Languages of Asia
Encyclopedia
There is a wide variety of language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

s spoken throughout Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

, comprising a number of families and some unrelated isolates. Many languages have a long tradition of writing.

Central and North Asian languages

  • Turkic
    Turkic languages
    The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...

    • Azeri
      Azerbaijani language
      Azerbaijani or Azeri or Torki is a language belonging to the Turkic language family, spoken in southwestern Asia by the Azerbaijani people, primarily in Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran...

    • Kazak


Kazakh language
Kazakh is a Turkic language which belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, closely related to Nogai and Karakalpak....

    • Kyrgyz
      Kyrgyz language
      Kyrgyz or Kirgiz, also Kirghiz, Kyrghiz, Qyrghiz is a Turkic language and, together with Russian, an official language of Kyrgyzstan...

    • Tatar
      Tatar language
      The Tatar language , or more specifically Kazan Tatar, is a Turkic language spoken by the Tatars of historical Kazan Khanate, including modern Tatarstan and Bashkiria...

    • Turkish
      Turkish language
      Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

    • Turkmen
      Turkmen language
      Turkmen is the national language of Turkmenistan...

    • Uyghur
      Uyghur language
      Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...

    • Uzbek
      Uzbek language
      Uzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 25.5 million native speakers, and it is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia...

  • Tungusic languages
    Tungusic languages
    The Tungusic languages form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered, and the long-term future of the family is uncertain...

  • Uralic languages
    Uralic languages
    The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...

  • Yukaghir languages
    Yukaghir languages
    The Yukaghir languages are a small family of two closely related languages – Tundra and Kolyma Yukaghir – spoken by the Yukaghir in the Russian Far East living in the basin of the Kolyma River. According to the 2002 Russian census, both Yukaghir languages taken together have 604 speakers...

  • Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages
    Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages
    The Chukotko-Kamchatkan or Chukchi–Kamchatkan languages are a language family of extreme northeastern Siberia. Its speakers are indigenous hunter-gatherers and reindeer-herders....

  • Nivkh
    Nivkh language
    Nivkh or Gilyak is a language spoken in Outer Manchuria, in the basin of the Amgun , along the lower reaches of the Amur itself, and on the northern half of Sakhalin. 'Gilyak' is the Manchu appellation...

  • Yeniseian languages
    Yeniseian languages
    The Yeniseian language family is spoken in central Siberia.-Family division:0. Proto-Yeniseian...


East Asian

  • Ainu
    Ainu language
    Ainu is one of the Ainu languages, spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō....

  • Sino-Tibetan languages
    Sino-Tibetan languages
    The Sino-Tibetan languages are a language family comprising, at least, the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. They are second only to the Indo-European languages in terms of the number of native speakers...

    :
    • Chinese languages: (Also see: Languages of China
      Languages of China
      China's many different ethnic groups speak many different languages, collectively called Zhōngguó Yǔwén , literally, "speech and writing of China", which span eight primary language families. Most of them are dissimilar morphologically and phonetically. Even within each family, most are mutually...

      )
      • Cantonese
      • Gan
      • Hakka
      • Mandarin
      • Min
      • Wu
      • Xiang
  • Japonic
    Japonic languages
    Japonic languages is a term which identifies and characterises the Japanese which is spoken on the main islands of Japan and the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. This widely accepted linguistics term was coined by Leon Serafim....

    • Japanese
      Japanese language
      is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

    • Ryukyuan
      Ryukyuan languages
      The Ryukyuan languages are spoken in the Ryukyu Islands, and make up a subgroup of the Japonic, itself controversially a subgroup of Altaic....

  • Korean language
    Korean language
    Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...

  • Mongolic
    Mongolic languages
    The Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in East-Central Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas plus in Kalmykia. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian, is the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia and the Mongolian residents of Inner...

    • Buryat
      Buryat language
      Buryat is a Mongolic variety spoken by the Buryats that is either classified as a language or as a major dialect group of Mongolian. The majority of Buryat speakers live in Russia along the northern border of Mongolia where it is an official language in the Buryat Republic, Ust-Orda Buryatia and...

