Languages of South Asia

The languages of South Asia include a few major language families:

 Indo-Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family, which can be further divided into three groups:
 Indo-Aryan languages, the most widespread.
 Iranic languages, in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
 Nuristani languages, in a small area of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
 Dravidian languages, in South India and Sri Lanka.
 Tibeto-Burman languages, a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, along the northern and eastern edges.
 Austroasiatic languages, in small areas of India.
 There are also some people who speak Kra-Dai languages, and some language isolates such as Burushaski, which are not known to be related to any other languages.

South Asia includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives, and sometimes Afghanistan.


 Indo-Aryan languages 
Most Indo-Aryan languages grew from Sanskrit, an ancient language. It is hard to decide to define what is a language, and what is just a dialect (language variant). For example, Hindi and Urdu are similar when spoken, but Hindi is written in the Devanagari script and Urdu is written in the Persian-Arabic script. Hindi uses more words from Sanskrit, while Urdu uses more words from Persian and Arabic.
+LanguageNumber of people who speak this languagePlaces where people speak this languageHindi615,500,000North India (Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand)Bengali265,000,000Bangladesh, West Bengal, TripuraUrdu170,200,000Pakistan, parts of India (Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh)Marathi95,300,000MaharashtraPanjabi154,500,000United Panjab (Pak Panjab,Ind Panjab, Haryana, Himachal,Chandigarh, Delhi and Hazara division of present day Kyber PaktunistanGujarati60,600,000GujaratBhojpuri52,400,000western Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh, NepalOdia38,000,000OdishaMaithili34,000,000eastern Bihar, eastern Jharkhand, NepalSindhi32,600,000Sindh, Balochistan, northern GujaratNepali24,500,000Nepal, Sikkim, BhutanMagahi20,700,000southern Bihar, eastern Jharkhand, northern West BengalSinhala17,300,000Sri LankaChhattisgarhi 16,300,000ChhattisgarhAssamese15,300,000AssamChittagonian13,000,000eastern BangladeshDeccan12,800,000northern KarnatakaSadri12,100,000Jharkhand, eastern Chhattisgarh, northern Odisha, southern BiharSylheti 11,800,000eastern Bangladesh, southern Assam

 Iranic languages 

Only some of the Iranic languages are from South Asia. Others are from West Asia or Central Asia. This table shows the total number of people who speak each language.
LanguageNumber of people who speak this languagePlaces where people speak this languagePashto40,000,000Afghanistan, Khyber PakhtunkhwaDari Persian20,500,000AfghanistanBalochi10,000,000Balochistan

 Nuristani languages 
About 130,000 people speak the five Nuristani languages.

 Dravidian languages 

LanguageNumber of people who speak this languagePlaces where people speak this languageTelugu93,000,000Andhra Pradesh, TelanganaTamil81,000,000Tamil Nadu, Sri LankaKannada56,400,000KarnatakaMalayalam37,800,000KeralaBrahui3,300,000central Balochistan Gondi3,000,000Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, MaharashtraKurukh2,300,000Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal, northern BangladeshTulu1,900,000western Karnataka, northern KeralaBeary1,700,000western Karnataka, northern Kerala

 Tibeto-Burman languages 
A number of Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken in Nepal, Bhutan, Northeast India, Bangladesh, North India, and North Pakistan.

 Austroasiatic languages 
Most Austroasiatic languages are spoken in Southeast Asia, rather than South Asia. The Austronesian languages spoken in South Asia are part of the Munda and Khasic branches.

 Kra-Dai languages 
Most Kra-Dai languages are spoken in East Asia and Southeast Asia. About 10,000 people speak these languages in South Asia, in Assam and the surrounding area.

 Language isolates 
A language isolate is a language that is not known to be related to any other languages.

There are several native languages to the Andaman Islands. Originally they were grouped into Great Andamanese, Ongan, Jangil, and Sentinelese. Today, people have stopped speaking some of these languages, making them extinct.

The Burushaski language is spoken by about 100,000 people in North Pakistan. The Kusunda language is spoken by less than 100 people in Nepal. The Nihali language is spoken by 2,000 or so people in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. All of these are considered language isolates.

 Related pages 
 Languages of India

 References 

Category:South Asia
Category:Languages of Asia