Language in India

India is rich in languages. There are a quite a number of languages spoken in India. Some of these languages are accepted nationally while others are accepted as dialects of that particular region.

The Indian languages belong to four language families namely Indo-European, Dravidian, Austroasiatic (Austric) and Sino-Tibetan. Majority of India's population are using Indo-European and Dravidian languages. The former are spoken mainly in northern and central regions and the latter in southern India. Some ethnic groups in Assam and other parts of eastern India speak Austric languages. People in the northern Himalayan region and near the Burmese border speak Sino-Tibetan languages.

The written forms of language or scripts come from an ancient Indian script called Brahmi.

India has 22 officially recognised languages. But around 33 different languages and 2000 dialects have been identified in India. Hindi, in the Devanagari script is the official language of the Federal government of India. English is an associate official language. Sanskrit, the classical language of India, represents the highest achievement of the Indo-Aryan Languages. The beginning of Sanskrit literature may be traced back to Rig Vedic period. It is the oldest literary language of India, which is more than 5,000 years old and the basis of many modern Indian languages including Hindi and Urdu. Its earliest dialect form, Vedic was spoken by the Aryans. All the classical literature and the Indian epics have been written in Sanskrit.

Languages	Official Language of	Spoken by
Assamese	Assam	15 million
Bengali	Tripura & West Bengal	67 million
Bodo	Assam
Dogri	Jammu and Kashmir
Gujarati	Dadra and Nagar Haeli, Daman and Diu & Gujrat	43 million
Hindi	Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Bihar, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh & Uttaranchal	180 million
Kannada	Karnataka	35 million
Kashmiri
Konkani	Goa
Maithili	Bihar	22 million
Malayalam	Kerala & Lakshadweep	34 million
Manipuri (Meithei)	Manipur
Marathi	Maharashtra	65 million
Nepali	Sikkim
Oriya	Orissa	30 million
Punjabi	Punjab	26 million
Sanskrit
Santhali
Sindhi
Tamil	Tamil Nadu & Pondicherry	66 million
Telugu	Andhra Pradesh	70 million
Urdu	Jammu and Kashmir	46 million

List of other languages of India

Languages	Language of	Spoken by
Awadhi (sub-variety of Hindi)		20 million
Bhili	Bhil tribals
Bhojpuri (sub-variety of Hindi)	Bihar	23 million
Bundeli (sub-variety of Hindi)
Chhattisgarhi (sub-variety of Hindi)	Chhattisgarh	11 million
Deccani		11 million
Gondi	Gond tribals
Haryanvi (sub-variety of Hindi)	Haryana	13 million
Hindustani (mixture of Hindi and Urdu)	Northern part of India
Kanauji (sub-variety of Hindi)	Uttar Pradesh
Kodava	Kodagu (Karnataka)
Kutchi	Kutch (Gujarat)
Magahi (sub-variety of Hindi)	southern Bihar	11 million
Marwari (sub-variety of Hindi)	Rajasthan	12 million
Portuguese	Partly in Goa, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli
Sikkimese	Sikkim
Tibetan	Tibet (Kashmir)	6 million
Tulu	Tulu people (Karnataka & Kerala)