Languages spoken in

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

belong to several

language families A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hi ...

, the major ones being the

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...

spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...

spoken by 19.64% of Indians, both families together are sometimes known as Indic languages. Languages spoken by the remaining 2.31% of the population belong to the

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are th ...

, Sino–Tibetan, Tai–Kadai and a few other minor language families and isolates. As per the

People's Linguistic Survey of India The People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) is a linguistic survey launched in 2010 in order to update existing knowledge about the languages spoken in the modern republic of India. The survey is conducted by 3500 volunteers, including 2000 l ...

, India has the second highest number of languages (780), after

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

(840). Ethnologue lists a lower number of 456. Article 343 of the Constitution of India stated that the

official language An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...

of the Union is

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...

script, with official use of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

to continue for 15 years from 1947. Later, a constitutional amendment, The Official Languages Act, 1963, allowed for the continuation of English alongside Hindi in the

Indian government The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

indefinitely until legislation decides to change it. The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union are "the international form of

Indian numerals Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South As ...

", which are referred to as

Arabic numerals Arabic numerals are the ten numerical digits: , , , , , , , , and . They are the most commonly used symbols to write decimal numbers. They are also used for writing numbers in other systems such as octal, and for writing identifiers such as ...

in most English-speaking countries. Despite the misconceptions, Hindi is not the

national language A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection— de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the ...

of India; the Constitution of India does not give any language the status of national language. The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution lists 22 languages, which have been referred to as ''scheduled'' languages and given recognition, status and official encouragement. In addition, the Government of India has awarded the distinction of ''

classical language A classical language is any language with an independent literary tradition and a large and ancient body of written literature. Classical languages are typically dead languages, or show a high degree of diglossia, as the spoken varieties of the ...

'' to

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 2 ...

, Odia,

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the la ...

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

and Telugu. Classical language status is given to languages which have a rich heritage and independent nature. According to the Census of India of 2001, India has 122 major languages and 1599 other languages. However, figures from other sources vary, primarily due to differences in definition of the terms "language" and "dialect". The 2001 Census recorded 30 languages which were spoken by more than a million native speakers and 122 which were spoken by more than 10,000 people. Two

contact languages Contact may refer to: Interaction Physical interaction * Contact (geology), a common geological feature * Contact lens or contact, a lens placed on the eye * Contact sport, a sport in which players make contact with other players or objects * C ...

have played an important role in the

history of India According to consensus in modern genetics, anatomically modern humans first arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago. Quote: "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by m ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

and

.Bhatia, Tej K and William C. Ritchie. (2006) Bilingualism in South Asia. In: Handbook of Bilingualism, pp. 780-807. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing

was the court language during the

Mughal period The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

in India. It reigned as an

administrative language An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...

for several centuries until the era of British colonisation. English continues to be an important language in India. It is used in higher education and in some areas of the Indian government.

, which has the largest number of first-language speakers in

today, serves as the ''

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

'' across much of

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...

and

Central India Central India is a loosely defined geographical region of India. There is no clear official definition and various ones may be used. One common definition consists of the states of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, which are included in almos ...

. However, there have been concerns raised with Hindi being imposed in

South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union t ...

, most notably in the states of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language� ...

and

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karn ...

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the second-most populous state in India and the second-most populous country sub ...

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur to ...

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

and other non-Hindi regions have also started to voice concerns about Hindi. Bengali is the second most spoken and understood language in the country with a significant amount of speakers in eastern and northeastern regions.

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language Marathi (; ''Marāṭhī'', ) is an Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by Marathi people in the Indian state of Mahara ...

is the third most spoken and understood language in the country with a significant amount of speakers in South-Western regions.

History

The Southern Indian languages are from the Dravidian family. The Dravidian languages are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent.

Proto-Dravidian language Proto-Dravidian is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Dravidian languages. It is thought to have differentiated into Proto-North Dravidian, Proto-Central Dravidian, and Proto-South Dravidian, although the date of divers ...

s were spoken in India in the 4th millennium BCE and started disintegrating into various branches around 3rd millennium BCE. The Dravidian languages are classified in four groups: North, Central (Kolami–Parji), South-Central (Telugu–Kui), and South Dravidian (Tamil-Kannada). The Northern Indian languages from the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family evolved from Old Indo-Aryan by way of the

Middle Indo-Aryan The Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Middle Indic languages, sometimes conflated with the Prakrits, which are a stage of Middle Indic) are a historical group of languages of the Indo-Aryan family. They are the descendants of Old Indo-Aryan (OIA; ...

Prakrit The Prakrits (; sa, prākṛta; psu, 𑀧𑀸𑀉𑀤, ; pka, ) are a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The term Prakrit is usua ...

languages and

Apabhraṃśa Apabhraṃśa ( sa, अपभ्रंश, , Prakrit: , ta, அவப்பிரஞ்சனம், , ) is a term used by '' vaiyākaraṇāḥ'' (native grammarians) since Patañjali to refer to languages spoken in North India before the r ...

of the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

. The Indo-Aryan languages developed and emerged in three stages — Old Indo-Aryan (1500 BCE to 600 BCE), Middle Indo-Aryan stage (600 BCE and 1000 CE), and New Indo-Aryan (between 1000 CE and 1300 CE). The modern north Indian Indo-Aryan languages all evolved into distinct, recognisable languages in the New Indo-Aryan Age. In the

Northeast India , native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , ...

, among the Sino-Tibetan languages,

Meitei language Meitei (), also known as Manipuri (, ), is a Tibeto-Burman language of north-eastern India. It is spoken by around 1.8 million people, predominantly in the state of Manipur, but also by smaller communities in the rest of the country and in p ...

(officially known as

Manipuri language Meitei (), also known as Manipuri (, ), is a Tibeto-Burman language of north-eastern India. It is spoken by around 1.8 million people, predominantly in the state of Manipur, but also by smaller communities in the rest of the country and in p ...

) was the court language of the

Manipur Kingdom The Manipur Kingdom was an ancient independent kingdom at the India–Burma frontier that was in subsidiary alliance with British India from 1824, and became a princely state in 1891. It bordered Assam Province in the west and Brit ...

( mni, Meeteileipak). It was honoured before and during the darbar sessions before Manipur was merged into the Dominion of the Indian Republic. Its history of existence spans from 1500 to 2000 years according to most eminent scholars including

Padma Vibhushan The Padma Vibhushan ("Lotus Decoration") is the second-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "exceptional and distinguished service". All persons without ...

awardee

Suniti Kumar Chatterji Bhashacharya Acharya Suniti Kumar Chatterjee (26 November 1890 – 29 May 1977) was an Indian linguist, educationist and litterateur. He was a recipient of the second-highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Vibhushan. Life Childhood Chatterji ...

. Even according to the "Manipur State Constitution Act, 1947" of the once independent Manipur, Manipuri and English were made the court languages of the kingdom (before merging into Indian Republic).

, or ''Farsi'', was brought into India by the

Ghaznavids The Ghaznavid dynasty ( fa, غزنویان ''Ġaznaviyān'') was a culturally Persianate, Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turkic ''mamluk'' origin, ruling, at its greatest extent, large parts of Persia, Khorasan, much of Transoxiana and the northwes ...

and other Turko-Afghan dynasties as the court language. Culturally Persianized, they, in combination with the later

Mughal dynasty The Mughal dynasty ( fa, ; ''Dudmân-e Mughal'') comprised the members of the imperial House of Babur ( fa, ; ''Khāndān-e-Āl-e-Bābur''), also known as the Gurkanis ( fa, ; ''Gūrkāniyān''), who ruled the Mughal Empire from to 1857. Th ...

(of

Turco-Mongol The Turco-Mongol or Turko-Mongol tradition was an ethnocultural synthesis that arose in Asia during the 14th century, among the ruling elites of the Golden Horde and the Chagatai Khanate. The ruling Mongol elites of these Khanates eventually ...

origin), influenced the art, history, and literature of the region for more than 500 years, resulting in the Persianisation of many Indian tongues, mainly lexically. In 1837, the British replaced Persian with English and Hindustani in Perso-Arabic script for administrative purposes and the Hindi movement of the 19th Century replaced Persianised vocabulary with Sanskrit derivations and replaced or supplemented the use of Perso-Arabic script for administrative purposes with Devanagari. Each of the northern Indian languages had different influences. For example, Hindustani was strongly influenced by

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

and

, leading to the emergence of

Modern Standard Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

and

Modern Standard Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

registers of the Hindustani language. Bangla on the other hand has retained its Sanskritic roots while heavily expanding its vocabulary with words from Persian, English, French and other foreign languages.

Inventories

The first official survey of language diversity in the Indian subcontinent was carried out by

Sir George Abraham Grierson Sir George Abraham Grierson (7 January 1851 – 9 March 1941) was an Irish administrator and linguist in British India. He worked in the Indian Civil Service but an interest in philology and linguistics led him to pursue studies in the languag ...

from 1898 to 1928. Titled the

Linguistic Survey of India The Linguistic Survey of India (LSI) is a comprehensive survey of the languages of British India, describing 364 languages and dialects. The Survey was first proposed by George Abraham Grierson, a member of the Indian Civil Service and a linguist w ...

