The languages of India belong to several major linguistic families A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term comes from the Tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a biological family tree or in a subsequent modification to species in a, the two largest being the Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and Southern Asia, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia. With written attestations appearing since the Bronze Age, in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean—Indo-Aryan Geographical distribution of the major Indo-Aryan languages (spoken by 70% of Indians)—and the Dravidian languages The Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 85 languages, spoken by around 200 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and overseas in other countries such as Malaysia and Singapore. Among them (spoken by 22% of Indians). Other languages spoken in India come mainly from the Austro-Asiatic The Austro-Asiatic languages are a large language family of Southeast Asia, and also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. The name comes from the Latin word for "south" and the Greek name of Asia, hence "South Asia." Among these languages, only Khmer, Vietnamese, and Mon have a long established recorded history, and only and Tibeto-Burman The Tibeto-Burman family of languages is spoken in various central, east, south and southeast Asian countries, including Burma (Myanmar), Tibet, northern Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, parts of central China (Guizhou and Hunan), northern mountains and middle hills of Nepal, eastern parts of Bangladesh (Chittagong Division), Bhutan, northern parts of linguistic families, in addition to a few language isolates A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single language. Commonly cited examples include Basque,.[1]
The principal official language An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a language a legal status, even if that language is not of the Republic of India Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four major religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated here, while Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam is Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: हिन्दी or हिंदी, IAST: Hindī, IPA: [ˈɦɪndiː] ) is the name given to various Indo-Aryan languages, dialects, and language registers spoken in northern and central India, Pakistan, Fiji, Mauritius, and Suriname. Standard Hindi is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India, one of the official language while English is the secondary official language.[2] The constitution of India states that "The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari Devanagari , also called Nagari (Nāgarī, the name of its parent writing system), is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It is written from left to right, does not have distinct letter cases, and is recognizable by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together. Devanāgarī is the main script script."[3] Neither the Constitution of India nor Indian law specifies a National language, a position supported by a High Court ruling.[4] However, languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian constitution are sometimes referred to, without legal standing, as the national languages of India.[5][6]
Individual mother tongues A first language is the language a human being learns from birth. The term is also used for the language that the speaker speaks best. In either case, a person's first language is a basis for sociolinguistic identity in India number several hundred;[7] the 1961 census recognized 1,652[8] (SIL Ethnologue Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, primarily to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language lists 415). According to Census of India of 2001, 29 languages are spoken by more than a million native speakers, 122 by more than 10,000. Three millennia of language contact has led to significant mutual influence among the four language families in India and South Asia. Two contact languages A lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues have played an important role in the history of India The history of India begins with evidence of human activity of Homo sapiens as long as 75,000 years ago hominids from about 500,000 years ago. The Indus Valley Civilization, which spread and flourished in the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent from c. 3300 to 1300 BCE, was the first major civilization in India. A sophisticated and: Persian Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq, Bahrain, and Oman. New Persian, which usually is called also by the names of Farsi, Parsi, Dari or Parsi-ye-Dari (Dari Persian), can be classified linguistically and English.[9]
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History
Hindi speaking regions in the vicinity of India Main article: Linguistic history of India Originating over 5,000 years ago, records of the linguistic history of India began with early pictures that transformed into pictorial scripts and engravings and eventually to modern orthographies. Ancient documents and linguistic reconstruction also assist in the understanding of the evolution from early proto-languages to the modern IndianThe northern Indian languages from the Indo-European family The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and Southern Asia, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia. With written attestations appearing since the Bronze Age, in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean evolved from Old Indo-Aryan Geographical distribution of the major Indo-Aryan languages such as Sanskrit Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism and Buddhism[note 1]. Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand, by way of the Middle Indo-Aryan The Middle Indo-Aryan languages are the early medieval dialects of the Indo-Aryan languages, the descendants of the Old Indo-Aryan dialects such as Sanskrit, and the predecessors of the late medieval languages such as Apabhramsha or Abahatta, which eventually evolved into the contemporary Indo-Aryan languages, including Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu), Prakrit Prakrit (Sanskrit: prākṛta प्राकृत (from pra-kṛti प्रकृति)) is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word, derived from its indian root "Parikrit", itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, languages and Apabhraṃśa of the Middle Ages The Middle Ages is a period of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The period followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and preceded the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period in a three-period division of history: Classical, Medieval, and Modern. The term "Middle Ages" (medium aevum) was coined in. There is no consensus for a specific time where the modern north Indian languages such as Gujarati Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is native to the Indian state of Gujarat, and is its chief language, as well as of the adjacent union territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: हिन्दी or हिंदी, IAST: Hindī, IPA: [ˈɦɪndiː] ) is the name given to various Indo-Aryan languages, dialects, and language registers spoken in northern and central India, Pakistan, Fiji, Mauritius, and Suriname. Standard Hindi is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India, one of the official language, Marathi Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are 90 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi is the 4th most spoken language in India and the 15th most spoken language in the world. Marathi is the oldest of the regional literatures in, Saraiki Sarāikī , sometimes spelled Siraiki and Seraiki, is a standardized written language of Pakistan belonging to the Indo-Aryan (Indic) languages. Sarāikī is based on a group of vernacular, historically unwritten dialects spoken by over 34 million people across the southern more than half of Punjab Province, the adjacent border region of Sindh, Punjabi Punjabi or Panjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region (in Pakistan and north western India), Sindhi Sindhi is the language of the Sindh region of Pakistan. It is spoken by an estimated 34,410,910 people in Pakistan. It is the third most spoken language in all of Pakistan and is the official language of the province of Sindh. It is also spoken in India by some 2,820,485 speakers. The government of Pakistan issues national identity cards to its, Bengali Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script. With nearly 230 million total speakers, Bengali is one of the, Oriya Oriya or Odia is an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. It is mainly spoken in the Indian state of Orissa. The language is also one of the many official languages in India and Assamese Assamese (IPA: [ɔxɔmija]) is the easternmost Indo-Aryan language. It is used mainly in the state of Assam in North-East India. It is also the official language of Assam. It is also spoken in parts of Arunachal Pradesh and other northeast Indian states. Small pockets of Assamese speakers can be found in Bhutan. The easternmost of Indo-European emerged, but AD 1000 is commonly accepted.[10] Each language had different influences, with Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: हिन्दी or हिंदी, IAST: Hindī, IPA: [ˈɦɪndiː] ) is the name given to various Indo-Aryan languages, dialects, and language registers spoken in northern and central India, Pakistan, Fiji, Mauritius, and Suriname. Standard Hindi is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India, one of the official language/Urdu Urdu (Urdu: اردو, IPA: [ˈʊrduː] ) is the national language and one of the two official languages of Pakistan (the other being English), and one of 22 scheduled languages of India, as an official language of five Indian states. Based on the Hindi dialect of Delhi, its vocabulary developed under Persian and Turkic influence over the course of and closely related Hindustani Hindustani , Hindostani or Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language that spans several closely related dialects in northern India and Pakistan. Hindustani is sometimes considered the lingua franca of India and Pakistan languages being strongly influenced by Persian Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq, Bahrain, and Oman. New Persian, which usually is called also by the names of Farsi, Parsi, Dari or Parsi-ye-Dari (Dari Persian), can be classified linguistically.
The Dravidian languages The Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 85 languages, spoken by around 200 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and overseas in other countries such as Malaysia and Singapore. Among them of South India Southern India, also known as the Dravida in the Indian anthem, is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area. South India lies in the peninsular Deccan Plateau and is bounded by the Arabian Sea in the had a history independent of Sanskrit. The major Dravidian languages are Tamil Tamil (தமிழ் tamiḻ; [t̪ɐmɨɻ] ) is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Puducherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore. It is one of the twenty-two scheduled, Telugu Telugu is a Dravidian language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is the official language of Andhra Pradesh, one of the largest states of India. It is also one of the twenty-two scheduled languages of the Republic of India and was conferred the status of a Classical language by the Government of India. The mother tongue of the majority of, Kannada Kannada is one of the major Dravidian languages of India, spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas (ಕನ್ನಡಿಗರು Kannadigaru), number roughly 38 million, making it the 27th most spoken language in the world. It is one of the scheduled languages of India and the official and and Malayalam Malayalam (മലയാളം malayāḷam, pronounced [mɐləjaːɭɐm]), also known as Kairali (കൈരളി kairaḷi), is one of the four major Dravidian languages of southern India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Mahé. It is.[11] A matter of note is that though Dravidian in origin, around eighty percentage of Malayalam words are taken from Sanskrit.[12] The Austro-Asiatic The Austro-Asiatic languages are a large language family of Southeast Asia, and also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. The name comes from the Latin word for "south" and the Greek name of Asia, hence "South Asia." Among these languages, only Khmer, Vietnamese, and Mon have a long established recorded history, and only and Tibeto-Burman languages The Tibeto-Burman family of languages is spoken in various central, east, south and southeast Asian countries, including Burma (Myanmar), Tibet, northern Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, parts of central China (Guizhou and Hunan), northern mountains and middle hills of Nepal, eastern parts of Bangladesh (Chittagong Division), Bhutan, northern parts of of North-East India Northeast India refers to the easternmost region of India consisting of the contiguous Seven Sister States, Sikkim, and parts of North Bengal . Northeast India is ethnically distinct from the other states of India. Linguistically the region is distinguished by a preponderance of Tibeto-Burman languages. Strong ethnic cultures that had escaped also have long independent histories.
