South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...

is home to several hundred languages, spanning the countries of

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

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 ...

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

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 so ...

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 ...

, Pakistan, Maldives and Sri Lanka. It is home to the third most spoken language in the world, Hindi–Urdu; and the sixth most spoken language, Bengali language, Bengali. The languages in the region mostly comprise Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranic and Dravidian languages, Dravidian languages, and further members of other language families like Austroasiatic languages, Austroasiatic, Turkic languages, Turkic, and Tibeto-Burman languages, Tibeto-Burman languages. South Asian English is considered the international lingua franca of the SAARC, South Asian countries.

Afghanistan

The official languages of Afghanistan are Pashto and Dari, both of which are Iranic languages. Dari, an Afghan Register (sociolinguistics), standardized register of the Persian language, is considered the lingua franca of Afghanistan and used to write Afghan literature. Tajik language, Tajik is spoken by people closer to Tajikistan, although officially the language is regarded same as Dari. A few Turkic languages like Uzbek language, Uzbek and Turkmen language, Turkmen are also spoken near regions closer to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Pashto is widely spoken by the Pashtun people, who mainly reside towards the south of

on the Pakistani-Afghanistan, Afghan border.

Bangladesh

Bengali language, Standard Bengali based on Rarhi dialect (West Bengal, India) is the national language of Bangladesh. Majority of Bangladeshis speaks Eastern Bengali. Native languages of Bangladesh are Sylheti language, Sylheti and Chittagonian language, Chittagonian, while some ethnic minority groups also speak Tibeto-Burman languages, Tibeto-Burman, Dravidian languages, Dravidian and Austroasiatic languages, Austro-Asiatic languages.

Bhutan

Dzongkha is the national language of the Kingdom of Bhutan. Almost all the languages of Bhutan are from Tibetic languages, Tibetic family (except Nepali language, Nepali, an Indo-Aryan language).

India

Most languages spoken in India belong either to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan (), the Dravidian languages, Dravidian (c. 24%), the Austroasiatic languages, Austroasiatic (Munda languages, Munda) (c. 1.2%), or the Tibeto-Burman languages, Tibeto-Burman (c. 0.6%) families, with some languages of the Himalayas still unclassified. The SIL International, SIL Ethnologue lists 461 living languages for India. Hindustani language, Hindustani is the most widespread language of India. The Indian census takes the widest possible definition of "Hindi" as the broad variety of the Hindi languages. The native speakers of Hindi so defined account for 39% of Indians. Bengali language, Bengali is the second most spoken language of South Asia, found in both

and Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and Assam. The International Mother Language Day was created by UNESCO to commemorate the Bengali language. Other notable languages include Odia language, Odia, Telugu language, Telugu, Punjabi language, Punjabi, Marathi language, Marathi, Tamil language, Tamil, Urdu, Sindhi language, Sindhi, Kannada, Pashto, Malayalam, Meitei language, Meitei (Manipuri) and Konkani language, Konkani. Thirteen languages account for more than 1% of Indian population each, and between themselves for over 95%; all of them are "Official languages of India#The languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution, scheduled languages of the constitution." Scheduled languages spoken by less than 1% of Indians are Santali language, Santali (0.64%), Meitei language, Meitei (Manipuri) (0.14%), Bodo language, Bodo (0.13%), Dogri language, Dogri (0.01%, spoken in Jammu and Kashmir (state), Jammu and Kashmir). The largest language that is not "scheduled" is Bhili language, Bhili (0.95%), followed by Gondi language, Gondi (0.27%), Tulu language, Tulu (0.17%) and Kurukh language, Kurukh (0.099%)

Maldives

Dhivehi language, Divehi is national language of Maldives, spoken by 95% of the population. Arabic being considered as religious language and English language, English being medium of instruction for education and international purposes such as tourism.

Nepal

Most of the languages of

either fall under Indo-Aryan languages or Sino-Tibetan languages. The official language of the country is Nepali language, Nepali, earlier known as Gorkhali in the Kingdom of Nepal, and is the mother tongue of around half the population.

Pakistan

Pakistan is a linguistically diverse country it has many dozens of languages spoken as first languages. The major languages of Pakistan broadly fall under the category Indo-Iranian languages, with western regions of Pakistan (close to Iran and

) speaking Iranic languages and eastern regions (close to India) speaking Indo-Aryan languages (with the Indus River approximately dividing the families). Other language families in Pakistan include Dravidian languages, Dravidian (Brahui language, Brahui spoken in Central Balochistan, Pakistan, Balochistan), Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan languages such as Balti language, Balti and Purgi language, Purgi spoken in the north-east (In Baltistan region of Pakistan), Nuristani languages such as Kamkata-vari language, Kamkata-vari spoken in the north-west (In Chitral Kalasha language, chitral region of Pakistan), Language isolate, Language Isolate Burushaski spoken in the north (In Gilgit Division), Turkic languages are also spoken in Pakistan by a few Kyrgyz people, kyrgyz families in the North and by Refugees from Afghan refugees, Afghanistan and China. The national uniting medium of Pakistan is Urdu, a persianized register of the Hindustani language. The major native languages of Pakistan are Balochistan, Baluchi, Punjabi language, Punjabi, Sindhi language, Sindhi, Saraiki language, Saraiki, Pashto, while more than 70 other languages like Shina language, Shina, Balti language, Balti, Gujarati language, Gujarati, Bengali language, Bengali etc. are also spoken.

Sri Lanka

Sinhala language, Sinhala and Tamil language, Tamil are the official languages of Sri Lanka, with Sri Lankan English as the link language. Tamil is a South-Dravidian language, and Sinhala belongs to the Insular Indic family (along with Dhivehi language, Dhivehi of Maldives). Vedda language, Vedda is said to be the indigenous language of Sri Lanka before the arrival of the Indo-Aryans and Dravidians.

References

Data table of Census of India, 2001
*

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20081118143215/http://www.censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/Statement6.htm COMPARATIVE RANKING OF SCHEDULED LANGUAGES IN DESCENDING ORDER OF SPEAKERS' STRENGTH-1971, 1981, 1991 AND 2001]
Census data on Languages

External links

Ethnologue report

Central Institute of Indian Languages
{{Authority control Languages of South Asia,