BIHARI VOICE OVER TALENTS NATIVE SPEAKERS - PAGE 1

Bihari language
Native to: Bihar
Native speakers: 100 million
Writing system: Devanagari
Capital city: Patna
Currency: Indian rupee (INR)
Dialing code: +91
Country code: IN-BR
Population: 103,804,637
Bihari is the western group of Eastern Indic languages, spoken in Bihar and neighboring states in India. Angika, Bajjika, Bhojpuri, Magahi, and Maithili are spoken in Nepal as well. The Angika, Bajjika, Bhojpuri, Magahi and Maithili speaking population form more than 21% of Nepalese population. Despite the large number of speakers of these languages, they have not been constitutionally recognized in India, except Maithili, which gained constitutional status via the 92nd amendment to the Constitution of India in 2003. Even in Bihar, Hindi is the language used for educational and official matters. These languages were legally absorbed under the overarching label Hindi in the 1961 Census. Such state and national politics are creating conditions for language endangerments. Nalanda Open University offers various courses on Bihari languages (Magahi, Bhojpuri, Maithili). After independence Hindi was given the sole official status through the Bihar Official Language Act, 1950. Hindi was displaced as the sole official language of Bihar in 1981, when Urdu was accorded the status of the second official language. In this struggle between Hindi and Urdu, the claims of the three large native languages of the region – Magahi, Bhojpuri and Maithili were ignored.