The 15 main languages in India are :
Hindi : The
most important Indian language, although it is only spoken as
a mother tongue by about 20% of the population- mainly in the
area known as the Hindi-belt, the cow-belt or Bimaru –
Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. This Indic
language is the official language of the government, as well
as of the states already mentioned, plus Haryana and Himachal
Pradesh.
Assamese
State language of Assam, and spoken by nearly 60% of that state’s
population. Dated back to the 13th century.
Bengali
spoken by nearly 200 million people (mostly in what is now Bangladesh),
and the state language of West Bengal. Developed as a language
in the 13th century.
Gujarati
State language of Gujrat, Indic.
Kannada
State language of Karnataka, spoken by about 65% of that state’s
population.
Kashimiri
Kashmiri speakers account for about 55% of the population of
Jammu & Kashmir. It is an Indic language written in the
Perso-Arabic script.
Malayalam
A Dravidian language, it is the state language of Kerala.
Marathi
An Indic language dating back to around the 13th century, Marathi
is the state language of Maharashtra.
Oriya
Another Indic language, it is the state language of Orissa where
it is spoken by 87% of the population.
Punjabi
Also Indic, it is the state language of Punjba. Although based
on the same script as Hindi (Devanagari), it is written in a
16th-century script, known as Gurumukhi, which was created by
the Sikh guru, Guru Angad.
Sanskrit one
of the oldest languages in the world, and the language of classical
India. All the Vedas and classical literature such as the Mahabharata
and the Ramayana were written in this Indic language.
Sindhi
a significant number of Sindhi speakers are found in what is
now Pakistan, although the greater number are in India, In Pakistan
the language is written in a Perso-Arabic script, while in India
it uses the Devanagari script.
Tamil
An ancient Dravidian language at least 2000 years old, and the
state language of Tamil Nadu. It is spoken by at least 65 million
people.
Telugu
The Dravidian language spoken by the largest number of people,
it is the state language of Andhra Pradesh.
Urdu
Urdu is the state language of Jammu & Kashmir. Along with
Hindi it evolved in early Delhi. While Hindi was largely adopted
by the Hindi population, the Muslims embraced Urdu, and so the
latter is written in the Perso-Arabic script and includes many
Persian words.
Recently there have been moves to have
Konkani, a language spoken by
many in the Goa area, Manipuri and Nepali (Gorkhali) recognised
under the constitution.