Language is by far the most viable means of communication and survival in any climate on Earth. Without languages, the world would be a dead place, without progress and without communication, and the fruit of such imagination is unlimited. As we know, India has great linguistic diversity, with some of the top spoken languages. More than 9,500 languages are recognized as native languages. There are a total of 121 languages spoken by over 10,000 people. Such is the diversity and wealth of languages and dialects that the Indian Constitution alone has recognized 22 languages under the eighth schedule. Top 10 Spoken Languages in India.
Bengali
Bengali is one of the top 10 spoken languages in India. It is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by around 200 million people, mainly in Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura.
Although Bengali is an Indo-European language, it has been influenced by other dominant language families in South Asia, most notably the Dravidian, Austroasiatic, and Tibeto-Burman families, all of which have contributed to Bengali vocabulary and given structural forms to the language.
There are two standard styles in Bengali: Sadhubhasa and Chaltibhasa. It is also the only language in which the national anthems of both countries were written, a language enriched with noble thoughts by great thinkers and humanists. The Bengali language evolved over 1,300 years ago.
Bengali literature, with its thousand-year literary history, developed extensively during the Bengali Renaissance and is one of Asia’s most prolific and diverse literary traditions. Today, about 97 million Bengali speakers in India make up 8% of the country’s total population.
Bengali is also a very popular language among Indian ex-pats living in Western countries like the USA, Australia, Canada, the UK, and the Middle East. No wonder it is one of the top spoken languages in India.
Telugu
Telugu is one of the top 10 spoken languages in India. It is a Dravidian language widely spoken in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Pondicherry, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, with 8.11 million speakers, according to 2011 census statistics. This language is spoken by 6.70% of the world’s population.
Telugu is a richly developed language and the largest language unit in India. It is derived from the proto-Dravidian language. It probably split between 1500 B.C. BC From the Proto-Dravidian onwards and 1000 BC, around the same time, that Tamil stood out in terms of literary activities.
Telugu belongs to the Middle Dravidian language subfamily, whose members descend from the Proto-Dravidian spoken in the central part of the Deccan Plateau. It is closely related to the Kannada alphabet. Today there are around 82 million Telugu speakers in India.
It was reported that Telugu is the fastest-growing Indic language in the United States due to the large expatriate Telugu population. In India, Telugu is mainly spoken in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana but can also be heard in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Andaman Islands, and Nicobar Islands.
The language is also spoken in many countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, United Arab Emirates, and South Africa. Overall it is one of the top spoken languages in India.
Marathi
Marathi is one of the top spoken languages in India. It is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western India. It serves as the official language of the state of Maharashtra, with around ninety million Marathi speakers around the world.
Marathi ranks 4th in India in terms of the number of people who claim it as their primary language. The Indian Constitution recognizes Marathi as one of the twenty-two official languages of India. Besides the universities in Maharashtra, the universities of Baroda, Osmania, and Panjim have special departments for higher education in Marathi Linguistics.
There are about 83 million Marathi speakers in India, or about 6.8% of the total population. Interestingly, Maratha has three genders in its grammar rules, rather than just masculine and feminine. There are over 40 versions of Marathi, the most popular being the Standard Marathi dialect and Marathi Varhadi.
It is spoken primarily in Maharashtra and to a lesser extent in the neighboring states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, the Union Territories of Daman-Diu and Dadra Nagar Haveli.
The cities of Baroda and Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Belgaum, Hubli, Dharwad, and Bidar in Karnataka, and Indore and Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh have significant numbers of Marathi-speaking communities. Moreover, it is of the top spoken languages in India.
Gujarati
Gujarati is one of the top 10 spoken languages in India. It is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by 5.54 million Indians. Gujarat, a state in northwestern India, has this language as its official language.
Like other Indo-Aryan languages, Gujarati descends from Sanskrit via Prakrit, a large group of ancient Indian languages, and Apabhramsha, transitional dialects spoken in India between the 6th and 13th centuries AD.
The earliest literary mentions of Gujarati are mostly religious verses from the 17th century. This language was later practiced by writers, scholars, and poets from Narasimha Mehta to Mahatma Gandhi.
The study of Gujarati in the 19th century dates back to the British colonial administrator Alexander Kinloch Forbes, who studied most of the last thousand years of Gujarati history and compiled a large body of manuscripts. It is one of the 22 official and 14 regional languages of India and one of the minority languages of neighboring Pakistan.
It is the daily means of communication in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is used in education, government, business, and media. The language is widely spoken in Gujarati ex-pat communities in the UK and the US. These communities have newspapers, magazines, radio, and television programs in Gujarati. Moreover, it is one of the top spoken languages in India.
