Heritage and culture

Twenty-two languages, and hundreds more

Each of the languages listed in the Constitution, written the way its own speakers write it, with how many people the last Census counted, where it is heard, and one thing worth knowing about it.

Meet the 22Back to Heritage

The twenty-two, in their own words

Each name is written in its own script. Speaker counts are Census 2011 mother-tongue figures and the shares are our division of each by India’s 2011 population. Bars use a square-root scale so that the smaller languages stay visible.

22 languages

Twelve scripts, and how most of them are related

Most of India’s scripts descend from Brahmi, the script of the inscriptions of Ashoka in the third century BCE. Nine tiles show the vowel a as each writes it. The last three show one letter each from Perso-Arabic, which came with Persian and Arabic; from Ol Chiki, devised in 1925 as an alphabet of its own; and from Meitei Mayek, the script of Manipur. (Twelve is our count, with Bengali and Assamese sharing one script.)

• अDevanagariHindi, Marathi, Sanskrit, Nepali, Maithili, Dogri, Bodo, and Konkani in Goa
• অBengali–AssameseBengali and Assamese
• અGujaratiGujarati
• ਅGurmukhiPunjabi
• ଅOdiaOdia
• அTamilTamil
• అTeluguTelugu
• ಅKannadaKannada
• അMalayalamMalayalam
• اPerso-ArabicUrdu, and Kashmiri and Sindhi in one of their scripts
• ᱚOl ChikiSantali
• ꯀMeitei MayekManipuri

One word, twelve ways

The word for water. Seven Indo-Aryan languages here say paani. Telugu and Kannada say neeru, and Tamil’s thanneer is built on the same old Dravidian root.

• पानीpaaniHindi
• पाणीpaaniMarathi
• પાણીpaaniGujarati
• ਪਾਣੀpaaniPunjabi
• ପାଣିpaaniOdia
• پانیpaaniUrdu
• पानीpaaniNepali
• জলjolBengali
• నీరుneeruTelugu
• ನೀರುneeruKannada
• தண்ணீர்thanneerTamil
• വെള്ളംvellamMalayalam

Eleven classical languages

The Government of India gives the status to languages with a long recorded history and a body of ancient literature. Nine of the eleven are also among the 22 scheduled languages; Pali and Prakrit are not. (That count is our comparison of the two lists.)

1. 2004Tamil The first language declared classical, on 12 October 2004.
2. 2005Sanskrit
3. 2008Kannada and Telugu
4. 2013Malayalam
5. 2014Odia
6. 2024Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali Approved by the Union Cabinet on 3 October 2024, bringing the total to eleven.

A banknote in seventeen languages

Turn over a banknote and look for the language panel. The value is printed in Hindi and English on the front, and on the back in fifteen more: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu, in that alphabetical order. It is one of the few places where most of the country’s languages sit side by side.

And the rest

The 2011 Census recorded 121 languages spoken by 10,000 people or more: the 22 above and 99 others. A volunteer-led project, the People’s Linguistic Survey of India, begun in 2010, has reported 780 languages, counting many that the Census’s threshold leaves out. The two counts answer different questions, and neither is wrong. The Census counts languages that pass a size threshold; the survey set out to update what is known about every language spoken in the country.

Sources

1. Census of India 2011, Language Atlas — the count of 121 languages with 10,000 or more speakers, 22 scheduled and 99 not
2. Census of India 2011, Table C-16 (mother tongue) — the speaker counts above; the 22 add to 1,171,103,853
3. Ministry of Home Affairs: Eighth Schedule to the Constitution — the 22 languages
4. Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India — how the list grew from 14 (1950) to 15 (1967, Sindhi), 18 (1992, Konkani, Manipuri, Nepali) and 22 (2003, Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Santali)
5. Press Information Bureau: Classical Languages of India — the years of the first six
6. Prime Minister’s Office: Cabinet approves classical status for Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali — 3 October 2024
7. Reserve Bank of India: language panel on banknotes — the fifteen languages on the back of a note
8. Ol Chiki script — devised in 1925 by Raghunath Murmu
9. People’s Linguistic Survey of India — launched in 2010; 780 languages reported

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