. Most Indians speak a language
belonging to the families of the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European (ca. 74%), the Dravidian (ca. 24%), the Austroasiatic (Munda) (ca. 1.2%), or the Tibeto-Burman (ca. 0.6%), with some languages of the Himalayas still unclassified.
The ancient northern Indian languages generated from the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family influenced by Old Indic by way of the Middle IndicPrakrit languages and Apabhraṃśa of the Middle Ages. It is difficult to identify the specific
period where the modern north Indian languages such as Hindustani, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sindhi and Oriya emerged, but AD 1000 is widely accepted. Each language had different
influences, with Hindustani strongly influenced by Sanskrit and Persian. It is claimed Oriya is the only classical
language from this language family and it is least influenced by any foreign
language.Again the Dravidian languages of South India had a history independent of Sanskrit. The major Dravidian languages are Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Tulu.Though Malayalam and Telugu are Dravidian in origin, but influence of Sanskrit is very much.
The terms "language" and "dialect" are distinguished by experts on the basis of mutual intelligibility. The Indian census uses two specific classifications in its own unique way: (1) 'language' and (2) 'mother tongue’.
According to the 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.
: Ordered by number of native
speakers
|
||||||
Rank
|
Language
|
2001
census[2]
(total population 1,028,610,328 ) |
||||
Speakers
|
Percentage
|
|||||
1
|
422,048,642
|
41.03%
|
||||
2
|
83,369,769
|
8.11%
|
||||
3
|
74,002,856
|
7.19%
|
||||
4
|
71,936,894
|
6.99%
|
||||
5
|
60,793,814
|
5.91%
|
||||
6
|
51,536,111
|
5.01%
|
||||
7
|
46,091,617
|
4.48%
|
||||
8
|
37,924,011
|
3.69%
|
||||
9
|
33,066,392
|
3.21%
|
||||
10
|
33,017,446
|
3.21%
|
||||
11
|
29,102,477
|
2.83%
|
||||
12
|
13,168,484
|
1.28%
|
||||
13
|
12,179,122
|
1.18%
|
14
|
9,582,957
|
0.93%
|
||||||||||
15
|
6,469,600
|
0.63%
|
|
|
|
|||||||
16
|
5,527,698
|
0.54%
|
|
|
|
|||||||
17
|
2,871,749
|
0.28%
|
|
|
|
|||||||
18
|
2,713,790
|
0.26%
|
|
|
|
|||||||
19
|
2,535,485
|
0.25%
|
|
|
|
|||||||
20
|
2,489,015
|
0.24%
|
|
|
|
|||||||
21
|
2,282,589
|
0.22%
|
|
|
|
|||||||
22
|
2,075,258
|
0.21%
|
|
|
|
|||||||
23
|
1,751,489
|
0.17%
|
|
|
|
|||||||
24
|
1,722,768
|
0.17%
|
|
|
|
|||||||
25
|
1,466,705*
|
0.14%
|
|
|
|
|||||||
26
|
1,350,478
|
0.13%
|
|
|
|
|||||||
27
|
1,128,575
|
0.11%
|
||||||||||
28
|
1,061,352
|
0.103%
|
||||||||||
29
|
1,042,724
|
0.101%
|
||||||||||
100,000
to one million speakers
Rank
|
Language
|
2001 census
|
|
Speakers
|
Percentage
|
||
30
|
916,222
|
||
31
|
889,479
|
||
32
|
854,023
|
||
33
|
674,756
|
||
34
|
593,443
|
||
35
|
574,481
|
||
36
|
469,357
|
||
37
|
390,583
|
0.047%
|
|
38
|
366,229
|
0.044%
|
|
39
|
310,000
|
0.037%
|
|
40
|
273,168
|
0.033%
|
|
41
|
270,994
|
0.032%
|
|
42
|
226,449
|
0.027%
|
|
43
|
225,556
|
0.027%
|
|
44
|
220,783
|
0.026%
|
|
45
|
173,791
|
0.021%
|
|
46
|
172,449
|
0.021%
|
|
50
|
166,157
|
0.020%
|
|
51
|
162,088
|
0.019%
|
|
52
|
158,409
|
0.019%
|
|
53
|
139,365
|
0.017%
|
|
54
|
137,722
|
0.016%
|
|
55
|
108,148
|
0.013%
|
|
56
|
107,992
|
0.013%
|
|
57
|
101,841
|
0.012%
|