, it reported a total of 179 languages and 544 dialects. However, the results were skewed due to ambiguities in distinguishing between "dialect" and "language", use of untrained personnel and under-reporting of data from South India, as the former provinces of Burma and Madras, as well as the princely states of Cochin, Hyderabad, Mysore and Travancore were not included in the survey. Different sources give widely differing figures, primarily based on how the terms "language" and "dialect" are defined and grouped. '' Ethnologue'', produced by the Christian evangelist organisation SIL International, lists 461 tongues for India (out of 6,912 worldwide), 447 of which are living, while 14 are extinct. The 447 living languages are further subclassified in ''Ethnologue'' as follows:Ethnologue : Languages of the World (Seventeenth edition) : Statistical Summaries
. Retrieved 17 December 2014. * Institutional – 63 * Developing – 130 * Vigorous – 187 * In trouble – 54 * Dying – 13 The People's Linguistic Survey of India, a privately owned research institution in India, has recorded over 66 different scripts and more than 780 languages in India during its nationwide survey, which the organisation claims to be the biggest linguistic survey in India. The

People of India Indians or Indian people are the citizens and nationals of India. In 2022, the population of India stood at over 1.4 billion people, making it the world's second-most populous country, containing 17.7 percent of the global population. In a ...

(POI) project of

Anthropological Survey of India Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI) is the apex Indian government organisation involved in anthropological studies and field data research for human and cultural aspects, working primarily in the fields of physical anthropology and cultural ...

reported 325 languages which are used for in-group communication by 5,633 Indian communities.

Census of India figures

The

Census of India The decennial Census of India has been conducted 16 times, as of 2021. While it has been undertaken every 10 years, beginning in 1872 under British Viceroy Lord Mayo, the first complete census was taken in 1881. Post 1949, it has been conducted by ...

records and publishes data with respect to the number of speakers for languages and dialects, but uses its own unique terminology, distinguishing between ''language'' and ''mother tongue''. The mother tongues are grouped within each language. Many of the mother tongues so defined could be considered a language rather than a dialect by linguistic standards. This is especially so for many mother tongues with tens of millions of speakers that are officially grouped under the language Hindi. ; 1951 Census Separate figures for Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi were not issued, due to the fact the returns were intentionally recorded incorrectly in states such as

East Punjab East Punjab (known simply as Punjab from 1950) was a province and later a state of India from 1947 until 1966, consisting of the parts of the Punjab Province of British India that went to India following the partition of the province betwe ...

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peak ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

, PEPSU, and Bilaspur. ; 1961 Census The 1961 census recognised 1,652 mother tongues spoken by 438,936,918 people, counting all declarations made by any individual at the time when the census was conducted. However, the declaring individuals often mixed names of languages with those of dialects, subdialects and dialect clusters or even castes, professions, religions, localities, regions, countries and nationalities. The list therefore includes languages with barely a few individual speakers as well as 530 unclassified mother tongues and more than 100 idioms that are non-native to India, including linguistically unspecific

demonym A demonym (; ) or gentilic () is a word that identifies a group of people (inhabitants, residents, natives) in relation to a particular place. Demonyms are usually derived from the name of the place (hamlet, village, town, city, region, province, ...

s such as "African", "Canadian" or "Belgian". ; 1991 Census The 1991 census recognises 1,576 classified mother tongues. According to the 1991 census, 22 languages had more than a million native speakers, 50 had more than 100,000 and 114 had more than 10,000 native speakers. The remaining accounted for a total of 566,000 native speakers (out of a total of 838 million Indians in 1991). ; 2001 Census As per the census of 2001, there are 1635 rationalised mother tongues, 234 identifiable mother tongues and 22 major languages. Of these, 29 languages have more than a million native speakers, 60 have more than 100,000 and 122 have more than 10,000 native speakers. There are a few languages like Kodava that do not have a script but have a group of native speakers in Coorg (Kodagu). ; 2011 Census According to the most recent census of 2011, after thorough linguistic scrutiny, edit, and rationalization on 19,569 raw linguistic affiliations, the census recognizes 1369 rationalized mother tongues and 1474 names which were treated as ‘unclassified’ and relegated to ‘other’ mother tongue category. Among, the 1369 rationalized mother tongues which are spoken by 10,000 or more speakers, are further grouped into appropriate set that resulted into total 121 languages. In these 121 languages, 22 are already part of the

Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India The Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India lists the official languages of the Republic of India. At the time when the Constitution was enacted, inclusion in this list meant that the language was entitled to representation on the Officia ...

and the other 99 are termed as "Total of other languages" which is one short as of the other languages recognized in 2001 census.

Multilingualism

2011 Census India

''Ethnologue'' (2019, 22nd edition) worldwide

The following table is a list of languages from the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Ind ...

by total number of speakers as it appears in the 2019 edition of '' Ethnologue'', a language reference published by SIL International, which is based in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

. For items below #26, see individual ''Ethnologue'' entry for each language.

Language families

Ethnolinguistically, the languages of South Asia, echoing the complex history and geography of the region, form a complex patchwork of

, language phyla and isolates. Languages spoken in

belong to several

, the major ones being the

Indo-Aryan languages The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, P ...

spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the

spoken by 19.64% of Indians. The languages of India belong to several language families, the most important of which are:

Indo-Aryan language family

The largest of the language families represented in India, in terms of speakers, is the Indo-Aryan language family, a branch of the Indo-Iranian family, itself the easternmost, extant subfamily of the

Indo-European language family The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...

. This language family predominates, accounting for some 1035 million speakers, or over 76.5 of the population, as per a 2018 estimate. The most widely spoken languages of this group are

,Although linguistically Hindi and Urdu is a same language called Hindustani, the government classifies them as separate languages instead of different standard registers of same language. Bengali,

Bhojpuri Bhojpuri (;Bhojpuri entry, Oxford Dictionaries
, Oxford U ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Gujarati, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Assamese (Asamiya), Maithili and Odia. Aside from the Indo-Aryan languages, other Indo-European languages are also spoken in India, the most prominent of which is English, as a ''

''.

Dravidian language family

The second largest language family is the Dravidian language family, accounting for some 277 million speakers, or approximately 20.5% as per 2018 estimate. The Dravidian languages are spoken mainly in

southern India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territo ...

and parts of eastern and

central India Central India is a loosely defined geographical region of India. There is no clear official definition and various ones may be used. One common definition consists of the states of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, which are included in almos ...

as well as in parts of northeastern

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

, Pakistan,

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

and

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

. The Dravidian languages with the most speakers are Telugu,

and

. Besides the mainstream population, Dravidian languages are also spoken by small

scheduled tribe The Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are officially designated groups of people and among the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups in India. The terms are recognized in the Constitution of India and the groups are designa ...

communities, such as the Oraon and Gond tribes. Only two Dravidian languages are exclusively spoken outside India, Brahui in

Balochistan, Pakistan Balochistan (; bal, بلۏچستان; ) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southwestern region of the country, Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan by land area but is the least populated one. It shares land ...

and

Dhangar Dhangar is a herding caste of people found in the Indian states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. They are referred as Gavli in southern Maharashtra, Goa and northern Karnataka, Golla in Andhra Pradesh and Ka ...

, a dialect of Kurukh, in

Austroasiatic language family

Families with smaller numbers of speakers are

and numerous small Sino-Tibetan languages, with some 10 and 6 million speakers, respectively, together 3% of the population. The Austroasiatic language family (''austro'' meaning South) is the autochthonous language in Southeast Asia, arrived by migration. Austroasiatic languages of mainland India are the Khasi and

Munda languages The Munda languages are a group of closely related languages spoken by about nine million people in India and Bangladesh. Historically, they have been called the Kolarian languages. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic language famil ...

, including Bhumij and Santali. The languages of the Nicobar islands also form part of this language family. With the exceptions of Khasi and Santali, all Austroasiatic languages on Indian territory are endangered.

Tibeto-Burman language family

The Tibeto-Burman language family are well represented in India. However, their interrelationships are not discernible, and the family has been described as "a patch of leaves on the forest floor" rather than with the conventional metaphor of a "family tree".

awardee Indian Bengali scholar

Suniti Kumar Chatterjee Bhashacharya Acharya Suniti Kumar Chatterjee (26 November 1890 – 29 May 1977) was an Indian linguist, educationist and litterateur. He was a recipient of the second-highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Vibhushan. Life Childhood Chatterji ...

said, "Among the various Tibeto-Burman languages, the most important and in literature certainly of much greater importance than Newari, is the Meitei or

". In India, Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken across the Himalayas in the regions of

Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares i ...

(hills and autonomous councils),

Ladakh Ladakh () is a region administered by India as a union territory which constitutes a part of the larger Kashmir region and has been the subject of dispute between India, Pakistan, and China since 1947. (subscription required) Quote: "Jammu and ...

Manipur Manipur () ( mni, Kangleipak) is a state in Northeast India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. It is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. It also borders two regions of M ...

Meghalaya Meghalaya (, or , meaning "abode of clouds"; from Sanskrit , "cloud" + , "abode") is a state in northeastern India. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the state of Assam: (a) the United Khasi Hills and J ...

