2. National Languages and
Linguistic Diversity
English (associate official)
Hindi (in the Devanagiri script)
The Indian Constitution also
officially recognizes 22 regional
languages. But around 33 different
languages and 2000 dialects have
been identified in India.
4. Languages Official Language of Spoken by
Bengali Tripura & West Bengal 67 million
Dogri Jammu and Kashmir
Dadra and Nagar Haeli, Daman and Diu
Gujarati 43 million
& Gujrat
Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Bihar,
Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi,
Hindi Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, 180 million
Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar
Pradesh & Uttaranchal
Kannada Karnataka 35 million
Konkani Goa
Maithili Bihar 22 million
Malayalam Kerala & Lakshadweep 34 million
Marathi Maharashtra 65 million
Nepali Sikkim
Oriya Orissa 30 million
Punjabi Punjab 26 million
Tamil Tamil Nadu & Pondicherry 66 million
Telugu Andhra Pradesh 70 million
Urdu Jammu and Kashmir 46 million
5. Indo-European
Sanskrit, the classical language of India,
represents the highest achievement of the
Indo-Aryan Languages.
The beginning of Sanskrit literature may be
traced back to Rig Vedic period.
It is the oldest literary language of India, which
is more than 5,000 years old and the basis of
many modern Indian languages including Hindi
and Urdu.
6. Devanagari alphabet
The Nāgarī or Devanāgarī alphabet descendeds
from the Brahmi script sometime around the 11th
century AD. It was originally developed to write
Sanskrit but was later adapted to write many
other languages.
The name Devanāgarī is made up of two
Sanskrit words: deva, which means god,
brahman or celestial, and nāgarī, which means
city. The name is variously translated as quot;script of
the cityquot;, quot;heavenly/sacred script of the city“.
7. Devanagari alphabet
Notable Features
Type of writing system: alphasyllabary
Direction of writing: left to right in horizontal lines.
Consonant letters carry an inherent vowel which
can be altered or muted by means of diacritics or
matra.
Vowels can be written as independent letters, or
by using a variety of diacritical marks which are
written above, below, before or after the
consonant they belong to. This feature is
common to most of the alphabets of South and
South East Asia.
