Languages

India is home to several hundred languages. Most Indians speak a language belonging to the families of the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European (c. 77%), the Dravidian (c. 20.61%), the Austro-Asiatic (Munda) (c. 1.2%), or the Sino-Tibetan (c. 0.8%), with some languages of the Himalayas still unclassified. The SIL Ethnologue lists 415 living languages for India.

India has 23 constitutionally recognized official languages. Hindi and English are typically used as an official language by the Central Government. State governments use respective official languages.

Hindi is the most widely spoken language in northern parts of India. The Indian census takes the widest possible definition of "Hindi" as a broad variety of "Hindi languages". According to 2001 Census, 53.6% of the Indian population declared that they speak Hindi as either their first or second language, in which 41% of them have declared it as their native language or mother tongue. 12% of Indians declared that they can speak English as a second language.

Urdu and Telugu are also the official languages of the newly formed state of Telangana.

Besides these, there are other languages, which are spoken by large masses but have still not acquired the status of Scheduled Languages of India. These languages spoken by regional people are known as regional languages of India. These include Rajasthani, Haryanvi, Bhili, Gondi and Tulu among others.

Some Indian languages are not widely spoken and have been given the status of minority languages. Mahal and Portuguese languages come under this category.