Language families of India

Topic: Population of India: Distribution, Density, Growth and Composition · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Population: Distribution, Density, Growth and Composition"

Meaning

A language family is a group of languages that grew from one common ancestor language, so they still share old words and grammar. Indian languages belong to four families: Indo-European (Aryan, about 73% of speakers), Dravidian (Dravida, about 20%), Austric (Nishada, 1.38%) and Sino-Tibetan (Kirata, 0.85%).

Each family splits into smaller groups (sub-families and branches), and each is spoken in its own regions. When you lay the families on a map, you also see India's relief, how easy each area is to reach, and where tribal groups live. This is why the topic shows up in both Prelims and GS-I.

Explanation

How languages are grouped

• Language family: languages that come from one parent language. Example: Hindi and Bengali both come from the same old ancestor.
• Branch / sub-family: a smaller group inside a family. Example: Indo-Aryan is a branch of the Indo-European family.
• Dialect: a local form of a language, with its own words and accent. Speakers of other forms of the same language can still mostly understand it.
• Linguistic Survey of India (LSI): the first large, organised survey of Indian languages.
• It was led by Sir George A. Grierson from 1903 to 1928.
• It recorded 179 languages and 544 dialects.

• It is still the base reference for how Indian languages are classified.

• NCERT gives each family an old Sanskrit name: Aryan, Dravida, Nishada, Kirata.

The four families and their branches (NCERT Table 1.2)

Family (old name)	Share of speakers	Branch in India	Main languages
Indo-European (Aryan)	73%	Indo-Aryan	Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Odia, Assamese, Konkani
		Dardic	Kashmiri
		Iranian	Spoken outside India
Dravidian (Dravida)	20%	South Dravidian	Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam
		Central Dravidian	Telugu, Gondi
		North Dravidian	Kurukh, Malto
Austric (Nishada)	1.38%	Austro-Asiatic: Mon-Khmer	Khasi, Nicobarese
		Austro-Asiatic: Munda	Santhali, Mundari, Ho
		Austro-Nesian	Spoken outside India
Sino-Tibetan (Kirata)	0.85%	Tibeto-Himalayan	Ladakhi/Bhoti-type languages
		North Assam	Arunachal tribal languages
		Assam-Myanmari	Bodo, Manipuri (Meitei), Mizo, Naga languages, Kok Barak

• Ranking by share: Indo-European > Dravidian > Austric > Sino-Tibetan.
• Indo-Aryan is the largest language group in India (NCERT Exercise 1(iv)).

Why the small families survive in hills and forests

• Cause: hills, plateaus and forests are hard to reach and cut off from the plains.
• Process: fewer people from the plains moved into these areas and mixed with the people living there.
• Result:
• Tribal languages of the Austric, Sino-Tibetan and some Dravidian branches lived on there.
• The open, crowded plains were taken over by Indo-Aryan languages.

Language regions have no sharp borders

• One language slowly blends into the next at the edges, in frontier zones. People living there are often bilingual (they speak two languages).

• Example: Hindi blends into Marathi, Bengali or Odia in the border districts.

• So a language-family map shows zones, not exact lines.

Where it occurs

• Indo-European family: the northern plains, the north-west, the west and the east.
• It stretches from Punjab and J&K to Assam, and south to Goa and Maharashtra.
• Indo-Aryan speech areas: J&K, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, UP, Rajasthan, Haryana, MP, Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa.

• Dardic (Kashmiri): Jammu and Kashmir.

• Dravidian family: the southern Peninsula, south of a rough line through Maharashtra and Odisha.

• South Dravidian: Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala.
• Central Dravidian: Andhra Pradesh, MP, Odisha, Maharashtra. Gondi is spoken in the Gondwana hills of MP and Maharashtra.

• North Dravidian: Kurukh and Malto are spoken on the Chota Nagpur plateau and in the Rajmahal hills (Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, MP).

• Austric family: spoken in tribal belts, not across whole states.