Mizoram Mizoram () is a state in Northeast India, with Aizawl as its seat of government and capital city. The name of the state is derived from " Mizo", the self-described name of the native inhabitants, and "Ram", which in the Mizo language means "lan ...

Nagaland Nagaland () is a landlocked state in the northeastern region of India. It is bordered by the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh to the north, Assam to the west, Manipur to the south and the Sagaing Region of Myanmar to the east. Its capital cit ...

Sikkim Sikkim (; ) is a state in Northeastern India. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the north and northeast, Bhutan in the east, Province No. 1 of Nepal in the west and West Bengal in the south. Sikkim is also close to the Silig ...

Tripura Tripura (, Bengali: ) is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a population of 36.71 lakh ( 3.67 million). It is bordered by Assam and Mizoram to the east ...

and

. Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in India include two constitutionally recognised official languages, Meitei (officially known as Manipuri) and Bodo as well as the non-scheduled languages like

Karbi Karbi may refer to: Places * Karbi, Armenia * Karbi Anglong Plateau, an extension of the Indian Plate in Assam, India * Karbi Anglong district, a district of Assam, north-eastern India Other uses * Karbi people, an ethnic group of North-ea ...

, Lepcha, and many varieties of several related

Tibetic The Tibetic languages form a well-defined group of languages descended from Old Tibetan (7th to 9th centuries).Tournadre, Nicolas. 2014. "The Tibetic languages and their classification." In ''Trans-Himalayan linguistics, historical and descriptiv ...

, West Himalayish, Tani, Brahmaputran, Angami–Pochuri, Tangkhul, Zeme,

Kukish The Kuki-Chin languages (also called Kuki-Chin-Mizo, Kukish or South-Central Tibeto-Burman languages) are a branch of 50 or so Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in northeastern India, western Myanmar and southeastern Bangladesh. Most speakers of the ...

sub linguistic branches, amongst many others.

Tai-Kadai language family

The

Ahom language The Ahom language or Tai-Ahom language is a dead language, that was spoken by the Ahom people, that is undergoing a revival. Ahom is an important language in Tai studies. It was relatively free of both Mon-Khmer and Indo-Aryan influences and ha ...

, a

Southwestern Tai language The Southwestern Tai, Southwestern Thai or Thai languages are a branch of the Tai languages of Southeast Asia. Its dialects include Siamese (Central Thai), Lanna, Lao, Shan and others. Classification The internal classification of the Southwe ...

, had been once the dominant language of the Ahom Kingdom in modern-day

, but was later replaced by the

Assamese language Assamese (), also Asamiya ( ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken mainly in the north-east Indian state of Assam, where it is an official language, and it serves as a ''lingua franca'' of the wider region. The easternmost Indo-Iranian language ...

(known as Kamrupi in ancient era which is the pre-form of the Kamrupi dialect of today). Nowadays, small Tai communities and their languages remain in

and

together with Sino-Tibetans, e.g. Tai Phake, Tai Aiton and Tai Khamti, which are similar to the

Shan language The Shan language (written Shan: , , spoken Shan: , or , ; my, ရှမ်းဘာသာ, ; th, ภาษาไทใหญ่, ) is the native language of the Shan people and is mostly spoken in Shan State, Myanmar. It is also spoken in p ...

of Shan State,

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

; the Dai language of

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

; the

Lao language Lao, sometimes referred to as Laotian (, 'Lao' or , 'Lao language'), is a Kra–Dai language of the Lao people. It is spoken in Laos, where it is the official language for around 7 million people, as well as in northeast Thailand, where i ...

Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...

; the Thai language of

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

; and the

Zhuang language The Zhuang languages (; autonym: , pre-1982: , Sawndip: 話僮, from ''vah'', 'language' and ''Cuengh'', 'Zhuang'; ) are any of more than a dozen Tai languages spoken by the Zhuang people of Southern China in the province of Guangxi and adjace ...

Guangxi Guangxi (; ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam ...

Andamanese language families

The languages of the

Andaman Islands The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between the ...

form another group: * the

Great Andamanese languages The Great Andamanese languages are a nearly extinct language family once spoken by the Great Andamanese peoples of the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean. History By the late 18th century, when the British first established a colonial presen ...

, comprising a number of extinct, and one highly endangered language

Aka-Jeru The Jeru language, ''Aka-Jeru'' (also known as ''Yerawa'', not to be confused with Järawa), is a nearly extinct Great Andamanese language, of the Northern group. Jeru was spoken in the interior and south coast of North Andaman and on Sound Is ...

. * the Ongan family of the southern

, comprising two extant languages, Önge and Jarawa, and one extinct language,

Jangil The Jangil (also Rutland Jarawa) were one of the Andamanese indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, located in the Bay of Bengal. They were distributed through the interior of Rutland Island, and were given the name Rutland Jarawa because ...

. In addition,

Sentinelese The Sentinelese, also known as the Sentineli and the North Sentinel Islanders, are an indigenous people who inhabit North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal in the northeastern Indian Ocean. Designated a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Grou ...

is thought likely to be related to the above languages.

Language isolates

The only language found in the Indian mainland that is considered a

language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The nu ...

is Nihali. The status of Nihali is ambiguous, having been considered as a distinct Austroasiatic language, as a dialect of Korku and also as being a "thieves' argot" rather than a legitimate language. The other language isolates found in the rest of South Asia include

Burushaski Burushaski (; ) is a language isolate spoken by Burusho people, who reside almost entirely in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, with a few hundred speakers in northern Jammu and Kashmir, India. In Pakistan, Burushaski is spoken by people in ...

, a language spoken in Gilgit–Baltistan (administered by Pakistan), Kusunda (in western Nepal), and

Vedda The Vedda ( si, වැද්දා , ta, வேடர் (''Vēḍar'')), or Wanniyalaeto, are a minority indigenous group of people in Sri Lanka who, among other sub-communities such as Coast Veddas, Anuradhapura Veddas and Bintenne Vedd ...

(in Sri Lanka). The validity of the Great Andamanese language group as a language family has been questioned and it has been considered a language isolate by some authorities.Greenberg, Joseph (1971). "The Indo-Pacific hypothesis." ''Current trends in linguistics vol. 8'', ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 807.71. The Hague: Mouton.Abbi, Anvita (2006). ''Endangered Languages of the Andaman Islands.'' Germany: Lincom GmbH. In addition, a

Bantu language The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. Th ...

Sidi ''Sidi'' or ''Sayidi'', also Sayyidi and Sayeedi, ( ar, سيدي, Sayyīdī, Sīdī (dialectal) " milord") is an Arabic masculine title of respect. ''Sidi'' is used often to mean "saint" or "my master" in Maghrebi Arabic and Egyptian Arabic. ...

, was spoken until the mid-20th century in Gujarat by the

Siddi The Siddi (), also known as the Sheedi, Sidi, or Siddhi, or Habshi are an ethnic group inhabiting India and Pakistan. They are primarily descended from the Bantu peoples of the Zanj coast in Southeast Africa and Ethiopia, most whom arrived t ...

Official languages

Federal level

Prior to Independence, in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

, English was the sole language used for administrative purposes as well as for higher education purposes. In 1946, the issue of national language was a bitterly contested subject in the proceedings of the

Constituent Assembly of India The Constituent Assembly of India was elected to frame the Constitution of India. It was elected by the 'Provincial Assembly'. Following India's independence from the British rule in 1947, its members served as the nation's first Parliament as ...

, specifically what should be the language in which the Constitution of India is written and the language spoken during the proceedings of Parliament and thus deserving of the epithet "national". Members belonging to the northern parts of India insisted that the Constitution be drafted in Hindi with the unofficial translation in English. This was not agreed to by the drafting committee on the grounds that English was much better to craft the nuanced prose on constitutional subjects. The efforts to make Hindi the pre-eminent language were bitterly resisted by the members from those parts of India where Hindi was not spoken natively. Eventually, a compromise was reached not to include any mention of a national language. Instead,

script was declared to be the

of the union, but for "fifteen years from the commencement of the Constitution, the English Language shall continue to be used for all the official purposes of the Union for which it was being used immediately before such commencement." Article 343 (1) of the Constitution of India states "The Official Language of the Union government shall be Hindi in Devanagari script." Unless Parliament decided otherwise, the use of

for official purposes was to cease 15 years after the constitution came into effect, i.e. on 26 January 1965. As the date for changeover approached, however, there was much alarm in the non Hindi-speaking areas of India, especially in

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South C ...

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth- ...

