Do You Speak 'Indisch'?

‘Do you speak Indisch?’ This is the question I often get plagued with when my acquaintances learn of my ethnic origin. Most of my German pals subscribe to the theory that almost every country has one major language comprehended by the whole populace like German for Germany, French for France and so on. Hence, they came up with the moniker ‘Indisch’ for India – a language in which all Indians should righteously be fluent in. Over time, I have tried to explain that there are about 22 regional languages recognised by the Constitution and one national language which not all are conversant in. This proved to utterly baffling for them. To people who fuss that the ‘Schwabisch’ dialect of German is very different from the unadulterated German, I have news - I recently got my facts right that there are infact 1652 mother-tongues in India. So next time someone offers to teach me Italian or Spanish in exchange for ‘Indisch’, I am trading 0.1 percent of the country of my origin’s lingual capabilities to what their whole nation offers. Well, I got the better deal, don’t you think so?