Ever wondered about the history of the languages spoken in India

Also known as Bangla by native speakers, Bengali is the official language of Bangladesh, and most spoken in the Indian states of West Bengal, lower Assam, and Tripura. Spoken by 8% of Indian citizens, Bengali holds the title of the fifth most-spoken first language in the world. Like Hindi, it evolved from Sanskrit, as well as Pali and Prakrit with influences from many other languages including Persian, Portuguese, Dutch, French, and English. It is now divided into eight disparate groups depending on geographical location. 

The Bengali language has developed a rich cultural base spanning art, music, literature, and religion. Bengali has some of the oldest literature of all modern Indo-Aryan languages, dating from about the 10th to 12th century.

Purported to be more than 1,300 years old, Marathi is spoken by about 7% of Indian people and is the official language of states in the western regions of the country including Goa and Maharashtra. Like other Indian languages, Marathi descended from Sanskrit and is made up of at least 42 regional dialects, some of which resemble eastern Hindi in sound and structure. Its roots can also be found in Indian languages like Konkani, Goanese, Deccan, Gowlan, Ikrani, and Varhadi-Nagpuri.

Telugu, a Dravidian language, is found mainly in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Yanam, as well as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Chattisgarh, and Odisha. Its earliest-known inscriptions appear on coins from 400 BCE, which contain some Telugu words, and the first inscription written entirely in the language was created in 575 AD. It is presumed this was made by Renati Cholas, who was known for writing royal proclamations in the language rather than traditional Sanskrit.

Like Telugu, Tamil has Dravidian roots and is spoken by close to 6% of Indian citizens, as well as being an official language in Singapore and Sri Lanka and a recognized minority language in countries like Malaysia, Mauritius, and South Africa. It is notable as one of the oldest languages in the modern world, with a literary history dating back at least 2,000 years. It is commonly spoken in southern India, primarily in the state of Tamil Nadu and the Indian Union Territory of Puducherry. Its earliest-known transcriptions date back to 500 BCE with literature appearing in about 300 CE in its original form, Old Tamil.

Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the west Indian region of Gujarat. Gujarati is part of the greater Indo-European language family. Gujarati is descended from Old Gujarati (c. 1100 – 1500 CE), the same source as that of Rajasthani. Gujarati is the chief language in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is also an official language in the union territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. According to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 4.5% of the population of India (1.21 billion according to the 2011 census) speaks Gujarati. This amounts to 54.6 million speakers in India.

The Kannada language is a Dravidian language that branched off from the Kannada-Tamil subgroup around 500 B.C.E according to the Dravidian scholar Zvelebil. According to the Dravidian scholars Steever and Krishnamurthy, the study of Kannada language is usually divided into three linguistic phases: Old (450–1200 CE), Middle (1200–1700 CE), and Modern (1700–present). The earliest written records are from the 5th century, and the earliest available literature in the rich manuscript (Kavirajamarga) is from c. 850. The Kannada language has the second oldest written tradition of all languages of India. Current estimates of the total number of epigraph present in Karnataka range from 25,000 by the scholar Sheldon Pollock to over 30,000 by the Sahitya Akademi, making Karnataka state “one of the most densely inscribed pieces of real estate in the world”.According to Garg and Shipley, more than a thousand notable writers have contributed to the wealth of the language.

Malayalam has official language status in the state of Kerala and in the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry. It belongs to the Dravidian family of languages and is spoken by some 38 million people. Malayalam is also spoken in the neighboring states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka; with some speakers in the Nilgiris, Kanyakumari, and Coimbatore districts of Tamil Nadu, and the Dakshina Kannada and the Kodagu district of Karnataka. Malayalam originated from Middle Tamil (Sen-Tamil) in the 7th century. As Malayalam began to freely borrow words as well as the rules of grammar from Sanskrit, the Grantha alphabet was adopted for writing and came to be known as Arya Eluttu. This developed into the modern Malayalam script.

Odia (formerly spelled Oriya) is the only modern language officially recognized as a classical language from the Indo-Aryan group. Odia is primarily spoken in the Indian state of Odisha and has over 40 million speakers. It was declared as a classical language of India in 2014. Native speakers comprise 91.85% of the population in Odisha. Odia originated from Odra Prakrit which developed from Magadhi Prakrit, a language spoken in eastern India over 2,500 years ago. The history of the Odia language can be divided into Old Odia (3rd century BC −1200 century AD) Early Middle Odia (1200–1400), Middle Odia (1400–1700), Late Middle Odia (1700–1870), and Modern Odia (1870 till present day). The National Manuscripts Mission of India has found around 213,000 unearthed and preserved manuscripts written in Odia.

Punjabi, written in the Gurmukhi script in India, is one of the prominent languages of India with about 32 million speakers. In Pakistan, it is spoken by over 80 million people and is written in the Shahmukhi alphabet. It is mainly spoken in Punjab but also in neighboring areas. It is the official language of Delhi and Punjab.

Asamiya or Assamese language is most popular in the state of Assam. It’s an Eastern Indo-Aryan language having more than 15 million speakers as per world estimates by Encarta.