Puducherry Puducherry or Pondicherry may refer to: * Puducherry (union territory), a union territory of India ** Pondicherry, capital of the union territory of Puducherry ** Puducherry district, a district of the union territory of Puducherry ** Puducherry t ...

and

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. Accordingly,

Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 2 ...

ensured the enactment of the Official Languages Act, 1963, which provided that English "may" still be used with Hindi for official purposes, even after 1965. The wording of the text proved unfortunate in that while Nehru understood that "may" meant shall, politicians championing the cause of Hindi thought it implied exactly the opposite. In the event, as 1965 approached, India's new Prime Minister

Lal Bahadur Shastri Lal Bahadur Shastri (; 2 October 1904 – 11 January 1966) was an Indian politician and statesman who served as the 2nd Prime Minister of India from 1964 to 1966 and 6th Home Minister of India from 1961 to 1963. He promoted the White Re ...

prepared to make Hindi paramount with effect from 26 January 1965. This led to widespread agitation, riots, self-immolations, and suicides in Tamil Nadu. The split of Congress politicians from the South from their party stance, the resignation of two Union ministers from the South, and the increasing threat to the country's unity forced Shastri to concede. As a result, the proposal was dropped, and the Act itself was amended in 1967 to provide that the use of English would not be ended until a

resolution Resolution(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Resolution (debate), the statement which is debated in policy debate * Resolution (law), a written motion adopted by a deliberative body * New Year's resolution, a commitment that an individual m ...

to that effect was passed by the legislature of every state that had not adopted Hindi as its official language, and by each house of the Indian Parliament. The Constitution of India does not give any language the status of

Hindi

In the 2001 census, 422 million (422,048,642) people in India reported Hindi to be their native language. This figure not only included Hindi speakers of Hindustani, but also people who identify as native speakers of related languages who consider their speech to be a dialect of Hindi, the

Hindi belt The Hindi Belt, also known as the Hindi Heartland, is a linguistic region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern and western India where various Central Indo-Aryan languages subsumed under the term ' Hindi' (for example, by th ...

. Hindi (or Hindustani) is the native language of most people living in

Western Uttar Pradesh Western Uttar Pradesh is a region in India that comprises the western districts of Uttar Pradesh state, including the areas of Rohilkhand and those where Khariboli, Braj and Kannauji are spoken. The region has some demographic, economic and cul ...

Uttarakhand Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...

Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh (, ) is a landlocked state in Central India. It is the ninth largest state by area, and with a population of roughly 30 million, the seventeenth most populous. It borders seven states – Uttar Pradesh to the north, Madhya Pra ...

Chandigarh Chandigarh () is a planned city in India. Chandigarh is bordered by the state of Punjab to the west and the south, and by the state of Haryana to the east. It constitutes the bulk of the Chandigarh Capital Region or Greater Chandigarh, which al ...

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of Wes ...

Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . ...

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital city, capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar, and Rewa, India, Rewa being the othe ...

Haryana Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land a ...

, and

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern ...

. "Modern Standard Hindi", a standardised language is one of the

official languages An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...

of the Union of India. In addition, it is one of only two languages used for business in Parliament. However, the

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using sin ...

now allows all 22 official languages on the Eighth Schedule to be spoken. Hindustani, evolved from ''khari boli'' (खड़ी बोली), a prominent tongue of Mughal times, which itself evolved from

, an intermediary transition stage from

, from which the major North Indian

have evolved. Varieties of Hindi spoken in India include Rajasthani,

Braj Bhasha The Braj language, ''Braj Bhasha'', also known as Vraj Bhasha or Vrij Bhasha or Braj Bhāṣā or Braji or Brij Bhasha or Braj Boli, is a Western Hindi language. Along with Awadhi (a variety of Eastern Hindi), it was one of the two predominan ...

Haryanvi Haryanvi ( ' or '), also known as Bangru, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the state of Haryana in India, and to a lesser extent in Delhi. Haryanvi is considered to be part of the dialect group of Western Hindi, which also includes Khari ...

Bundeli Bundeli (Devanagari: बुन्देली or बुंदेली; or Bundelkhandi) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Bundelkhand region of central India. It belongs to the Central Indo-Ayran languages and is part of the Western Hin ...

Kannauji Kannauji is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Kannauj region of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Kannauji is closely related to Hindustani, with a lexical similarity of 83–94% with Hindi. Some consider it to be a dialect of Hindustani, ...

, Hindustani,

Awadhi Awadhi (; ), also known as Audhi (), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in northern India and Nepal. It is primarily spoken in the Awadh region of present-day Uttar Pradesh, India. The name ''Awadh'' is connected to Ayodhya, the ancient city, ...

Bagheli Bagheli ( Devanagari: बघेली) or Baghelkhandi is a Central Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Baghelkhand region of central India. Classification An independent language belonging to the Eastern Hindi subgroup, Bagheli is one of th ...

and

Chhattisgarhi Chhattisgarhi ( / ) is an Indo-Aryan language, spoken by approximately 16 million people from Chhattisgarh & other states. It is mostly spoken in the Indian states of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh & Maharashtra. It is closely related to ...

. By virtue of its being a ''

'', Hindi has also developed regional dialects such as

Bambaiya Hindi Bombay Hindi, also known as ''Bambaiya Hindi'' or ''Mumbaiya Hindi'', is the Hindi dialect spoken in Mumbai (Bombay), in the Konkan region of India. Its vocabulary is largely from Hindustani, additionally, it has the predominant substratum o ...

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the '' de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

. In addition, a trade language,

Andaman Creole Hindi Andaman Creole Hindi is a trade language of the Andaman Islands, spoken as a native language especially in Port Blair Port Blair () is the capital city of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a union territory of India in the Bay of Bengal. It i ...

has also developed in the

. In addition, by use in popular culture such as songs and films, Hindi also serves as a ''lingua franca'' across both North and Central India Hindi is widely taught both as a primary language and language of instruction and as a second tongue in most states.

English

British colonialism in India resulted in English becoming a language for governance, business, and education. English, along with Hindi, is one of the two languages permitted in the Constitution of India for business in Parliament. Despite the fact that Hindi has official Government patronage and serves as a ''lingua franca'' over large parts of India, there was considerable opposition to the use of Hindi in the southern states of India, and English has emerged as a

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...

'' over much of India. Journalist

Manu Joseph Manu Joseph (born 22 July 1974) is an Indian journalist and writer. He is the former editor of '' Open'' magazine. Life and career Manu was born in Kottayam, Kerala, and grew up in Chennai. His father Joseph Madapally is a film maker who direc ...

, in a 2011 article in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', wrote that due to the prominence and usage of the language and the desire for English-language education, "English is the de facto national language of India. It is a bitter truth." English language proficiency is highest among urban residents, wealthier Indians, Indians with higher levels of educational attainment, Christians, men and younger Indians. In 2017, more than 58 percent of rural teens could read basic English, and 53 percent of fourteen year-olds & sixty percent of 18 year-olds could read English sentences. Despite this, only a little over 10% of Indians can speak English fluently.

Scheduled languages

Until the

Twenty-first Amendment of the Constitution of India The Twenty-first Amendment of the Constitution of India, officially known as The Constitution (Twenty-first Amendment) Act, 1967, amended the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution so as to include Sindhi as one of the languages, thereby raising t ...

in 1967, the country recognised 14 official regional languages. The Eighth Schedule and the Seventy-First Amendment provided for the inclusion of Sindhi, Konkani, Meitei and Nepali, thereby increasing the number of official regional languages of India to 18. The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, as of 1 December 2007, lists 22 languages, which are given in the table below together with the regions where they are used. The individual states, the borders of most of which are or were drawn on socio-linguistic lines, can legislate their own official languages, depending on their linguistic demographics. The official languages chosen reflect the predominant as well as politically significant languages spoken in that state. Certain states having a linguistically defined territory may have only the predominant language in that state as its official language, examples being

and

, which have

and Gujarati as their sole official language respectively.

Telangana Telangana (; , ) is a state in India situated on the south-central stretch of the Indian peninsula on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the eleventh-largest state and the twelfth-most populated state in India with a geographical area of and 35 ...

, with a sizeable Urdu-speaking Muslim population, and

has two languages, Telugu and

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Jammu and Kashmir used to have

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Meghalaya Meghalaya (, or , meaning "abode of clouds"; from Sanskrit , "cloud" + , "abode") is a state in northeastern India. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the state of Assam: (a) the United Khasi Hills and J ...

uses English spoken by 0.01% of the population. This phenomenon has turned majority languages into "minority languages" in a functional sense. ;Lists of Official Languages of States and Union Territories of India In addition to states and union territories, India has autonomous administrative regions which may be permitted to select their own official language – a case in point being the Bodoland Territorial Council in Assam which has declared the

Bodo language Boro (बर'/बड़ो ), also called Bodo, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken primarily by the Boro people of India, Nepal and Bangladesh. It is an official language of the Indian state of Assam, predominantly spoken in the Bodoland Ter ...

as official for the region, in addition to Assamese and English already in use. and Bengali in the

Barak Valley The Barak Valley is located in the southern region of the Indian state of Assam. The region is named after the Barak river. The Barak valley consists of three administrative districts of Assam - namely Cachar, Karimganj, and Hailakandi. Th ...

, as its official languages.

Prominent languages of India

Hindi

, English was the sole language used for administrative purposes as well as for higher education purposes. When India became independent in 1947, the Indian

legislators A legislator (also known as a deputy or lawmaker) is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are often elected by the people of the state. Legislatures may be supra-national (for e ...

had the challenge of choosing a language for official communication as well as for communication between different linguistic regions across India. The choices available were: * Making "Hindi", which a plurality of the people (41%) identified as their native language, the official language. * Making English, as preferred by non-Hindi speakers, particularly Kannadigas and

Tamils The Tamil people, also known as Tamilar ( ta, தமிழர், Tamiḻar, translit-std=ISO, in the singular or ta, தமிழர்கள், Tamiḻarkaḷ, translit-std=ISO, label=none, in the plural), or simply Tamils (), are a Drav ...

