How many languages exist in India?
Which Indian language do you know? I know the answer 🙂 You will probably say – Hindi, Isn’t that your national language? Well, No. India, a democratic country with over 1.2 billion people, doesn’t have a national language. Weird aint it? So let’s take a deeper look into this from a geographic and demographic point of view. За да прочетете статията на български, можете да инсталирате плъгин Google Преводач от тук.
The size of India
India is the seventh largest country in the world in terms of size. From North to South it measures a staggering 3214 km. It’s somewhat similar to the distance between Canada and Mexico. East to West it is 2933 km with a total area of 3.287 million Km.sq. If you want to make a comparison, Bulgaria has an area of 110,994 Sq. Km. The USA has an area of 9.834 million Sq.Km and there are about 430 known languages spoken in the country. That makes it one of the most linguistically diverse countries. You think that is a lot? Not really.:)
Languages in India
Here is a fun fact – Imagine two random Indians meet in a street. The probability that they understand each other and speak the same language is just 36%. So let’s take a deep breath and look at some numbers. The numbers I am quoting below are from a 2011 census and not a lot would have changed looking at the past trends.
- India has 19,569 languages and dialects in total.
- A total of 121 languages are spoken by 10,000 people or more.
- There are 1,369 dialects to these 121 Indian languages.
- The number of official languages in India are 22. What it means is that they are scheduled and have official support and acknowledgement.
That is staggering isn’t it? But let us make it a little bit simpler. 96.71 % of Indians speak one of the scheduled languages while others speak just 3.29 %.
The oldest language in the world
Tamil and Sanskrit are not only oldest spoken languages in India but in the world. Both have history dating back to over 5000 years. There is a huge ongoing debate on which is older and no one knows which direction it is going to head in.
What does this mean when you are traveling in India?
When travelling across the country every few hundred km you will hear a different dialect spoken. As you cross borders to another state the language will entirely change. In spite of being born and brought up in India at times I have found it difficult to communicate with people across the border. But this is true only when you are in the interior remote regions. As a photographer traveling to remote places it was always a factor of interest for me. How will I communicate and get directions, how will I get the information I wanted? But the fact of the matter is I did not really face many problems.
Why shouldn’t you really worry?
In India the most widely spoken language is Hindi and almost everyone speaks a broken version of it. So if you have someone local with you, one is set for the trip. In the metros and bigger cities almost everyone speaks English, albeit not fluently but you can easily communicate making your life easier.
Let’s put it this way, The younger generation usually speaks good English, people at 50+ speak broken English. There will be many cases where people will understand what you are saying if you speak slowly and use sign language( enacting words, pointing at things) and believe me it’s a fun exercise.:)
So the simple thing to do is, have someone local in India to help you. Learn a few basics in Hindi if you can. You can always give it a try to communicate in English.
If you want specific pointers when you are traveling to India do not hesitate to drop us a message, we will be happy to give you pointers.
Happy traveling!
