India is a country of different and contrasting cultures and

its linguistic chart is just as diverse. There is no such thing

as the Indian Language, as there are 17 recognized major regional
languages in India.
According

to

the

Constitution

of

India,

there

are

22

recognized national languages at the moment. The Eighth Schedule,

which

contains

the

official

list

of

the

Indian

languages,

originally included 14 acknowledged languages. The 22 recognized

languages

are

as

follows:

Assamesse,

Bengali,

Bodo,

Dogri,

Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam,

Manipuri

(sometimes

called

Meitei),

Marathi,

Nepali,

Oriya,

Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. The

official languages of the Union of India are Hindi and English.
In different parts of India, different languages are spoken.
Most of the languages of India belong to two families, the IndoAryan

languages

spoken

by

75%

of

Indians

and

the

Dravidian

languages spoken by 20% of Indians.

The Indo-Aryan language family is the largest of the
language families. This language family dominates, as per data
collated during the Census of 2001.The most widely spoken
languages of this group are Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Urdu,

Gujarati, Punjabi, Assamese and Oriya. The second largest

language family is the Dravidian language family. The Dravidian
languages are spoken mainly in southern India and parts of
eastern and central India as well as in parts of northeastern Sri
Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. Dravidian languages are
also spoken by small organized tribe communities, such as the
Oraon and Gond tribe. Hindi belongs to the Indo-Aryan language
family and is a direct descendant of Sanskrit which is recognized
as a so-called classical language of India. Hindi is the most
commonly spoken language in India and is also the official
language of most states including Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana,
Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan,
Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and the National Capital, Delhi. It is
spoken by more than 150 million people in India.
The accents and dialects are different from region to
region, state to state but Hindi is the most popular second
language after English. The Hindi language is written in
Devanagari script.
Families with smaller numbers of speakers are Austroasiatic
and numerous small Tibeto-Burman languages, with some 10 and 6
million speakers, respectively, together 5% of the population.

The Austroasiatic language family is derived from the word

austro meaning South. Austroasiatic languages of mainland India
are

the

Khasi

and

Munda

languages,

including

Tibeto-Burman languages, a subfamily of

Santhali.

The

Sino-Tibetan language

family, comprising those languages of that language family not

related to Chinese, are well represented in India. Tibeto-Burman
languages are spoken across the Himalayas in the regions of
Ladakh,

Himachal

Pradesh,

Nepal,

Sikkim,

Bhutan,

Arunachal

Pradesh, and also in the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam,

Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura and Mizoram. Tibeto-Burman
languages spoken in India include Karbi, Meitei, Lepcha, as well
as many varieties of several related Tibetic, West Himalayish,
Tani,

Brahmaputran,

AngamiPochuri,

Tangkhul,

Zeme,

Kukish

language groups, amongst many others.

The languages spoken in present India, evolved in different
phases of Indian history. The holy books of different religions
that

developed

in

ancient

India

are

written

in

different

languages. The holy books of Hinduism were written Sanskrit. The

holy books of Buddhism were written in Pali. The holy books of
Jainism

were

written

in

Ardhamaghadi.

These

three

languages

arent spoken fluently in India today, but Sanskrit is recognized

as one of the official languages of India. The modern Aryan

languages

are

considered

to

have

evolved

from

Sanskrit.

The

evolvement of south Indian languages isnt clear. Many believe

that before the arrival of the Aryans, Dravidian languages were
spoken over all India.
English has a special role in India as it is the co-official
language of the Constitution. One can say that in India everybody
speaks English. The use of English in India began in the colonial
times

when

language

it

of

was

the

the

Raj

language

and

today,

of

the

English

political
still

power,

carries

the

great

prestige and symbolizes advancement in the eye of the Indians.

Moreover, it is not far from the truth that English is actually
the official language of India in the practical sense. It is the
language of the government, the media, the education and the
elite, and it also appears useful by reason of job opportunities
and

as

medium

language

in

country

where

people

speak

thousands of different languages. Traffic signs in India are

usually bilingual; they give information in both English and the
local language, so do the numbers.