Languages of India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians;[6][7] both families together are sometimes known as Indic languages.[8][9][10][a] Languages spoken by the remaining 2.31% of the population belong to the Austroasiatic, Sino–Tibetan, Tai–Kadai, and a few other minor language families and isolates.[11]: 283 According to the People's Linguistic Survey of India, India has the second highest number of languages (780), after Papua New Guinea (840).[12] Ethnologue lists a lower number of 456.[13]
Article 343 of the Constitution of India stated that the official language of the Union is Hindi in Devanagari script, with official use of English to continue for 15 years from 1947. In 1963, a constitutional amendment, The Official Languages Act, allowed for the continuation of English alongside Hindi in the Indian government indefinitely until legislation decides to change it.[4] The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union are "the international form of Indian numerals",[14][15] which are referred to as Arabic numerals in most English-speaking countries.[2] Despite some misconceptions, Hindi is not the national language of India; the Constitution of India does not give any language the status of national language.[16][17]
The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution lists 22 languages,[18] 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 to Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Pali, Prakrit, Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu. This status is given to languages that have a rich heritage and independent nature.[19]
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 the 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.[20] Three contact languages have played an important role in the history of India in chronological order: Sanskrit,[21] Persian[22] and English.[23] Persian was the court language during the Indo-Muslim period in India and reigned as an administrative language for several centuries until the era of British colonisation.[24] English continues to be an important language in India. It is used in higher education and in some areas of the Indian government.[citation needed]
Hindi, which has the largest number of first-language speakers in India today,[25] serves as the lingua franca across much of northern and central India. However, there have been concerns raised with Hindi being imposed in South India, most notably in the states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.[26][27] Some in Maharashtra, West Bengal, Assam, Punjab and other non-Hindi regions have also started to voice concerns about imposition of Hindi.[28] Bengali is the second most spoken and understood language in the country with a significant number of speakers in eastern and northeastern regions. Marathi is the third most spoken and understood language in the country with a significant number of speakers in the southwest,[29] followed closely by Telugu, which is most commonly spoken in southeastern areas.[30]
Hindi is the fastest growing language of India, followed by Kashmiri in the second place, with Meitei (officially called Manipuri) as well as Gujarati, in the third place, and Bengali in the fourth place, according to the 2011 census of India.[31]
According to the Ethnologue, India has 148 Sino-Tibetan, 140 Indo-European, 84 Dravidian, 32 Austro-Asiatic, 14 Andamanese, and 5 Kra-Dai languages.[32]
History
The Southern Indian languages are from the Dravidian family. The Dravidian languages are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent.[33] Proto-Dravidian languages were spoken in India in the 4th millennium BCE and started disintegrating into various branches around 3rd millennium BCE.[34] The Dravidian languages are classified in four groups: North, Central (Kolami–Parji), South-Central (Telugu–Kui), and South Dravidian (Tamil-Kannada).[35]
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 Prakrit languages and Apabhraṃśa of the Middle Ages. 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.[36]
In the Northeast India, among the Sino-Tibetan languages, Meitei language (officially known as Manipuri language) was the court language of the Manipur Kingdom (Meitei: 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 awardee Suniti Kumar Chatterji.[37][38] 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).[39][40]
Persian, or Farsi, was brought into India by the Ghaznavids and other Turko-Afghan dynasties as the court language. Culturally Persianized, they, in combination with the later Mughal dynasty (of Turco-Mongol 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.[22][41]
Each of the northern Indian languages had different influences. For example, Hindustani was strongly influenced by Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian, leading to the emergence of Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu as 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.[42][43]
Inventories
The first official survey of language diversity in the Indian subcontinent was carried out by Sir George Abraham Grierson from 1898 to 1928. Titled the Linguistic Survey of India, it reported a total of 179 languages and 544 dialects.[44] However, the results were skewed due to ambiguities in distinguishing between "dialect" and "language",[44] 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.[45]
- Sino-Tibetan (34.9%)
- Indo-European (33.01%)
- Dravidian (19.81%)
- Austroasiatic (7.54%)
- Andamanese (3.3%)
- Kra–Dai (1.17%)
- Isolates (0.23%)
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 435 tongues for India (out of 6,912 worldwide), 424 of which are living, while 11 are extinct. The 424 living languages are further subclassified in Ethnologue as follows:[46][47]
- Institutional– 45
- Stable– 248
- Endangered– 131
- Extinct– 11
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.[48]
The People of India (POI) project of Anthropological Survey of India reported 325 languages which are used for in-group communication by 5,633 Indian communities.[49]
Census of India figures
The Census of India 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.
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, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, PEPSU, and Bilaspur.[50]
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.[51] 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.[51] 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 demonyms such as "African", "Canadian" or "Belgian".[51]
The 1991 census recognises 1,576 classified mother tongues.[52] 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).[52][53]
According to the census of 2001, there are 1,635 rationalised mother tongues, 234 identifiable mother tongues and 22 major languages.[20] 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.[54] There are a few languages like Kodava that do not have a script but have a group of native speakers in Coorg (Kodagu).[55]
According to the most recent census of 2011, after thorough linguistic scrutiny, edit, and rationalization on 19,569 raw linguistic affiliations, the census recognizes 1,369 rationalized mother tongues and 1,474 names which were treated as ‘unclassified’ and relegated to ‘other’ mother tongue category.[56] Among, the 1,369 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 and the other 99 are termed as "Total of other languages" which is one short as of the other languages recognized in 2001 census.[
