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Languages & Religions |
| Indian Languages & Religions |
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India - a land as large as a sub continent
is bound to have many languages and the number of languages
in India justifies its size. There are 15 official languages
and hundreds of local dialects. Such a plethora of languages
make an average Indian a linguist. On an average, every Indian
speaks two languages and in cosmopolitan cities like Mumbai,
Delhi and Bangalore people can speak up to three languages.
Indian languages are grouped under two families - Dravidian
and Indo-European. All the south Indian languages are grouped
under Dravidian family. Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada
are spoken in the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala
and Karnataka respectively. The languages are different but
resemble in having rounded alphabets. They have many Sanskrit
words in their vocabulary, but their grammar is entirely different.
On the other hand Hindi, the language spoken all over north
India and in some parts of east India, belongs to the Indo European
family of languages. It has evolved from various transitional
forms of Sanskrit over a long period of time. Being the national
language it is widely spoken all over India, but it is more
prominent in the northern parts of the country. Other languages
like Punjabi, Gujarati, Garhwali, etc are modified forms of
Hindi, which are evolved by mixing the local dialects.
Apart from the widely spoken Indo-European and Dravidian languages
there are lesser-spoken Mon-Khmer and Sino-Tibetan languages,
which account for 2% of the total population. These are mostly
spoken in the Northeastern India.
One will be surprised to see so many languages existing together.
More surprising are the common factors in these languages. Many
languages not only share vocabulary with each other but also
share the script. Hindi and Marathi (spoken in Maharashtra)
have a common script. Bengali and Assamese too share a common
script.
All the Indian languages are written left to right except those
written in Persian scripts (Urdu & Kashmiri).
A list of languages as spoken in the respective States -
| Andhra Pradesh |
Telugu & Urdu (in Hyderabad) |
| Assam |
Assamese |
| Bihar |
Hindi, Bhojpuri, Maithili, Santhali &
Bengali |
| Delhi |
Hindi, Punjabi & English |
| Goa |
Konkani, Marathi , Hindi, English &
Portuguese |
| Gujarat |
Gujarati |
| Punjab & Haryana |
Hindi, Punjabi, Haryanvi & Urdu |
| Himachal Pradesh |
Hindi & Pahari |
| Jammu & Kashmir |
Dogri, Kashmiri, Ladakhi, Punjabi, Urdu,
Hindi & Tibetan |
| Karnataka |
Kannada |
| Kerala |
Malayalam |
| Madhya Pradesh |
Hindi & Urdu |
| Maharashtra |
Marathi, Gujarati & Hindi |
| Orissa |
Oriya |
| Rajasthan |
Hindi, Rajasthani, Marwari & Urdu |
| Sikkim |
Sikkimese, Nepalese |
| Tamil Nadu |
Tamil |
| Uttar Pradesh |
Hindi, Brijbhasha, Avadhi, Bhojpuri &
Urdu |
| Uttaranchal |
Garhwali, Kumaoni & Hindi |
| West Bengal |
Bengali, Urdu & Nepalese |
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