The languages of India primarily belong to two major linguistic families, Indo-European (whose branch Indo-Aryan is spoken by about 70% of the population) and Dravidian (spoken by about 22%). Other languages spoken in India come mainly from the Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman linguistic families, as well as a few language isolates.

Map of South Asia in native languages.

Individual mother tongues in India number several hundred (SIL Ethnologue 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 have played an important role in the history of India: Persian and English.

Sanskrit and Tamil are the classical languages of India according to the Government.

The northern Indian languages from the Indo-European family evolved from Old Indo-Aryan such as Sanskrit, by way of the Middle Indo-Aryan Prakrit languages and Apabhramsha of the Middle Ages. There is no consensus for a specific time where the modern north Indian languages such as Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi,Bengali and Oriya emerged, but CE 1000 is commonly accepted. Each language had different influences, with Hindi/Urdu and closely related languages being strongly influenced by Persian and Arabic. The South Indian (Dravidian) languages had a history independent of Sanskrit. However in later stages all the Dravidian languages had been heavily influenced by Sanskrit. The major Dravidian languages are Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam.

Language families

The languages of India may be grouped by major language families. The largest of these in terms of speakers is the Indo-European 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. The second largest is the Dravidian family, accounting for some 200 million speakers. Minor linguistic families include the Munda and Tibeto-Burman families (with some 9 and 6 million speakers, respectively). There is also a language isolate, the Nihali language.

Classical languages of India

Two classical languages, Tamil and Sanskrit, originated in India. By a formal Declaration of the Indian government, Tamil and Sanskrit are the recognized as Classical Languages of India. In the mid-19th century, Indologists referred to Paninian Sanskrit as "classical Sanskrit," distinguishing it from the older Vedic language. Robert Caldwell, the first linguist to systematically study the Dravidian languages as a family, used the term "classical" to distinguish the literary forms of Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, and Kannada, from the diglossic colloquial forms. In the second half of the 20th century, academics began to suggest that the Old Tamil poems of the Sangam anthologies were also "classical" in the sense that they shared many features with literatures commonly accepted as classical. This point, first made by Kamil Zvelebil in the 1970s, has since been supported by a number of other scholars, and the terminology "classical Tamil" is commonly used in historical literature to refer to texts from that period. Martha Ann Selby argues that if classicality is defined with reference to age and the value a literature has within the tradition it represents, the Tamil poetry of the Sangam anthologies and the Maharashtri poems of the Sattisai are "classical", in addition to Sanskrit literature.

In 2004, a new category was created by constitutional decree under which languages that met certain requirements could be accorded the status of a 'classical' in India.[15] With the creation of this category, Tamil and, a year later, Sanskrit, have been accorded the status. More languages are being considered to be added to the list. Experts consulted by the government and the Sahitya Academy of India, a literary body, recommended against awarding the tag to any language. Dr. George Hart, a Professor of Tamil at the University of California-Berkeley, supported classifying Tamil as a classical language.

Official Languages

Main article: Official languages of India

Article 346 of the Indian Constitution recognises Hindi in Devanagari script as the official language of central government India. The Constitution also allows for the continuation of use of the English language for official purposes. Article 345 provides constitutional recognition to "official languages" of the union to include any language adopted by a state legislature as the official language of that state. In effect, there are "official languages" at the state and center level but no one "national language". Until the Twenty-First Amendment of the Constitution in 1967, the country recognised 14 official regional languages. The Eighth Schedule and the Seventy-First Amendment provided for the inclusion of Sindhi, Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali, thereby increasing the number of official regional languages of India to 18 . Individual states, whose borders are mostly drawn on socio-linguistic lines, are free to decide their own language for internal administration and education. In 2004, the government elevated Tamil. to the newly created official status of "Classical Language", followed by Sanskrit in 2005. The Constitution of India recognises 22 languages, spoken in different parts the country, namely Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Meitei, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. Hindi is a official language of the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttaranchal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Tamil is a official language of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Andamon nicobar islands. Telugu is the official language of Andhra Pradesh. English is the co-official language of the Indian Union, and each of the several states mentioned above may also have another co-official language.

Writing systems

Main articles: Indic scripts and Nasta'liq script

Indian languages have corresponding distinct alphabets. The two major families are those of the Dravidian languages and those of the Indo-Aryan languages, the former largely confined to the south and the latter to the north. Urdu and sometimes Kashmiri, Sindhi and Panjabi are written in modified versions of the Arabic script. Except for these languages, the alphabets of Indian languages are native to India. Most scholars consider these Indic scripts a distant offshoot of the Aramaic alphabet, although there are differing opinions.

Romanization

Inventories

Linguists generally distinguish the terms "language" and "dialects" on the basis of 'mutual comprehension'. The Indian census uses two specific classifications in its own unique way: 'language' and '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 specially 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" SIL Ethnologue 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).

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.

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 with some 9.6 million native speakers (ranked 14th), followed by Santali with 6.5 million speakers (ranked 15th), Gondi with 2.7 million speakers(ranked 18th) and Khandesi 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 reason 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.