, and those from

and

, the official language. ''See also

Anti-Hindi agitations The anti-Hindi-imposition agitations in Tamil Nadu were a series of agitations that happened in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu (formerly Madras State and part of Madras Presidency) during both pre- and post-independence periods. The agitatio ...

''. * Declare both Hindi and English as official languages and each state is given freedom to choose the official language of the state. The

Indian constitution The Constitution of India (IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental r ...

, in 1950, declared

script to be the

of the union. Unless Parliament decided otherwise, the use of

for official purposes was to cease 15 years after the constitution came into effect, i.e. on 26 January 1965. The prospect of the changeover, however, led to much alarm in the non Hindi-speaking areas of India, especially in

whose native tongues are not related to Hindi. As a result,

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. ...

enacted the

Official Languages Act in 1963 There is no national language in India. However, article 343(1) of the Indian constitution specifically mentions that, "The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script. The form of numerals to be used for the official pur ...

, which provided for the continued use of English for official purposes along with Hindi, even after 1965.

Bengali

Native to the Bengal region, comprising the nation of

and the states of

and

region of

. Bengali (also spelt as ''Bangla'': বাংলা) is the sixth most spoken language in the world. After the partition of India (1947), refugees from

East Pakistan East Pakistan was a Pakistani province established in 1955 by the One Unit Scheme, One Unit Policy, renaming the province as such from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India ...

were settled in

, and

and the union territory of

Andaman and Nicobar Islands The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India consisting of 572 islands, of which 37 are inhabited, at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The territory is about north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated fr ...

. There is also a large number of Bengali-speaking people in Maharashtra and Gujarat where they work as artisans in jewellery industries. Bengali developed from

Abahatta Abahaṭ‌ṭha, Abahatta or Avahaṭṭha (Prakrit: ''abasaṭ‌ṭa'', ultimately from Sanskrit ''apaśabda'' 'meaningless sound') is a stage in the evolution of the Eastern group of the Indo-Aryan languages. The eastern group consists of la ...

, a derivative of Apabhramsha, itself derived from

Magadhi The Magahi language (), also known as Magadhi (), is a language spoken in Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal states of eastern India, and in the Terai of Nepal. Magadhi Prakrit was the ancestor of Magahi, from which the latter's name derives. ...

. The modern

Bengali vocabulary Bengali ( ''Bangla'') is one of the Eastern Indo-Aryan (Magadhan) languages, evolved from Magadhi Prakrit and Pali languages native to the Indian subcontinent. The core of Bengali vocabulary is thus etymologically of Magadhi Prakrit and P ...

contains the vocabulary base from

Magadhi Prakrit Magadhi Prakrit (''Māgadhī'') is of one of the three Dramatic Prakrits, the written languages of Ancient India following the decline of Pali and Sanskrit. It was a vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan language, replacing earlier Vedic Sanskrit. H ...

and

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravāda'' Buddhi ...

, also borrowings from

and other major borrowings from

Austroasiatic languages The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are t ...

and other languages in contact with. Like most Indian languages, Bengali has a number of dialects. It exhibits

diglossia In linguistics, diglossia () is a situation in which two dialects or languages are used (in fairly strict compartmentalization) by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labeled "L ...

, with the literary and standard form differing greatly from the colloquial speech of the regions that identify with the language. Bengali language has developed a rich cultural base spanning art, music, literature, and religion. Bengali has some of the oldest literature of all modern Indo-Aryan languages, dating from about 10th to 12th century (' Chargapada' Buddhist songs). There have been many movements in defence of this language and in 1999

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

declared 21 Feb as the

International Mother Language Day International Mother Language Day is a worldwide annual observance held on 21 February to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and to promote multilingualism. First announced by UNESCO on 17 November 1999, it was formally r ...

in commemoration of the Bengali Language Movement in 1952.

Magahi

Magahi The Magahi language (), also known as Magadhi (), is a language spoken in Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal states of eastern India, and in the Terai of Nepal. Magadhi Prakrit was the ancestor of Magahi, from which the latter's name derives. ...

language also known as

is a language spoken in

and

states of

eastern India East India is a region of India consisting of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal and also the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The region roughly corresponds to the historical region of Magadha f ...

, and in the

Terai , image =Terai nepal.jpg , image_size = , image_alt = , caption =Aerial view of Terai plains near Biratnagar, Nepal , map = , map_size = , map_alt = , map_caption = , biogeographic_realm = Indomalayan realm , global200 = Terai-Duar savanna ...

was the ancestor of Magahi, from which the latter's name derives. Magahi derived from the ancient

, which was created in the ancient kingdom of

Magadha Magadha was a region and one of the sixteen sa, script=Latn, Mahajanapadas, label=none, lit=Great Kingdoms of the Second Urbanization (600–200 BCE) in what is now south Bihar (before expansion) at the eastern Ganges Plain. Magadha was ruled ...

, the core of which was the area south of the

Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...

and east of

Son River Son River ( hi, सोन नदी, also spelt Sone River) is a perennial river located in central India. It originates near Amarkantak Hill in Gaurela-Pendra-Marwahi district of Chhattisgarh and finally merges with the Ganges River near Pat ...

. Though the number of speakers in Magahi is about 12.6 million, it has not been constitutionally recognised in India. Historically, Magahi had no famous written literature. There are many popular songs throughout the area in which the language is spoken, and strolling bards recite various long epic poems which are known more or less over the whole of Northern India. In Magahi speaking area, folk singers sing a good number of ballads.

Bhojpuri

Bhojpuri Bhojpuri (;Bhojpuri entry, Oxford Dictionaries
, Oxford U ...

is an

Indo-Aryan language The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pa ...

native to the Bhojpur region of

and

. It is chiefly spoken in western

, eastern

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 195 ...

, western

, northeastern

and in the

region of Nepal. The Bhojpuri variant of

Kaithi Kaithi (), also called Kayathi () or Kayasthi (), is a historical Brahmic script that was used widely in parts of Northern and Eastern India, primarily in the present-day states of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar. In particular, it was us ...

is the indigenous script of Bhojpuri language. Bhojpuri is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language and a descandant of

, a language spoken in eastern India over 2500 years ago. In India,

Bhojpuri Bhojpuri (;Bhojpuri entry, Oxford Dictionaries
, Oxford U ...

is included under

in the census but it is an

of eastern zone. Proponents demand for inclusion of Bhojpuri language in the eighth schedule of Indian constitution so it will be officially recognized as its own language and not a dialect of Hindi. It is recognized as a minority language in

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consi ...

Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown Guyana, Georgetown. Guyana ...

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It inc ...

Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

Marathi

is an

. It is the official language and co-official language in

and

Goa Goa () is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is located between the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to ...

states of Western India respectively, and is one of the official languages of India. There were 83 million speakers of the language in 2011. Marathi has the third-largest number of native speakers in India and ranks 10th in the list of most spoken languages in the world. Marathi has some of the oldest literature of all modern Indo-Aryan languages; Oldest stone inscriptions from 8th century & literature dating from about 1100 AD (Mukundraj's ''Vivek Sindhu'' dates to the 12th century). The major dialects of Marathi are Standard Marathi and the Varhadi dialect. There are other related languages such as Khandeshi, Dangi, Vadvali, Samavedi.

Malvani Konkani Malvani is a dialect of Konkani with significant Marathi influences and loanwords. Although Malvani does not have a unique script, the Devanagari script is used by most speakers. Malvani is sometimes used for sarcastic newspaper articles and ...

has been heavily influenced by Marathi varieties. Marathi is one of several languages that descend from Maharashtri Prakrit. The further change led to the Apabhraṃśa languages like Old Marathi.

Marathi Language Day Marathi Language Day is celebrated on February '27' every year across the Indian states of Maharashtra. This day is regulated by the State Government. It is celebrated on Birthday of eminent Marathi Senior poet Kusumagraj. Kusumagraj has made sign ...

(मराठी दिन/मराठी दिवस (transl. Marathi Dina/Marathi Diwasa) is celebrated on 27 February every year across the Indian states of Maharashtra and Goa. This day is regulated by the State Government. It is celebrated on the Birthday of eminent Marathi Poet Vi. Va. Shirwadkar, popularly known as Kusumagraj. Marathi is the official language of Maharashtra and co-official language in the union territories of

Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu is a union territory in India. The territory was constituted through the merger of the former territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Plans for the proposed merger were announced by t ...

. In

, Konkani is the sole official language; however, Marathi may also be used for all official purposes.The Goa, Daman, and Diu Official Language Act, 1987 makes Konkani the official language but provides that Marathi may also be used "for all or any of the official purposes". The Government also has a policy of replying in Marathi to correspondence received in Marathi. Commissioner Linguistic Minorities

pp. para 11.3 Over a period of many centuries the Marathi language and people came into contact with many other languages and dialects. The primary influence of

Maharashtri Maharashtri or Maharashtri Prakrit ('), is a Prakrit language of ancient as well as medieval India and the ancestor of Marathi and Konkani. Maharashtri Prakrit was commonly spoken until 875 CEV.Rajwade, ''Maharashtrache prachin rajyakarte''

and

is understandable. Marathi has also influenced by the

, Dravidian and foreign languages such as

. Marathi contains loanwords from Persian, Arabic,

and a little from French & Portuguese.

