How Many Languages in India?

India is a land of incredible linguistic diversity, with hundreds of languages spoken across the country. Officially, the Constitution of India recognizes 22 scheduled languages.

Official and Scheduled Languages
While Hindi in Devanagari script is the official language of the Union government, and English is recognized as a secondary official language, the Constitution's Eighth Schedule gives special status to 22 languages to protect and promote them.

These 22 scheduled languages are:

Assamese
Bengali
Bodo
Dogri
Gujarati
Hindi
Kannada
Kashmiri
Konkani
Maithili
Malayalam
Manipuri
Marathi
Nepali
Odia
Punjabi
Sanskrit
Santali
Sindhi
Tamil
Telugu
Urdu
Mother Tongues and Dialects
The number of languages spoken in India goes far beyond the official list. The 2011 Census of India reported a staggering 19,569 raw returns of mother tongues. After linguistic scrutiny and grouping, the Census identified 121 languages, each spoken by 10,000 or more people.

This vast number is due to the rich tapestry of dialects and regional languages that are an integral part of India's culture. These languages belong to several major language families, including:

Indo-Aryan languages: Spoken by a majority of the population, including Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, and Punjabi.
Dravidian languages: Predominantly spoken in Southern India, such as Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam.
Austroasiatic languages: Spoken by tribal communities in parts of eastern and central India.
Sino-Tibetan languages: Spoken in the Himalayan regions and the Northeast.
Tai-Kadai languages: Spoken by a small minority in some parts of Eastern India.
This linguistic mosaic makes India one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world.