Languages of South Asia

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

"Languages of the Indian subcontinent" redirects here. For the Indian Republic, see Languages of India.

Map of language families in South Asia.
SindhGujaratBalochistan, PakistanPunjabKhyber PakhtunkhwaHindi beltHindi beltKashmirBhutanNepalBengalNortheast IndiaTelugu statesMaharashtraOdishaKarnatakaKeralaTamil NaduSri Lankan TamilsSinhalese people
A clickable map of the official language and lingua franca spoken in each state/province of South Asia excluding Afghanistan and the Maldives. Indo-Aryan languages are in green, Iranic languages in dark green, Dravidian languages in purple, and Tibeto-Burman languages in red.

Hindi–Urdu; and the sixth most spoken language, Bengali. The languages in the region mostly comprise Indo-Iranic and Dravidian languages, and further members of other language families like Austroasiatic, and Tibeto-Burman
languages.

English-influenced variant known as Hinglish[5][6][7][8][9] which is spoken more in urban areas.[10]

Geographical distribution

Southern Asian as well as East and Southeast Asian regions, and the extended linguistic area is known as Indosphere. More precisely, the sprachbund of Indic languages and other geopolitically-neighboring languages is known as South Asian languages (which additionally includes Eastern-Iranic and Nuristani languages, as well as Central- and Western- Tibeto-Burman linkages
).

The

Burma. Andamanese languages are spoken on the Andaman Islands
.

By country

Afghanistan

Main article: Languages of Afghanistan

The official languages of Afghanistan are

Pashtun people, who mainly reside towards the south of Afghanistan on the Pakistani-Afghan border. A few Turkic languages, like Uzbek and Turkmen, are spoken near regions closer to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan
.

Bangladesh

Main article: Languages of Bangladesh

Rarhi dialect is the national language of Bangladesh. The majority of Bangladeshis speak Eastern Bengali.[11] Native languages of Bangladesh are Sylheti, Noakhailla, Rangpuri and Chittagonian, while some ethnic minority groups also speak Tibeto-Burman, Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic languages.[11]

Bhutan

Main article: Languages of Bhutan

Tshangla.[12]

Almost all the languages of Bhutan are from the Tibetic family (except Nepali, an Indo-Aryan language).

India

Main article: Languages of India

Most languages spoken in the

Republic of India belong either to the Indo-Aryan (c. 74%), the Dravidian (c. 24%), the Austroasiatic (Munda) (c. 1.2%), or the Tibeto-Burman (c. 0.6%) families, with some languages of the Himalayas
still unclassified. The SIL Ethnologue lists 461 living languages for the Indian Republic.

Hindi languages. The native speakers of Hindi so defined account for 39% of Indians. Bengali is the second most spoken language of South Asia, found in both Bangladesh and Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and Assam. The International Mother Language Day was created by UNESCO to commemorate the Bengali language.[13] Other notable languages include Odia, Telugu, Punjabi, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Sindhi, Kannada, Pashto, Malayalam, Maithili, Meitei (Manipuri), Konkani, and Tulu
.

Thirteen languages account for more than 1% of Indian population each, and between themselves for over 95%; all of them are the "

scheduled languages of the Constitution
".

Scheduled languages spoken by less than 1% of Indians are

Bodo (0.13%), Dogri (0.01%, spoken in Jammu and Kashmir). The largest language that is not "scheduled" is Bhili (0.95%), followed by Gondi (0.27%), Tulu (0.17%) and Kurukh
(0.099%)

Maldives

Main article: Languages of Maldives

Divehi is national language of Maldives, spoken by 95% of the population. Arabic is considered as the religious language, and English is medium of instruction for education and international purposes such as tourism.

Nepal

Main article: Languages of Nepal

Most of the languages of Nepal either fall under Indo-Aryan languages or Sino-Tibetan languages. The official language of the country is Nepali, earlier known as Gorkhali in the Kingdom of Nepal, which is part of the Indo-Aryan group and is the spoken by majority of the population.

The

Tharu language which constitutes majority of the speakers in southern Nepal in the Terai region.[14] The Sino-Tibetan languages includes Tamang, Newari, Magar language, Gurung language, Kiranti languages and Sherpa language and are often spoken in central and northern Nepal in the hilly and mountainous regions.[14]

Pakistan

Main article: Languages of Pakistan

Iranic languages, and eastern regions (close to India) speaking Indo-Aryan languages (with the Indus River
approximately dividing the families).

Other language families in Pakistan include

chitral region of Pakistan), Language Isolate Burushaski spoken in the north (In Gilgit Division), Turkic languages are also spoken in Pakistan, by Kyrgyz migrant families in the North and Uzbeks and Turkmen in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and by Refugees from Afghanistan and China.[17][18]

The national uniting medium of Pakistan is

Baluchi and Pashto, while more than 70 other languages like Shina, Balti, Gujarati,[19] Bengali[20]
etc. are also spoken.

Sri Lanka

Main article: Languages of Sri Lanka

Sinhala and Tamil are the official languages of Sri Lanka, with English as the link language. Tamil is a South-Dravidian language, and Sinhala belongs to the Insular Indic family (along with Dhivehi of Maldives). Vedda is said to be the indigenous language of Sri Lanka before the arrival of the Indo-Aryans and Dravidians.

See also

References

  1. ISBN 978-1-316-58235-0
    .
  2. ISBN 978-3-11-081566-5
    .
  3. ISBN 978-1-4438-6761-0
    .
  4. ISBN 978-0-252-06172-1
    .
  5. ISBN 978-0-14-341639-5
    .
  6. ^ "Hindi, Hinglish: Head to Head". read.dukeupress.edu. Retrieved 29 October 2023.
  7. ^ Salwathura, A. N. "Evolutionary development of ‘hinglish’language within the indian sub-continent." International Journal of Research-GRANTHAALAYAH. Vol. 8. No. 11. Granthaalayah Publications and Printers, 2020. 41-48.
  8. ^ Vanita, Ruth (1 April 2009). "Eloquent Parrots; Mixed Language and the Examples of Hinglish and Rekhti". International Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter (50): 16–17.
  9. ISSN 0019-0829
    .
  10. S2CID 59247503
    .
  11. ^ a b "Bangladesh - Languages". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  12. ^ Sen Nag, Oishimaya. "Which Languages Are Spoken In Bhutan?". WorldAtlas. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  13. ^ "The General Conference proclaim "International Mother Language Day" to be observed on 21 February". unesdoc.unesco.org. 16 November 1999. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
  14. ^ a b Sen Nag, Oishimaya. "What Languages Are Spoken In Nepal?". WorldAtlas. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
  15. S2CID 216455412
    .
  16. ^ "A revealing map of the world's most and least ethnically diverse countries". The Washington Post. 16 May 2013. Retrieved 29 April 2022.
  17. ^ "The last Kirghiz khan in Gilgit | Footloose". The News International. Retrieved 29 April 2022.
  18. ^ "Government delivered first new Proof of Registration smartcards to Afghan refugees". UNHCR Pakistan. Retrieved 29 April 2022.
  19. ^ "Karachi's Gujarati speaking youth strive to revive Jinnah's language". Arab News PK. 2 October 2018. Retrieved 29 April 2022.
  20. ^ "Five million illegal immigrants residing in Pakistan". The Express Tribune. 16 January 2012. Retrieved 29 April 2022.

Citations

Notes

  1. ^ Note that in the context of Indo-European studies, Indic languages simply refer to Indo-Aryan languages, the Indic-branch of Indo-European languages.

External links

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