Meitei

'' (officially known as ''

'') is the most widely spoken Indian

Sino-Tibetan language Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...

Tibeto-Burman The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people spea ...

linguistic sub branch. It is the sole official language in

and is one of the official languages of India. It is one of the two

Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...

languages with official status in India There is no national language in India. However, article 343(1) of the Indian constitution specifically mentions that, "The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script. The form of numerals to be used for the official pur ...

, beside Bodo. It has been recognized as one of the advanced modern languages of India by the National

Sahitya Academy The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of, the Indian government. Its ...

for its rich literature. It uses both Meitei script as well as

Bengali script Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

for writing. Meitei language is currently proposed to be included in the elite category of "

Classical Language A classical language is any language with an independent literary tradition and a large and ancient body of written literature. Classical languages are typically dead languages, or show a high degree of diglossia, as the spoken varieties of the ...

s" of India. Besides, it is also currently proposed to be an associate official language of

Government of Assam The Government of Assam is the subnational government of Assam, a state of India. It consists of the Governor appointed by the President of India as the head of the state, currently Jagdish Mukhi. The head of government is the Chief Ministe ...

. According to

Leishemba Sanajaoba Maharaja Leishemba Sanajaoba is the current titular king of Manipur, India, and a politician belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party from Manipur. In 2020, he was elected as the member of Rajya Sabha from Manipur. Debates on bills Leishemba ...

, the present titular king of

and a

member of Manipur state, by recognising Meitei as an ''associate official language'' of Assam, the identity, history, culture and tradition of Manipuris residing in Assam could be protected. Meitei Language Day (

Manipuri Language Day ) , type = cultural , image = "Meitei Language Day" alias "Manipuri Language Day" written in Meitei script and Latin script.jpg , imagesize = 300px , caption = Meitei translation of "Meitei Language Day" written in M ...

) is celebrated on 20 August every year by the Manipuris across the Indian states of Manipur, Assam and Tripura. This day is regulated by the

Government of Manipur The Government of Manipur ( mni, Manipur Leingak; /mə.ni.pur lə́i.ŋak/), also known as the State Government of Manipur, or locally as State Government, is the supreme governing authority of the Indian state of Manipur and its 16 districts. ...

. It is the commemoration of the day on which Meitei was included in the

on the 20 August 1992.

Telugu

Telugu is the most widely spoken

Dravidian language The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant im ...

in India and around the world. Telugu is an official language in

and Yanam, making it one of the few languages (along with Hindi, Bengali, and Urdu) with official status in more than one state. It is also spoken by a significant number of people in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and by the Sri Lankan Gypsy people. It is one of six languages with classical status in India. Telugu ranks fourth by the number of native speakers in India (81 million in the 2011 Census), fifteenth in the ''Ethnologue'' list of most-spoken languages worldwide and is the most widely spoken Dravidian language.

Tamil

Tamil (also spelt as ''Thamizh'': தமிழ்) is a

predominantly spoken in

and many parts of

. It is also spoken by large minorities in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh,

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Malay ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bo ...

and throughout the world. Tamil ranks fifth by the number of native speakers in India (61 million in the 2001 Census) and ranks 20th in the list of most spoken languages. It is one of the 22

scheduled languages of India There is no national language in India. However, article 343(1) of the Indian constitution specifically mentions that, "The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script. The form of numerals to be used for the official pu ...

and was the first Indian language to be declared a

by the

Government of India The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

in 2004. Tamil is one of the longest surviving

s in the world. It has been described as "the only language of contemporary India which is recognisably continuous with a classical past".Kamil Zvelebil, ''The Smile of Murugan'' Leiden 1973, p11-12 The two earliest manuscripts from India, acknowledged and registered by UNESCO Memory of the World register in 1997 and 2005, are in Tamil. Tamil is an official language of

and

. It is also recognized as a minority language in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world ...

and

Urdu

After independence,

Modern Standard Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

national language of Pakistan Pakistan is a multilingual country with dozens of languages spoken as first languages. The majority of Pakistan's languages belong to the Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European language family. Urdu is the national language and the lingua fr ...

. During British colonial times, knowledge of Hindustani or Urdu was a must for officials. Hindustani was made the second language of British Indian Empire after English and considered as the language of administration. The British introduced the use of Roman script for Hindustani as well as other languages. Urdu had 70 million speakers in India (as per the Census of 2001), and, along with Hindi, is one of the 22 officially recognised regional languages of India and also an official language in the Indian states of

, Jammu and Kashmir,

and

that have significant Muslim populations.

Gujarati

Gujarati is an

. It is native to the west Indian region of

. Gujarati is part of the greater

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hi ...

. Gujarati is descended from

Old Gujarati Old or OLD may refer to: Places *Old, Baranya, Hungary *Old, Northamptonshire, England *Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, Mai ...

(c. 1100 – 1500 CE), the same source as that of Rajasthani. Gujarati is the chief and official language in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is also an official language in the union territories of

Daman and Diu Daman and Diu (; ) was a former union territory in northwestern India. With an area of , it was the smallest administrative subdivision of India on the mainland. The territory comprised two districts, Damaon and Dio island, geographically s ...

and

Dadra and Nagar Haveli Dadra and Nagar Haveli is a district of the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu in western India. It is composed of two separate geographical entities: Nagar Haveli, wedged in between Maharashtra and Gujarat states t ...

. According to the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

(CIA), 4.5% of population of India (1.21 billion according to 2011 census) speaks Gujarati. This amounts to 54.6 million speakers in India.

Kannada

Kannada is a Dravidian language which branched off from Kannada-Tamil sub group around 500 B.C.E according to the Dravidian scholar Zvelebil.Zvelebil in H. Kloss & G.D. McConnell; ''Constitutional languages'', p.240, Presses Université Laval, 1 Jan 1989, It is the official language of

. According to the Dravidian scholars Steever and Krishnamurthy, the study of Kannada language is usually divided into three linguistic phases: Old (450–1200 CE), Middle (1200–1700 CE) and Modern (1700–present).Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju, ''The Dravidian Languages'' (Cambridge Language Surveys), 2003, p.23, Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press, The earliest written records are from the 5th century,H. Kloss & G.D. McConnell, ''Constitutional languages'', p.239, Presses Université Laval, 1 Jan 1989, and the earliest available literature in rich manuscript (''

Kavirajamarga ''Kavirajamarga'' ( kn, ಕವಿರಾಜಮಾರ್ಗ) (850 C.E.) is the earliest available work on rhetoric, poetics and grammar in the Kannada language.Kamath (2001), p 90Narasimhacharya (1988), p 2 It was inspired by or written in part ...

'') is from c. 850.Narasimhacharya R; ''History of Kannada Literature'', p.2, 1988, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, Sastri, Nilakanta K.A.; ''A history of South India from prehistoric times to the fall of Vijayanagar'', 1955, 2002, India Branch of Oxford University Press, New Delhi, Kannada language has the second oldest written tradition of all languages of India.Das, Sisir Kumar; ''A History of Indian Literature, 500–1399: From Courtly to the Popular'', pp.140–141, Sahitya Akademi, 2005, New Delhi, R Zydenbos in Cushman S, Cavanagh C, Ramazani J, Rouzer P, ''The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics: Fourth Edition'', p.767, Princeton University Press, 2012, Current estimates of the total number of epigraph present in Karnataka range from 25,000 by the scholar

Sheldon Pollock Sheldon I. Pollock (born 1948) is an American scholar of Sanskrit, the intellectual and literary history of India, and comparative intellectual history. He is the Arvind Raghunathan Professor of South Asian Studies at Columbia University. He was ...

to over 30,000 by the

Sahitya Akademi The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of, the Indian government. Its of ...

,Datta, Amaresh; ''Encyclopaedia of Indian literature – vol 2'', p.1717, 1988, Sahitya Akademi, making Karnataka state "one of the most densely inscribed pieces of real estate in the world".Sheldon Pollock in Dehejia, Vidya; ''The Body Adorned: Sacred and Profane in Indian Art'', p.5, chapter:''The body as Leitmotif'', 2013, Columbia University Press, According to Garg and Shipely, more than a thousand notable writers have contributed to the wealth of the language.Garg, Gaṅgā Rām; ''Encyclopaedia of the Hindu World, Volume 1'', p.68, Concept Publishing Company, 1992, New Delhi, Shipley, Joseph T.; ''Encyclopedia of Literature – Vol I'', p.528, 2007, READ BOOKS,

Malayalam

Malayalam (; ) has

status in the state of

and in the union territories of

Lakshadweep Lakshadweep (), also known as Laccadives (), is a union territory of India. It is an archipelago of 36 islands in the Arabian sea, located off the Malabar Coast. The name ''Lakshadweep'' means "one lakh islands" in Sanskrit, though the Lacc ...

and

. It belongs to the

Dravidian family of languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant im ...

and is spoken by some 38 million people. Malayalam is also spoken in the neighboring states of

and

; with some speakers in the Nilgiris,

Kanyakumari Kanniyakumari (; , referring to Devi Kanya Kumari), also known as Cape Comorin, is a city in Kanniyakumari district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. It is the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent and the southernmost city in mainland I ...

and

Coimbatore Coimbatore, also spelt as Koyamputhur (), sometimes shortened as Kovai (), is one of the major metropolitan cities in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyyal River and surrounded by the Western Ghats. Coimbato ...

districts of

, and the

Dakshina Kannada Dakshina Kannada district is a district of Karnataka state in India, with its headquarters in the coastal city of Mangalore. It is part of the larger Tulu Nadu region. The district covers an area nestled in between the Western Ghats to its east ...

and the

Kodagu district Kodagu (also known by its former name Coorg) is an administrative district in the Karnataka state of India. Before 1956, it was an administratively separate Coorg State, at which point it was merged into an enlarged Mysore State. It occupie ...

