Language of India

There are 15 national languages recognized by the Indian constitution and these are spoken in over 1600 dialects. The national or official languages are Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Panjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and English (Associate Official). An estimated 850 languages are in daily use (Todd and Hancock 1986). The literacy rate of India is between 36% to 52%. Other languages spoken in India include Judeo-Iraqi Arabic, Armenian, Burushaski, Western Farsi, Geman Deng, Lisu, Northern Pashto, Portuguese, Russian, Thami, Chitwania Tharu, Kathoriya Tharu, Uyghur, Walungge, Arabic and Chinese.
India's official language is Hindi in the Devnagri script. However, English continues to be the official working language. For many educated Indians, English is virtually their first language, and for a great number of Indians who are multilingual, it will probably be the second.
The country has a wide variety of local languages and in many cases the state boundaries have been drawn on linguistic lines. Besides Hindi and English, the other popular languages are Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Panjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.
Some Indian languages have evolved from the Indo-European group of languages. This set is known as the Indic group of languages. The other set of languages are Dravidian and are native to South India, though a distinct influence of Sanskrit and Hindi is evident in these languages. Most of the Indian languages have their own script and are spoken in the respective states along with English.
1. Gujarati
Gujarati is the state language of Gujarat, an western state of India, and is spoken by 70 percent of the state's population. More than 46 million people worldwide consider Gujarati as their first language. Apart from Gujarat, it is widely spoken in the states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. Worldwide it is spoken in the United Kingdom, USA, Kenya, South Africa, East Africa, Uganda, Fiji, Singapore and New Zealand.