    • Mongolian
      Mongolian language
      The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...


Southeast Asian languages

  • East Asian languages ?
    • Austric languages
      Austric languages
      The Austric language superfamily is a large hypothetical grouping of languages primarily spoken in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and the eastern Indian subcontinent. It includes the Austronesian language family of Taiwan, the Malay Archipelago, Pacific Islands, and Madagascar, as well as the...

       (?)
      • Austro-Asiatic languages
        Austro-Asiatic languages
        The Austro-Asiatic languages, in recent classifications synonymous with Mon–Khmer, are a large language family of Southeast Asia, also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. The name Austro-Asiatic comes from the Latin words for "south" and "Asia", hence "South Asia"...

        • Khasi
          Khasi language
          Khasi is an Austro-Asiatic language spoken primarily in Meghalaya state in India by the Khasi people. Khasi is part of the Austroasiatic family of languages, and is fairly closely related to the Munda branch of that family, which is spoken in east&endash;central India.Although most of the 865,000...

        • Khmer
          Khmer language
          Khmer , or Cambodian, is the language of the Khmer people and the official language of Cambodia. It is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language , with speakers in the tens of millions. Khmer has been considerably influenced by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious...

        • Mon
          Mon language
          The Mon language is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Mon, who live in Burma and Thailand. Mon, like the related language Cambodian—but unlike most languages in Mainland Southeast Asia—is not tonal. Mon is spoken by more than a million people today. In recent years, usage of Mon has...

        • Kuy
          Kuy language
          Kuy language is a Katuic language, part of the larger Austroasiatic family.Kuy is one of the more important languages of the Mon–Khmer family...

        • Nicobarese
          Nicobarese languages
          The Nicobarese languages form an isolated group of half a dozen closely related Austro-Asiatic languages, spoken by the majority of the inhabitants of the Nicobar Islands of India. They have a total of about 30,000 speakers...

        • Vietnamese
          Vietnamese language
          Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...

        • Munda languages
          Munda languages
          -Anderson :Gregory Anderson's 1999 proposal is as follows. Individual languages are highlighted in italics.*North Munda **Korku**Kherwarian***Santhali***Mundari*South Munda **Kharia–Juang***Juang***Kharia...

          • Santali
            Santali language
            Santhali is a language in the Santhali subfamily of Austro-Asiatic, related to Ho and Mundari. It is spoken by about six million people in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan . Most of its speakers live in India, in the states of Jharkhand, Assam, Bihar, Orissa, Tripura, and West Bengal. It has...

      • Hmong–Mien languages
        • Hmongic languages
          Hmongic languages
          The Hmongic languages is a language branch including the Miao language used by Miao people, Pa-Hng, and Greater Bunu languages used by non-Mien Yao people.-Classification:Hmongic is one of the primary branches of the Hmong–Mien language family, with the other...

        • Mienic languages
          Mienic languages
          The Mienic languages are spoken by the Yao people of China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand.-Classification:Mienic is one of the primary branches of the Hmong–Mien language family, with the other being Hmongic...

      • Tai–Kadai languages
        • Gelao
          Gelao language
          Gelao is a dialect cluster of Kra languages in the Tai–Kadai language family, spoken by the Gelao people in China and Vietnam. Despite an ethnic population of 580,000 , however, only a few thousand still speak the language...

        • Buyang
          Buyang language
          Buyang is a Tai–Kadai language spoken in Guangnan and Funing counties, Yunnan Province, China by the Buyang people. It is important to the reconstruction of Austro-Tai as it retains the disyllabic roots characteristic of Austronesian languages. Examples are "to die", "eye", "head", and "eight"...

        • Hlai
          Hlai language
          Hlai is one of two languages of the Hlai or Li people, the other being the Jiamao "dialect". It is spoken by 600,000 people , a quarter of them monolingual, in the mountains of central and south-central Hainan Island...

        • Zhuang
          Standard Zhuang
          The standard Zhuang language is the variety of Zhuang spoken in Wuming County in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, where it is an official language.-Classification:...