. Malayalam originated from Middle Tamil (Sen-Tamil) in the 7th century. As Malayalam began to freely borrow words as well as the rules of grammar from

, the

Grantha alphabet The Grantha script ( ta, கிரந்த எழுத்து, Granta eḻuttu; ml, ഗ്രന്ഥലിപി, granthalipi) is a South Indian script, found particularly in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Originating from the Pallava script, t ...

was adopted for writing and came to be known as ''Arya Eluttu''. This developed into the modern Malayalam script.

Odia

Odia (formerly spelled ''Oriya'') is the only modern language officially recognized as a classical language from the Indo-Aryan group. Odia is primarily spoken and has official language status in the Indian state of

Odisha Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of Sc ...

and has over 40 million speakers. It was declared as a classical language of India in 2014. Native speakers comprise 91.85% of the population in Odisha. Odia originated from Odra Prakrit which developed from

, a language spoken in eastern India over 2,500 years ago. The history of Odia language can be divided to Old Odia (3rd century BC −1200 century AD), Early Middle Odia (1200–1400), Middle Odia (1400–1700), Late Middle Odia (1700–1870) and Modern Odia (1870 until present day). The National Manuscripts Mission of India have found around 213,000 unearthed and preserved manuscripts written in Odia.

Santali

Santali is a

, a branch of

spoken widely in

and other states of

Santhal Santhal may refer to : Places and jurisdictions * Santhal Pargana division, in Jharkhand state, (north)eastern India * Santhal State, former petty princely state in Mahi Kantha, Gujarat, western India People * Santhal people (part of the Tea ...

community of tribal and non tribal. It is written in

Ol Chiki script The Ol Chiki () script, also known as Ol Chemetʼ (Santali: ''ol'' 'writing', ''chemet'' 'learning'), Ol Ciki, Ol, and sometimes as the Santali alphabet invented by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in the year 1925, is the official writing system for San ...

invented by

Raghunath Murmu Pandit Raghunath Murmu (May 1905 – 1 February 1982) was an Indian Santali writer and educator. He developed the Ol Chiki script for Santali language. Until the nineteenth century, Santali people had no written language and knowledge was trans ...

at the end of 19th century. Santali is spoken by 0.67% of India's population. For items below #26, see individual ''Ethnologue'' entry for each language. About 7 million peoples speak this language. It is also spoken in

and

. The language is major tribal language of Jharkhand and thus

community is demanding to make it as the official language of

Punjabi

Punjabi, written in the Gurmukhi script in India, is one of the prominent languages of India with about 32 million speakers. In Pakistan it is spoken by over 80 million people and is written in the

Shahmukhi alphabet Shahmukhi (, ) is a Perso-Arabic alphabet script used historically by Punjabi Muslims (primarily in present-day Pakistani Punjab) to write the Punjabi language. It is generally written in the Nastaʿlīq calligraphic hand, which is also used ...

. It is mainly spoken in

but also in neighboring areas. It is an official language of

and

Assamese

Asamiya or Assamese language is most popular in the state of

. It's an Eastern Indo-Aryan language with more than 23 million total speakers including more than 15 million native speakers and more than 7 million

L2 speakers A person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native language (first language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later. A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a f ...

as per 2011 Census of India. Along with other

Eastern Indo-Aryan languages The Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, also known as Māgadhan languages, are spoken throughout the eastern Indian subcontinent (East India and Assam, Bangladesh), including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bengal, Tripura, Assam, and Odisha; alongs ...

, Assamese evolved at least before the 7th century CE from the middle Indo-Aryan

. Assamese is unusual among Eastern Indo-Aryan languages for the presence of the (which, phonetically, varies between velar () and a uvular () pronunciations). The first characteristics of this language are seen in the Charyapadas composed in between the eighth and twelfth centuries. The first examples emerged in writings of court poets in the fourteenth century, the finest example of which is Madhav Kandali's

Saptakanda Ramayana ''Saptakanda Ramayana'' (Assamese: সপ্তকাণ্ড ৰামায়ণ) is the 14th-15th century Assamese version of the ''Ramayana'' attributed to the famous assamese poet Madhava Kandali. It is considered to be the second translati ...

composed during 14th century CE.

Maithili

Maithili (; ''Maithilī'') is an

native to India and Nepal. In India, it is widely spoken in the

and

states. Native speakers are also found in other states and union territories of India, most notably in

and the

National Capital Territory of Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

. In the

2011 census of India The 2011 Census of India or the 15th Indian Census was conducted in two phases, house listing and population enumeration. The House listing phase began on 1 April 2010 and involved the collection of information about all buildings. Information ...

, It was reported by 1,35,83,464 people as their mother tongue comprising about 1.12% of the total population of India. In

, it is spoken in the eastern

, and is the second most prevalent language of Nepal. Tirhuta was formerly the primary script for written Maithili. Less commonly, it was also written in the local variant of

. Today it is written in the

script.Yadava, Y. P. (2013). Linguistic context and language endangerment in Nepal
Nepalese Linguistics 28
262–274. In 2003, Maithili was included in the Eighth Schedule of the

Indian Constitution The Constitution of India (IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental r ...

as a recognised regional language of India, which allows it to be used in education, government, and other official contexts.Singh, P., & Singh, A. N. (2011). Finding Mithila between India's Centre and Periphery. ''Journal of Indian Law & Society'' 2: 147–181.

Classical languages of India

In 2004, the

declared that languages that met certain requirements could be accorded the status of a "Classical Language" of India. Over the next few years, several languages were granted the Classical status, and demands have been made for other languages, including Bengali,

and Meitei (officially called Manipuri). Languages thus far declared to be Classical: *

(in 2004), *

(in 2005), *

(in 2008), * Telugu (in 2008), *

(in 2013), * Odia (in 2014). In the year 2004, the tentative criteria for the age of antiquity of "classical language" was assumed to be at least 1000 years of existence. In a 2006 press release, Minister of Tourism and Culture

Ambika Soni Ambika Soni (born 13 November 1942) is an Indian politician belonging to Indian National Congress. She had served as Minister of Information and Broadcasting. She was a Member of Parliament representing the state of Punjab in the Rajya Sabha. ...

told the

the following criteria were laid down to determine the eligibility of languages to be considered for classification as a "Classical Language",

Benefits

As per Government of India's Resolution No. 2-16/2004-US (Akademies) dated 1 November 2004, the benefits that will accrue to a language declared as a "Classical Language" are: # Two major international awards for scholars of eminence in Classical Indian Languages are awarded annually. # A Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Languages is set up. # The University Grants Commission will be requested to create, to start with at least in the Central Universities, a certain number of Professional Chairs for Classical Languages for scholars of eminence in Classical Indian Languages.

Other local languages and dialects

The 2001 census identified the following native languages having more than one million speakers. Most of them are dialects/variants grouped under Hindi.

Practical problems

India has several languages in use; choosing any single language as an official language presents problems to all those whose "mother tongue" is different. However, all the boards of education across India recognise the need for training people to one common language. There are complaints that in

North India North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from the Tibetan Plateau and Central ...

, non-Hindi speakers have language trouble. Similarly, there are complaints that North Indians have to undergo difficulties on account of language when travelling to

. It is common to hear of incidents that result due to friction between those who strongly believe in the chosen

, and those who follow the thought that the chosen language(s) do not take into account everyone's preferences. Local official language commissions have been established and various steps are being taken in a direction to reduce tensions and friction.

Language conflicts

There are conflicts over

linguistic rights Linguistic rights are the human and civil rights concerning the individual and collective right to choose the language or languages for communication in a private or public atmosphere. Other parameters for analyzing linguistic rights include the ...

in India. The first major linguistic conflict, known as the

Anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu The anti-Hindi-imposition agitations in Tamil Nadu were a series of agitations that happened in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu (formerly Madras State and part of Madras Presidency) during both pre- and post-independence periods. The agitations ...

, took place in Tamil Nadu against the implementation of Hindi as the official language of India. Political analysts consider this as a major factor in bringing DMK to power and leading to the ousting and nearly total elimination of the Congress party in Tamil Nadu. Strong cultural pride based on language is also found in other Indian states such as Assam, Odisha, Karnataka, West Bengal, Punjab and Maharashtra. To express disapproval of the imposition of Hindi on its states' people as a result of the central government, the government of Maharashtra made the state language Marathi mandatory in educational institutions of CBSE and ICSE through Class/Grade 10. The

attempts to assuage these conflicts with various campaigns, coordinated by the

Central Institute of Indian Languages The Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) is an Indian research and teaching institute based in Mysuru, part of the Language Bureau of the Ministry of Education. It was founded on 17 July 1969. Centres The Central Institute of Indian Lan ...

