Indian languages & English - We Beat the world in numbers!

Agreed, English is truly world wide in its distribution than all other spoken languages and it is an official language in 52 countries. In addition, 1/4 to 1/3 of the people in the world understand and speak English to some degree.  It has become the most useful language to learn for international travel and is now the de facto language of diplomacy.  Yet when you compare  some of the Indian languages to English, did you know ?

• Hindi, the official national language in India, comes second in the world, after Mandarin Chinese, with 366,000,000 numbers of native speakers worldwide. More than Spanish and English !
• 17 countries of the world are inhabited by Hindi speakers.
• Bengali, the native language of West Bengal (India) and Bangladesh is spoken by 207,000,000 native speakers in 9 countries of the world. Its used by over 100,000,000 people worldwide as their first language.
• Telugu, the State Language of the Eastern state of Andhra Pradesh,is spoken by over 73 Million people worldwide.
• Gujarati, a native  language of India has 46 million-first language speakers.  It is spoken, other than many States in India, in Bangladesh, Fiji, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Oman, Pakistan, Reunion, Singapore, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, United Kingdom, USA, Zambia, Zimbabwe. 

Indian Languages – Rich in Heritage, Amazing in Diversity

So, you must be wondering, what language would an average Indian use, to communicate  ? In all, there are 22 official languages which are spoken by  more than a billion people, in addition to hundreds of smaller languages. Sanskrit is the oldest literary language of this country and  forms the basis of many modern Indian languages, including Hindi and Urdu. Its earliest dialect form, known popularly as Vedic, was spoken by the Aryans. Sanskrit along with Tamil are the two classical languages of India. Both of them have very large collections of literature, with the earliest Sanskrit texts dating from 5000 years ago and the earliest Tamil literature from 2500 years ago. Sanskrit is also very much a living language. It is used in rituals and ceremonies or as part of daily prayers in Hinduism. Tamil is the only living classical language of India, having more than 74 million speakers. 

The Influence of English on Indian  languages

English, introduced under the British Empire, plays an important role as a medium of communication  in India. The Constitution of India has stipulated the usage of Hindi and English to be the two official languages of communication for the national government.

While Hindi is the language used by the Central Government when communicating with the states of Hindi Belt,  English is the co-official language and the language to be used while communicating with the States.

Each State – A Language of its Own

Individual states, whose borders are mostly drawn on socio-linguistic lines, are free to decide their own language for internal administration and education; so there are 22 official languages spoken throughout the country. The Top 10 Indian languages and approximate number of speakers are :  Hindi: 337 million , Bengali: 70 million , Telugu: 66 million,  Marathi: 63 million , Tamil: 53 million,  Urdu: 43 million , Gujarati: 41 million , Kannada: 33 million , Malayalam: 30 million,Oriya: 28 million

You need not be a multi-lingual scholar  …

While most languages spoken in India belong either to the Indo-European (74%), the Dravidian (24%), the Austroasiatic (Munda) (1.2%), or the Tibeto-Burman ( 0.6%) families, you can access any of the multiple languages spoken through services rendered effectively by prompt and easy translation services.

Author: R S Kumar is a translator providing translation from English into Indian Languages  www.indianscripts

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