Tamil
Tamil is one of the top spoken languages in India. It belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages, a family of around 26 languages originating in the Indian subcontinent. It is also classified as part of the Tamil language family, which includes the languages of about 35 ethnolinguistic groups, such as the Irula and Yerukula languages, in addition to Tamil proper.
It is one of the oldest classical languages of India. Ak Ramanujan described it as “the only language of modern India unequivocally consistent with the classical past.” It is the official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian Union Territory of Pondicherry.
Tamil is also spoken by significant minorities in four other southern Indian states: Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Andaman and Nicobar Union Territory. There are around 69 million Tamil speakers in India, and it is the official language spoken by most people in Tamil Nadu.
Other parts of India where Tamil is spoken are Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Andaman, and the Nicobar Islands. About 100 Tamil Hindu families live in settlement of Madrasi Para in Karachi. They speak impeccable Tamil as well as Urdu, Punjabi, and Sindhi. No wonder it is one of the top spoken languages in India.
Kannada
Kannada is one of the top 10 spoken languages in India. It belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian language family. It is spoken by 38 million people as a first language and by a further 9 million people in southern India, mainly in the state of Karnataka, as a second language.
It is one of the 22 official languages and 14 regional languages of India. Official communication between states is in Hindi, and English continues to play a dominant role in education, especially at the university level. Like Tamil, it is a Dravidian language and is believed to be the oldest spoken language of India.
It is estimated that there are over 20 dialects of Kannada. They are generally divided into three main groups: North, South, and Central. All dialects are influenced by neighboring languages like Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, and others. Currently, there are about 43 million native speakers of Kannada in the country, while only 13 million people use it as a second or third language.
Besides Karnataka, Kannada can also be heard in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Kerala. Apart from that, Kannada is also spoken in various Western countries. Overall it is one of the top spoken languages in India.
Odia
Odia is one of the top 10 spoken languages in India. It is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Indian state of Odisha. It is the official language of Odisha, where native speakers make up 82% of the population, as well as parts of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh.
It is the sixth Indic language to be considered a classical language due to its long literary history and lack of loanwords from other languages. Today there are about 37 million Odia speakers in India, which is 3.1% of India’s population. The language is also spoken in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Chennai, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Pune.
In addition, Odia is spoken in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Fiji, and Myanmar. It has a significant presence in eastern countries like Thailand and Indonesia, mostly from sad-habs, ancient Odisha traders who brought the language along with the culture during ancient trade. That’s why it is one of the top spoken languages in India.
Malayalam
Malayalam is one of the top spoken languages in India. It is a Dravidian language spoken by the Malays in the Indian state of Kerala and the Union Territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. It is one of the 22 programmed languages of India.
The present Malayalam script is based on the Vatteluttu script augmented with Grantha script letters to accommodate Indo-Aryan loanwords. Around 34 million speak Malayalam in India. Some of them can also be found in the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
It is also used by linguistic minorities in neighboring countries; with a significant number of speakers in the Kodagu and Dakshina Kannada districts of Karnataka and the Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu. Moreover, it is one of the top spoken languages in India.
Hindi
Hindi is one of the top 10 spoken languages in India. It is the most spoken language in India. Is Indo-Aryan spoken primarily in the Hindi belt region, which includes parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India? It is one of the official languages of the country. Hindi, written in the Devanagari script, is one of the two official languages of the Indian government, along with English.
It is an official language in nine states and three union territories and an additional official language in three other states. Modern standard Hindi is based on the Delhi dialect, the vernacular of Delhi and the surrounding region, which replaced earlier prestigious dialects such as Awadhi and Braj.
According to the 2011 Indian Census, Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India, with 52.83 million speakers and 43.63% of the population. Despite the fact that these exams require an English test, Hindi is also used as an additional medium in recruitment exams in many large government agencies, institutes, and banks.it is also spoken by the large Madheshi population of Nepal. Moreover, it is one of the top spoken languages in India.
Urdu
Urdu is one of the top 10 spoken languages in India. It started growing around the 12th century in northern India around Delhi. It was based on the language of the Delhi region and was heavily influenced by Arabic, Persian, and Turkish.
Much poetry and literature began to be written in Urdu in the 14th and 15th centuries. More recently, Urdu has been primarily associated with Muslims in the Indian subcontinent, but there are many important works of Urdu literature written by both Hindu and Sikh writers.
There are around 5.07 million Urdu speakers in India. Urdu is also one of the official languages of the country. Today, Urdu is spoken in many countries around the world, including the UK, Canada, the US, the Middle East, and India. In fact, more people speak Urdu in India than in Pakistan. That’s why it is one of the top spoken languages in India.
Conclusion
As for the final say, these are some of the top 10 spoken languages in India. They are widely spoken by different big groups in India and as well as in foreign countries.
Disclaimer – We have collected this information from various trustworthy sources on the Internet, and the facts have been checked manually and verified by our In House team.