Mysore Mysore (), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern part of the state of Karnataka, India. Mysore city is geographically located between 12° 18′ 26″ north latitude and 76° 38′ 59″ east longitude. It is located at an altitude of ...

, a branch of the Department of Higher Education, Language Bureau, and the

Ministry of Human Resource Development The Ministry of Education ( MoE; formerly the Ministry of Human Resource Development from 1985 to 2020) is a Union Government ministries of India, ministry of the Government of India, responsible for the implementation of the National Policy on ...

Linguistic movements

In the history of India, various linguistic movements were and are undertaken by different literary, political and social associations as well as organisations, advocating for the changes and the developments of several languages, dialects and vernaculars in diverse critical, discriminative and unfavorable circumstances and situations.

Bengali

Bengali language movement in India The Bengali Language Movement is a campaign to preserve Bengali language and Bengalis culture and to oppose anti-Bengali sentiment in India. The movement was started in Manbhum in 1940, ahead of the Partition of India which allocated eastern Benga ...

Meitei (Manipuri)

Meitei language movement The Meitei language movement ( mni, Meitei Longi Kongjang), also known as the Manipuri language movement ( mni, Manipuri Longi Kongjang), is any linguistic movement undertaken by the literary, political and social associations as well as organis ...

s (aka

Manipuri language movement The Meitei language movement ( mni, Meitei Longi Kongjang), also known as the Manipuri language movement ( mni, Manipuri Longi Kongjang), is any linguistic movement undertaken by the literary, political and social associations as well as organis ...

s), various linguistic movements for the cause of

(officially called

) **

Meitei linguistic purism movement The social movement of Meitei language (officially called Manipuri language) to attain linguistic purism is advocated by literary, political, social associations and organisations as well as notable individual personalities of Bangladesh, Myanm ...

, an ongoing linguistic movement, aimed to attain

linguistic purism Linguistic purism or linguistic protectionism is the prescriptive practice of defining or recognizing one variety of a language as being purer or of intrinsically higher quality than other varieties. Linguistic purism was institutionalized ...

** Scheduled language movement, a historical linguistic movement in

Northeast India , native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , ...

, aimed at the recognition of

as one of the

n Republic **

Meitei classical language movement The social movement of Meitei language (officially known as Manipuri language) to achieve the officially recognised status of the "Classical language of India" is advocated by various literary, political, social associations and organisations a ...

, an ongoing linguistic movement in

Northeast India , native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , ...

, aimed at the recognition of

as an officially recognized "

" **

Meitei associate official language movement The social movement of Meitei language (officially known as Manipuri language) to be included as an associate official language of the Government of Assam is advocated by several literary, political, social associations and organisations as well ...

, a semi active linguistic movement in

Northeast India , native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , ...

, aimed at the recognition of

as an "associate" official language of

Rajasthani

* Rajasthani language movement, a linguistic movement that has been campaigning for greater recognition for the Rajasthani language since 1947

Tamil

* Tanittamil Iyakkam ( Pure Tamil Movement), a

movement for the

Tamil language Tamil (; ' , ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian territory of ...

, to ignore the loanwords borrowed from

Developmental works

In the age of technological advancements, the

Google Translate Google Translate is a multilingual neural machine translation service developed by Google to translate text, documents and websites from one language into another. It offers a website interface, a mobile app for Android and iOS, and an API t ...

supports the following Indian languages: Bengali, Gujarati,

, Meiteilon (Manipuri) (in Meitei script), Odia, Punjabi (in Gurmukhi script),

, Telugu,

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Directorate of Language Planning and Implementation Directorate of Language Planning and Implementation (DLPI) is a directorate of the Government of Manipur in charge of the language planning and the implementation of policies of Meitei language (officially known as Manipuri language) as well as ...

was established for the development and the promotion of

(officially called

) and the Meitei script (

Manipuri script ) , altname = , type = Abugida , languages = Meitei language (officially known as Manipuri language) , region = * Manipur , sample = "Meitei Mayek" (literally meaning "Meitei script" in Meitei language) written ...

) in

. In September 2021, the

Central Government of India The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

released as the first instalment for the development and the promotion of the

(officially called

) and the Meitei script (

) in

Sanskrit

The

allocated ₹643.84 crore in the last three years for the development and the promotion of

, ₹231.15 crore in 2019–20, around ₹214.38 crore in 2018–19, and ₹198.31 crore in 2017–18.

Tamil

The

gave an allocation of Rs 10.59 crore in 2017–18, Rs 4.65 crore in 2018–19 and Rs 7.7 crore in 2019–20 to the "Central Institute of Classical Tamil" for the development and the promotion of

Telugu and Kannada

The

gave an allocation of Rs 1 crore in 2017–18, Rs 99 lakh in 2018–19 and Rs 1.07 crore in 2019–20, each for the development and the promotion of Telugu language and

Kannada language Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

Writing systems

Most languages in India are written in scripts derived from Brahmi. These include

, Telugu,

, Meitei Mayek, Odia, Eastern Nagari – Assamese/Bengali, Gurumukhi and other. Urdu is written in a script derived from Arabic. A few minor languages such as Santali use independent scripts (see

). Various Indian languages have their own scripts.

, Maithili and Angika are languages written using the

script. Most major languages are written using a script specific to them, such as Assamese (Asamiya) with Asamiya, Bengali with Bengali, Punjabi with

Gurmukhi Gurmukhī ( pa, ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ, , Shahmukhi: ) is an abugida developed from the Laṇḍā scripts, standardized and used by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad (1504–1552). It is used by Punjabi Sikhs to write the language, commonl ...

, Meitei with Meitei Mayek, Odia with

Odia script The Odia script ( or, ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅକ୍ଷର, Odiā akṣara, translit-std=ISO) is a Brahmic script used to write primarily Odia language and others including Sanskrit and other regional languages. The script has developed over mor ...

, Gujarati with Gujarati, etc.

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Kashmiri, Saraiki and Sindhi are written in modified versions of the

Perso-Arabic script The Persian alphabet ( fa, الفبای فارسی, Alefbâye Fârsi) is a writing system that is a version of the Arabic script used for the Persian language spoken in Iran ( Western Persian) and Afghanistan ( Dari Persian) since the 7th cen ...

. With this one exception, the scripts of Indian languages are native to India. Languages like Kodava that didn't have a script whereas Tulu which had a script adopted Kannada due to its readily available printing settings; these languages have taken up the scripts of the local official languages as their own and are written in the

Kannada script The Kannada script (IAST: ''Kannaḍa lipi''; obsolete: Kanarese or Canarese script in English) is an abugida of the Brahmic family, used to write Kannada, one of the Dravidian languages of South India especially in the state of Karnataka. Ka ...

. File:ANDRO INSCRIBED STONE.jpg, A

stone inscription in Meitei script about a royal decree of a Meitei king found in the sacred site of God Panam Ningthou in

Andro, Imphal East Andro is a town and a nagar panchayat in Imphal East district in the state of Manipur, India. Andro is an earmarked Scheduled Caste village which has been developed to represent the cultural heritage and artful creativeness of the Manipuri trib ...

. File:Development of Orissan scripts.jpg, Development of Odia script File:Jambai Tamil Brahmi.jpg,

Tamil-Brahmi Tamil-Brahmi, also known as Tamizhi or Damili, was a variant of the Brahmi script in southern India. It was used to write inscriptions in the early form of Old Tamil.Richard Salomon (1998) ''Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscription ...

inscription in Jambaimalai. File:Silver rupee of Rudra Simha.jpg, Silver coin issued during the reign of

Rudra Singha Sukhrungphaa (reigned 1696–1714), or Swargadeo Rudra Singha, was a Tungkhungia ahom king and 30th king of the Ahom kingdom under whom the kingdom reached its zenith of power and glory, he is considered as the most illustrious of the Ah ...

with Assamese inscriptions. File:Asokan brahmi pillar edict.jpg, North Indian Brahmi found in Ashok pillar. File:Halmidi OldKannada inscription.JPG, The

Halmidi inscription The Halmidi inscription is the oldest known Kannada language inscription in the Kadamba script. While estimates vary slightly, the inscription is often dated to between 450 CE - 500 CE. The inscription was discovered in 1936 by Dr. M. H. Krish ...

, the oldest known inscription in the Kannada script and language. The inscription is dated to the 450 CE - 500 CE period. File:Telugu inscription at Srikakulam, Krishna District in Andhra Pradesh.jpg, An early Telugu inscription found in the

Krishna district Krishna district is district in the coastal Andhra Region in Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, with Machilipatnam as its administrative headquarters. It is the coastal district of Andhra Pradesh. Machilipatnam is the most populated city in the di ...

Notes

References

External links

Linguistic map of India
with a detailed map o

at Muturzikin.com

A comprehensive federal government site that offers complete info on Indian Languages

Technology Development for Indian Languages, Government of India
{{Portalbar, India, Languages Languages of India, Demographics of India