Languages of India

Languages of India

The foundations of Hindi lie in the 5000-year-old tongue of the Aryan immigrants, Sanskrit. Hindi borrows flavors from Dravidian, Turkish, Arabic, Portuguese and English. A richly expressive and simple language, the language of poetry and songs. Hindi is also the mother tongue of about 20% of the Indian population. English language is the commonly used official language of India. It enjoys a special status and remains the additional official language. India has 22 languages which have been given the grade of National Languages.

  • Business language - English
  • Official language - Hindi & English
  • Other languages - Sindhi, Sanskrit
  • Vedic language - Sanskrit
State Language Spoken
Andaman & Nicobar Islands Andamanese
Andhra Pradesh  Telugu, Hyderabad city - Telugu plus Urdu
Arunachal Pradesh Bengali Nepali, Hindi,Assamese
Assam  Assamese
Bihar  Hindi, Bhojpuri, Maithini, Santhali, Angika, numerous others, Bengali, Urdu
Chhattisgarh Hindi, Bengali and Oriya
Dadra and Nagar Haveli Gujarati Hindi, Konkani, Marathi
Daman and Diu Gujarati Hindi, Marathi
Delhi  Hindi, English, Punjabi & numerous others
Gujarat  Gujarati
Goa  Konkani
Haryana  Hindi, Haryanvi
Himanchal Pradesh  Hindi, Pahadi
Jammu & Kashmir  Dogri, Kashmiri, Ladakhi, Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi
Jharkhand Santhali, Mundari, Kurukh, Khortha, Nagpuria, Sadri, Khariya, Panchparagnia, Ho, Malto, Karmali, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali
Karnataka  Kannad
Kerala  Malayalam
Lakshadweep Islands Malayalam
Madhya Pradesh  Hindi, Urdu
Maharashtra  Hindi, Marathi
Meghalaya  Garo, Khasi
Manipur Manipuri, Nepali, Hindi, Bengali
Mizoram  Mizo
Nagaland  Naga
Orissa  Oriya
Puducherry Tamil Telugu, Kannada, Urdu
Punjab  Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu
Rajasthan  Hindi, Rajasthani, Marwadi and urdu
Sikkim  Nepali, Lepcha, Bhutia
Tamil Nadu  Tamil
Tripura  Tripuri, Bengali, Kuki
Uttar Pradesh  Hindi, Brijbhasha, Pahadi, Avadhi, Bhojpuri,Urdu and  numerous others
Uttrakhand Hindi Urdu, Punjabi and Nepali

The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity is of wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either.
- - Sir William Jones (English scholar).

In philology, our Sanskrit language is now universally acknowledged to be the foundation of all European languages, which, in fact, are nothing but jargonized Sanskrit.
- Swami Vivekananda.