By:Fawaz Labeeb
History of Indian Languages
This is the language of Hindi. You can use this picture to read out words in Hindi.
With 18,000 languages spoken India makes it to the top 3 countries which have the most dialects. ”Languages in India include Hindi, English, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.” Half of India’s population use Hindi which is around 500-600 million people. Hindi and Urdu is descended from Hindustani, people who lived in Delhi and Northern India. The name Hindi was given by the Persians, the language of Hindustan’s. A large part of Hindi is borrowed by Sanskrit ad was “softened “for common speech. Hindi also uses some Arabic and Persian language for speech. English in India was brought by the British, and this was when India was colonized by Britain. Assamese was brought to India by the Assam and originated from Magadhi Prakrit just like Bengali, Maithili, and Oriya. Bengali is divided into three parts, Old Bengali, Middle Bengali, and New Bengali. The earliest record of this language being used is the times of Buddha. Gujarati is also broken down into 3 parts like Bengali. It is known as Old IA, Middle IA, and Modern IA. Gujarati is mainly used in Rajasthan. Kannada is from the Dravidian language group and is influenced very much by Sanskrit. It is also divided into three parts which is Ancient Kannada, Middle Kannada, and Modern Kannada. Kashmiri is greatly influenced by Shina and mighty Sanskrit. Although, nowadays Sanskrit has covered 40% of Shina influence. Malayalam is no more than a local dialect of pure Tamil. Malayalam comes from the Dravidian languages also. Marathi is divided into 5 parts which is the Early Marathi, Yadev Marathi, Mahanubhav Marathi, Warkari Marathi, and Modern Marathi. Oriya is the language that was used by Asoka the Great. Oriya is one of the oldest languages in India. The language Punjabi is used in the state of Punjab where there are a lot of Sikhs. Unlike, many of the other languages in India Punjabi does not come from Dravidian or Sanskrit. The ancestor of this language is Shauraseni language. Sanskrit is also known as “Mighty Sanskrit” since many Indian languages are influenced by it. Sanskrit is the language of Vedas, the script of the Hindu. It comes from the Persians and the Irani. Tamil is a Dravidian language and is hard for many people to learn but, once you learn it you will find it easy to learn many other languages of India. Pure Tamil is one of the hardest languages to learn, way much more than Japanese. Tamil was used in the time of Akbar and his very famous counselor Birbal. Telugu is also a Dravidian language and is pretty much similar to Tamil. It is influenced by the Italians and an Italian explorer described it as “Italy of the east”. The last language that I am going to tell you about is Urdu and it is greatly influenced by Turkey, Arabic, and Iran. Urdu consists of the same letters as Arabic and a few more but, the meaning is different. Arabic and Urdu are read from left to right! Now that you know a breif history I think that you have abundant knowledge.
Traveller's Description
Language in India is very diverse and it is the best if you have a dictionary with many different languages. Although, there are many people, even locals know enough English to understand. It is always good to carry a dictionary to use. “In Northern India it is either Sanskrit or Hindi. You should just learn some Hindi phrases and you will be fine. Sanskrit is only used in the Vedas, the 4 holy books of the Hindus.