Multilingualism in urban Vellore

The present paper describes and analyses multilingualism and language use in urban Vellore. In the situation of urban Vellore, together with multilingual immigrants, multilingualism is stimulated with the business motive, to earn livelihood and for social integration. Interviews are conducted with 31 respondents who are skilled in employing at least three distinct languages in their regular communication. The study highlights the presence of different languages in Vellore’s verbal repertoire. There is also a discussion of the participants’ perspective on multilingualism which is mostly positive. The phenomenon of multilingualism in Vellore sometimes also stems as a survival strategy of people in their new surroundings.