Introduction
Languages spoken in India. Numbering more than 150, most belong to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family or the Dravidian family.
The Constitution stipulates Hindi as the official language, but grants this status to 15 other languages used in many states:Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati (or Gujerati), Kashmir, Marathi (or Marathi), Oriya, Penjabi, Sindhi, Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malay. The official language of Pakistan is Urdu and that of Bangladesh is Bengali.
Indo-Iranian Languages
Until the year 1000 BC. the Indo-Iranian language was divided into two:the Indian or Indo-Aryan branch and the Iranian or Persian branch. The Indian branch developed in northwest India. Its history can be divided into three major stages:the ancient Indian, which includes Vedic and Sanskrit; Middle Indian, with the vernacular Sanskrit dialects called Prakrit (from which Pali, the sacred language of Buddhist texts comes), and New or Modern Indian.
The relevant languages are Hindi and Urdu. The first, spoken by Hindus (about 180 million), has its origins in Sanskrit. The second, of Persian origin, is the language of the Muslims.
The other Indian languages are Bengali (spoken by around 120 million people in Bengal and Bangladesh), Penjabi, Biari, Sinhalese (Sri Lanka's official language) and Romani (language of the Roma).
Dravidian Languages
About 150 million people speak 23 Dravidian languages, mostly in southern India. Four are eligible to be official languages:Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malay. These languages have autonomous literary production and writing.
How important is our mother tongue ? Thinking from an urban perspective, we could say that it is very important, since we all cultivate Spanish as a mother tongue. -if we understand by it, in a strict sense, the language that our mothers taught us to speak. However, seen from a national perspective,