• Munda languages: the Chota Nagpur plateau (Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal), and also Bihar, Assam, MP and Maharashtra.
• Khasi: the Meghalaya plateau.

• Nicobarese: the Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal.

• Sino-Tibetan family: the Himalayan rim and the North-East hills, from Ladakh in the west to Mizoram in the east.

• Tibeto-Himalayan: Ladakh/J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim.
• North Assam: Arunachal Pradesh.
• Assam-Myanmari: Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya.

• It has the smallest share of speakers but covers a large, thinly populated area.

• Outside India: the Iranian branch (Indo-European) and the Austro-Nesian branch (Austric) are spoken outside India.

Don't confuse with

• Language family vs scheduled language: a family groups languages by common ancestry. A scheduled language is a political and legal status: it is one of the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. Santhali (Austric) and Bodo (Sino-Tibetan) are both scheduled, but neither is Indo-Aryan.
• Indo-European vs Indo-Aryan: Indo-European is the family. Indo-Aryan is one of its branches, along with Dardic and Iranian. Kashmiri is Indo-European but belongs to the Dardic branch, not Indo-Aryan.
• Austric vs Sino-Tibetan in the North-East: Khasi (Meghalaya) is Austric (Mon-Khmer), even though its neighbours, such as Bodo, Manipuri, Mizo and the Naga languages, are Sino-Tibetan.
• Language family vs classical language: classical status is given by the Union government to languages with very old, original literature. It says nothing about which family a language belongs to. Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam are classical and Dravidian. Sanskrit, Odia, Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali are classical and Indo-European [2].

Prelims Hooks

• Order by share of speakers: Indo-European (73%) > Dravidian (20%) > Austric (1.38%) > Sino-Tibetan (0.85%).
• Old names: Indo-European = Aryan, Dravidian = Dravida, Austric = Nishada, Sino-Tibetan = Kirata.
• Language → branch matches:
• Khasi, Nicobarese → Mon-Khmer (Austric)
• Santhali, Mundari, Ho → Munda (Austric)
• Telugu, Gondi → Central Dravidian
• Kurukh, Malto → North Dravidian
• Kashmiri → Dardic (Indo-European)

• Bodo, Manipuri → Sino-Tibetan (Assam-Myanmari)

• Trap: Gondi and Kurukh are Dravidian, even though they are spoken in Central and East India, far from the southern Peninsula.

• Indo-Aryan is the largest language group in India. The Iranian and Austro-Nesian branches are spoken outside India.
• Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India (1903–1928) recorded 179 languages and 544 dialects. It is still the base reference for classifying Indian languages.

Mains Points

• Language map reflects relief and isolation (GS-I):
• Indo-Aryan languages cover the open, crowded plains of the north and west. Dravidian languages hold the southern Peninsula.
• Austric and Sino-Tibetan languages survive in isolated hills, plateaus and forests: the Chota Nagpur plateau, the Meghalaya plateau, the Himalaya and the North-East.

• So a language map is also a map of relief, how easy places are to reach, and where tribal groups settle.

• Unity in diversity:

• Four families meet in India, and their regions blend at frontier zones where people are bilingual.

• Census 2011 grouped 19,569 raw mother-tongue returns into 121 languages. This diversity sits alongside shared national symbols, such as the multilingual ₹10 note.

• Recognition and survival of small-family languages:

• Many tribal languages from the Austric and Dravidian families, such as Ho, Mundari, Gondi, Kurukh and Khasi, are among the 38 languages still waiting to be added to the Eighth Schedule [3].
• No fixed rule for adding languages has been adopted since the Sitakant Mohapatra committee reported in 2004 [3].
• Non-scheduled languages, mostly tribal languages of the North-East and Central India, are the mother tongue of only about 3% of people (Census 2011). They need mother-tongue schooling, written records and protection so they do not become endangered.

Related concepts

• Linguistic Survey of India
• Scheduled languages
• Census 2011 language data
• Indo-European language family
• Dravidian language family
• Austric language family
• Sino-Tibetan language family
• Classical language

Read more

• Linguistic composition: language families and scheduled languages