IN
Republic of India
India
Summary
India is a country in Asia that is home to 1,417,173,000 people. It is also home to 424 living indigenous languages. One of these, Hindi, is an official language of the country. Others—Assamese, Bengali, Eastern Punjabi, Garo, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Khasi, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Meitei, Nepali, Odia, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu—are official languages in parts of the country. India was also home to 11 indigenous languages that are now extinct. In addition, 30 living non-indigenous languages are established within the country. One of these, English, is also an official language of the country. In formal education, 27 indigenous languages are used as languages of instruction.
At a Glance
Country Digest
Ethnologue: Languages of India is a downloadable PDF document that provides detailed language summaries and analysis presented in formats not available in the online version of Ethnologue. It includes:
- Comprehensive country overview.
- Statistical summaries by language status, size, and family.
- Alphabetical listing of languages in the country, with in-depth language descriptions.
- Full-color language map(s) for visual reference.
- Listings by population, status, family, and region.
- Indexes of ISO 639 codes and alternate language names.
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Indigenous Languages
Families
The indigenous languages of India belong to the following families.
Sino-Tibetan (149) Indo-European (141) Dravidian (84) Austro-Asiatic (32) Andamanese (14) Kra-Dai (5) Creole (4) Sign language (2) Language isolate (1) Mixed language (1) Pidgin (1) Unclassified (1)
Language Policy Conventions
India has adopted the following international conventions which speak to indigenous language rights.