Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India

encyclopedia

KONKANI

: Indo-Aryan family group spoken along the coast of

the Arabian sea, namely the coastal area of Maharashtra border-

ing Goa, coastal Karnataka and Kerala. Its name is derived from

"konkan", meaning 'west coast’. An example of a language which

links contiguous states, Konkani is written in several scripts,

including Devanagari, Kannada and Malayalam. It is the only

language in southern India influenced by Paisachi Prakrit. On

August 20, 1992, Konkani, along with Nepali and Manipuri, was

recognised as an official language.

States

Goa

Karnataka

Kerala

Speakers

59.5%

1.7%

0.4%

WORLD RANK: 53

NO. OF SPEAKERS : 4 m

INDIA RANK : *

SPEAKERS IN INDIA : *

MALAYALAM

: Dravidian family. Script is believed to have

derived from 'Vattezhuttu' which was widely used in Royal edicts.

The Nambudiri Brahmins of Kerala mastered Sanskrit, which led to

the heavy Sanskrit influence on Malayalam literature. An admix-

ture of Malayalam with Tamil strongly influenced Malayalam

grammar and vocabulary; in fact, some linguists consider Malay-

alam to be a Tamil dialect. Pure Malayalam, known as "Pacha-

Malayalam", remains an important literary language. Malayalam

is spoken in Kerala; also found in Kodagu district in Karnataka,

Nilgiri district in Tamil Nadu, and the Lakshadweep Islands.

MANIPURI:

Accorded official language status in 1992 by Lok

Sabha. Manipuri belongs to the Tibeto-Burman group of the Kuki-

Chin (Sino- Tibetan) group of languages. It is actually an amalgam

of seven languages, which were spoken by seven distinct clans,

including the Moirangs, the Khumans and the Luwangs. Manipuri

has its own script, but this was eventually eclipsed by the Assa-

mese-Bengali scripts which arrived with the expansion of

Chaitanya Vaishnavism in the 18th century.

DRAVIDIAN

: Caldwell first used the term Dravidian, as the

adjective form of Dravida, to denote a family of languages spoken

in Southern India and some aboriginal and hill areas in central

India and Orissa. The word

'Dravida'

is a Sanskrit word

meaning Tamil and had been used by Kumarilabhatta and

Manu. According to Grierson the word is probably derived

from Dramila, Damila. The Dravidian languages were classi-

fied by Caldwell into cultivated dialects (Tamil, Malayalam,

Telugu, Kannada, Tulu and Kodagu) and uncultivated dialects

(all other Dravidian languages).

States

Speakers

States Speakers

Kerala

96.0%

D & N Haveli

0.3%

Lakshadweep

84.5%

Nagaland

0.3%

A & N Is.

10.4%

Sikkim

Pondicherry

5.2%.

Mizoram

0.1%

Karnataka

Tamil Nadu

Madhya Pradesh

Goa

0.7%

WORLD RANK: 30

Delhi

0.5%

NO.OF SPEAKERS :

35 m

Chandigarh

0.4%

Arunachal Pradesh 0.4%

INDIA RANK : 9

Maharashtra

0.4%

SPEAKERS IN INDA : 3.9%

EXPRESSIONS OF INDIA

MARATHI

: Indo-Aryan family. Evolved from local dialect, a

mixture of Maharashtri and Apabhrahmsha. In the 12th century,

Marathi asserted itself against Sanskrit, which was the lingua

franca of the region of present-day Maharashtra; religious writ-

ers eschewed Sanskrit in favour of the common people's lan-

guage to popularise their ideas. Marathi has produced two major

offshoots: Konkani, concentrated on the West Coast, and the

Halbi dialect, spoken in the Bastar District of Madhya Pradesh.

There is a genuine linguistic boundary between Marathi and other

Indo-Aryan languages such as Gujarati, Hindi and Rajasthani.

Marathi is also spoken in the bordering area of Karnataka, and in

Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Goa.

States

Speakers

Maharashtra

Goa

D & N Haveli

Karnataka

Madhya Pradesh

Daman & Diu

Gujarat

73.6%

26.43

3.4%

4.3%

3.4%

2.3%

Arunachal Pradesh 0..8%

Delhi

A & N. Is.

Tamil

Nadu

Kerala

0.2%

0.1%

WORLD RANK: 17

NO.OF SPEAKERS : 67 m

INDIA RANK: 4

SPEAKERS IN INDIA : 7.5%

NEPALI

: Indo-Aryan family. Written in the Devanagari script,

Nepali finds its origins in Khas-Kura or Khas-Prakrit, the language

of the Khasa tribe. The Khasa imported their language from India

into Nepal, where Nepali is, of course, the official language. During

the 18th century, most Nepali writers were also fluent in Sanskrit, and

adopted Sanskritic patterns in their writing. On August 20, 1992,

Nepali was unanimously given official recognition by Parliament.

Nepali is spoken in Sikkim, northern parts of West Bengal and the

Northeastern states.

States

Speakers

Sikkim

61.0%

Arunachal Pradesh 7.2%

Meghalaya

4.6%

Manipur 2.6%

Himachal Pradesh 0.9%

WORLD RANK: 43

NO.OF SPEAKERS : 14 m

INDIA RANK : *

SPEAKERS IN INDIA : *

ORIYA

: Indo-Aryan language derived from eastern Magadhi

namely the "Magadhan Apabhrahmsha" of Prakrit. It is classified

under the Eastern group of the Indo-Aryan family which includes

Bhojpuri, Bengali and Assamese; like Bengali, Oriya is not

gender-specific, but employs only neutral pronouns, verb conju-

gations, etc. However, Oriya is closer to Sanskrit than other non-

Dravidian languages. During the early phase of its development,

Oriya showed a blend of Prakritic and Sanskritic elements, but

was later influenced by Perso-Arabic. Standard Oriya is spoken

in Orissa and the bordering areas of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and

Andhra Pradesh. "Southern Oriya", spoken by some in the lower

rung of society, is found in the district of Visakhapatnam in

Andhra Pradesh.

States

Speakers

Orissa

82.2%

Madhya Pradesh

1.1%

Tripura

0.7%

Bihar

0.5%

Andhra Pradesh

0.4%

Arunachal Pradesh

0.3%

Nagaland

West Bengal

0.2%

WORLD RANK :33

NO. OF SPEAKERS : 3 1 m

INDIA RANK : 10

SPEAKERS IN INDIA: 3.5%