himachal, there is a problem!

Continuing with Kinnauri, yes the figure is inclusive of Chitkuli, etc varieties. You can cross check it with the total population of Kinnaur district & total Kinnauri speakers.

From the neighbouring states, I had included Punjabi, Nepali, Dogri & standard Hindi. The first three language's speakers have been very much involved in the history of Himachal. There is always a confusion regarding the percentage of Punjabi & Dogri speakers among the general mass. The pie chart was a good way to visualise it. Standard Hindi made an entry only after the independence. Note that I use the term Standard Hindi, because you will find Gurjari communities too, whose language is classified as dialect of Hindi according to Census, but present natively in the state & again don't consider it as a dialect of Hindi. For this, you can check out the Official languages of Jammu & Kashmir before turning it into a UT. There the Gurjari people were involved in making sure that there language is recognised separately according to the ex state's Constitution of Jammu & Kashmir.

Continuing with Ladakhi, Bhoti & Tibetan. Lahaul & Spiti were part of Ladakh kingdom. It was much later that they were separated. There language & culture is intertwined with each other. It doesn't make much sense to call the non-native. Tibetan is spoken by indigenous communities of border with Tibet as well as among the Tibetan refugee who are significant.

Pashto, Lambadi, Mundari, Sansi, Bauria, Jad, Bhadrawahi, Jaunsari, Kahshmiri, Haryanvi & Mugom wasn't explicitly stated in that pie chart. I hope you will restore it back to normal ASAP.

Nik9hil (talk) 08:14, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

My mention of Pashto, Lambadi etc. was in the context of my expansion of the text (rather than the removal of the pie chart) – I was just enumerating languages I haven't included even though they were listed by Ethnologue as spoken in the state. likewise for Ladakhi, but if there are significant indigenous populations, feel free to add a mention of it in the list (though according to the census it's spoken by only 0.017% of the state's population).
As for the pie chart, the issue is that it's not an accurate representation of the languages spoken in the state. It can't be one as long as it's based on the census figures. It lists the most widely spoken language as "Pahari", but that stands for a number of languages, and so is a superordinate category to the other languages listed further down, like Gaddi or Chambeali. That's the problem of using the census figures: they mix up individual languages with language groups. But even if we somehow ignored the Pahari, most of the the remaining figures won't be accurate either: Sirmauri for example isn't spoken by just 1.56% of the population, this figure is for those Sirmauri speakers who during the census have identified their language as such, but there are Sirmauri speakers who have instead opted for "Pahari" and so aren't included in this figure. I don't think there's a way we can extricate the speaker numbers of individual languages from those of Pahari: the percentages for Pahari are significant throughout the state, and in all but three districts they're in the two-digit range. What we have in the chart is the big phantom of "Pahari", and underestimates across the board for the individual Pahari varieties. What is done in other articles isn't always a good guide: Uttar Pradesh rightly omits giving census figures for the languages; Uttarkhand or Bihar do give them, though they probably shouldn't. – Uanfala (talk) 12:13, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

(ping Uanfala) From the pie chart, it was clearly visible that a majority of people identify their language with their native names. For those in Pahari, I have already mentioned who majorly constitute under it, so kindly go through it again. Instead of worrying about a remainder of speakers from my explanation of Pahari, it is much better that we explain what the term Pahari is in the article & keep the pie chart. If you want, I will prove it with the numbers. I wonder what can be a reliable source apart from Indian Census. Nik9hil (talk) 18:28, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Uanfala I am extremely disappointed from this lax attitude; you still haven't replied. Since you are the superior on this platform, I have no power to do anything. I hereby announce I won't be engaging with any kind of discussion with you, for you are simply a bigot. In the dominance of Hindi, these languages will die & you all will be mere spectators. Nik9hil (talk) 07:18, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi Nik9hil, no one on this platform is a 'superior', edit counts are merely a function of time spent editing and not a way to determine seniority. You are also not entitled to Uanfala's attention as Wikipedia is primarily a volunteer service and people are busy in real life. I suggest you wait patiently for Uanfala to return and reply at their convenience. Prolix 💬 08:38, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Prolix Actually the person has been replying to other pages recently, that's why I claimed them to be ignoring. As for the seniority, I didn't know about it. If he doesn't replies with apt explanation, I will be reverting the changes. Thanks for the information. Nik9hil (talk) 10:21, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I haven't replied because I've already said what I meant to say, and it didn't seem this was taken on board. I don't see the point of restating the same points again and again. Nik9hil, I really don't understand what kind of bigotry you seem to associate me with. I'm arguing that we can't use the census figures because they miss the actual numbers of speakers by a wide margin. We simply don't have reliable data. The census severely under-reports the numbers for individual Pahari languages; in fact, if we did use those figures then we'd be making Himachal appear a lot less diverse than it actually is. – Uanfala (talk) 11:18, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

@Nik9hil: Maintain WP:CIVILITY. Calling someone "bigot" in this forum is not a good thing and might go against you. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 11:22, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: You're nnot in a position to lecture anyone on civility "Mr. Indo-Scythian". We can all still see your bigoted racist views here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/979884151 Better stay out of this.