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As well as regional
diversity, languages have created diverse traditions of culture
in India. There are a large number of languages in India, 216 of
each of which are spoken by a group of 10,000 people or more,
although there are others that are spoken in India by fewer than
10,000 people. If these languages are included, there are 415
living languages in India.[1] The two major families of
languages are those of the Indo-Aryan languages and those of the
Dravidian languages, the former being largely confined to North
India and the latter to South India. A further twenty-two
languages are scheduled for official use, mainly by state
governments. Sanskrit has served as a classical language of
India and South-Eastern Asia and is equated in importance to
Latin or Greek in Europe. It is studied in as far away as Japan
and the West due its cultural and religious significance. The
classical language of the Dravidian family is regarded to be old
Tamil. The number of speakers of state languages and dialects is
very high. |