Inventories
Main articles: Official languages of India The official language of the Union is Hindi with English as a secondary official language; states in India can legislate their own official languages. Neither the Constitution of India, nor any Indian law defines any national language and List of Indian languages by total speakersLinguists generally distinguish the terms "language" and "dialects" on the basis of 'mutual comprehension'[dubious – discuss]. The Indian census uses two specific classifications in its own unique way: (1)'language' and (2) 'mother tongue'. The 'mother tongues' are grouped within each 'language'. Many 'mother tongues' so defined would 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 is officially grouped under the 'language' Hindi.
The Indian census of 1961 recognised 1,652 different languages in India (including languages not native to the subcontinent). The 1991 census recognizes 1,576 classified "mother tongues"[13] SIL Ethnologue Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, primarily to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language lists 415 living "Languages of India" (out of 6,912 worldwide).
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).[13]
According to the most recent census of 2001, 29 'languages' have more than a million native speakers, 60 have more than 100,000 and 122 have more than 10,000 native speakers.
The government of India has given 22 "languages of the 8th Schedule" the status of official language. The number of languages given this status has increased through the political process. Some languages with a large number of speakers still do not have this status, the largest of these being Bhili/Bhiladi Bhili is a Western Indo-Aryan language spoken in west-central India, in the region east of Ahmedabad. Other names for the language include Bhagoria, Bhil, Bhilbari, Bhilboli, Bhilla, Lengotia, and Vil. Bhili is a member of the Bhil language family, which is related to Gujarati and the Rajasthani language. The language is written using a variation with some 9.6 million native speakers (ranked 14th), followed by Gondi with 2.7 million speakers (ranked 18th) and Khandeshi with 2.1 million speakers (ranked 22nd). On the other hand, 2 languages with fewer than 2 million native speakers have recently been included in the 8th Schedule for mostly political reasons: Manipuri/Maithei with 1.5 million speakers (ranked 25th) and Bodo with 1.4 million speakers (ranked 26th). For cultural/historical reasons Sanskrit is on the official schedule, though only 14 thousand people claim it to be their language, but many more study it in school as the classical language of India.
Language families
The languages of India may be grouped by major language families A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term comes from the Tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a biological family tree or in a subsequent modification to species in a. The largest of these in terms of speakers is the Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and Southern Asia, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia. With written attestations appearing since the Bronze Age, in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean family, predominantly represented in its Indo-Aryan branch (accounting for some 700 million speakers), but also including minority languages such as Persian, Portuguese or French, and English as lingua franca. Kashmiri, and other Dardic languages, which form part of the Indo-Iranian, and arguably Indo-Aryan family, have some 4.6 million speakers in India. The second largest language family is the Dravidian family, accounting for some 200 million speakers. Minor linguistic families include the Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman families (with some 10 and 6 million speakers, respectively). The group of Great Andamanese languages are considered to constitute a fifth language family; these languages are highly endangered with dwindling number of speakers. There is also a language isolate, the Nihali language. Today the Republic of India has about 69% of languages spoken in the country are Indo-Iranian (sub-branch: Indo-Aryan), 26% are Dravidian, and 5% are Sino-Tibetan and Austro-Asiatic, all unrelated/distinct family of languages. Most languages in the Indian republic are written in Brahmi-derived scripts such as Devangari, Gurmukhi, Tamil, etc. Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Tulu, Kodava, Tamil, Malayalam, Assamese, Punjabi, Naga, and many others are the mother-tongue languages spoken in various provices of India.
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Compare the scripts of these languages
Aamba
hu, 13 May 2010 12:46:00 GM
India. has many, many, many . languages. as well as many dialects. Some use the devanagari script of Sanskrit and others use completely different scripts and some use a variation of devanagari. Sanskrit is not my specialty. ...