        • Lao
          Lao language
          Lao or Laotian is a tonal language of the Tai–Kadai language family. It is the official language of Laos, and also spoken in the northeast of Thailand, where it is usually referred to as the Isan language. Being the primary language of the Lao people, Lao is also an important second language for...

        • Nyaw
        • Thai
          Thai language
          Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...

      • Austronesian languages
        Austronesian languages
        The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...

        • Formosan languages
          Formosan languages
          The Formosan languages are the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Taiwanese aborigines currently comprise about 2% of the island's population. However, far fewer can still speak their ancestral language, after centuries of language shift...

          • Atayal
            Atayal language
            The Atayal language is spoken by the Atayal people of Taiwan. Squliq and C’uli’ are two major dialects...

          • Paiwan
            Paiwan language
            Paiwan is a native language of Taiwan, spoken by the Paiwan people, one tribe of the Taiwanese aborigines. Paiwan is a Formosan language of the Austronesian language family...

        • Malayo-Polynesian languages
          Malayo-Polynesian languages
          The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. These are widely dispersed throughout the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia...

          • Borneo–Philippines languages
            • Cebuano
              Cebuano language
              Cebuano, referred to by most of its speakers as Bisaya , is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people mostly in the Central Visayas. It is the most widely spoken of the languages within the so-named Bisayan subgroup and is closely related to other Filipino...

            • Hiligaynon
              Hiligaynon language
              Hiligaynon, often referred to as Ilonggo, is an Austronesian language spoken in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines.Hiligaynon is concentrated in the provinces of Iloilo, Negros Occidental and Capiz but is also spoken in the other provinces of the Panay Island group, including Antique,...

            • Ilokano
              Ilokano language
              Ilokano or Ilocano is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines....

            • Tagalog
              Tagalog language
              Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...

          • Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian languages
            Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian languages
            The Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian languages are a branch of the Austronesian family, proposed by Wouk & Ross , that are thought to have dispersed from a possible homeland in Sulawesi. They are called nuclear because they are the conceptual core of the Malayo-Polynesian family, including both Malay and...

            • Cham
              Cham language
              Cham is the language of the Cham people of Southeast Asia, and formerly the language of the kingdom of Champa in central Vietnam. A member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian family, it is spoken by 100,000 people in Vietnam and up to 220,000 people in Cambodia . There are also...

            • Indonesian
              Indonesian language
              Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....

            • Javanese
              Javanese language
              Javanese language is the language of the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. In addition, there are also some pockets of Javanese speakers in the northern coast of western Java...

            • Malay
              Malay language
              Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

            • Sundanese
              Sundanese language
              Sundanese is the language of about 27 million people from the western third of Java or about 15% of the Indonesian population....

            • Tetum
              Tetum language
              Tetum is an Austronesian language, a national language and one of the two official languages of East Timor. It is also used in parts of West Timor that adjoin East Timor, particularly in Belu Regency...

    • Sino-Tibetan languages
      Sino-Tibetan languages
      The Sino-Tibetan languages are a language family comprising, at least, the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. They are second only to the Indo-European languages in terms of the number of native speakers...

      • Tibeto-Burman languages
        Tibeto-Burman languages
        The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Chinese members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken thoughout the highlands of southeast Asia, as well as lowland areas in Burma ....

        :
        • Bodo
          Bodo language
          Bodo is a language that belongs to the branch of Barish section under Baric division of the Tibeto-Burman languages and spoken by the Bodo people of north-eastern India and Nepal...

        • Burmese
          Burmese language
          The Burmese language is the official language of Burma. Although the constitution officially recognizes it as the Myanmar language, most English speakers continue to refer to the language as Burmese. Burmese is the native language of the Bamar and related sub-ethnic groups of the Bamar, as well as...

        • Chin languages
        • Dzongkha
          Dzongkha language
          Dzongkha , occasionally Ngalopkha, is the national language of Bhutan. The word "dzongkha" means the language spoken in the dzong, – dzong being the fortress-like monasteries established throughout Bhutan by Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal in the 17th century."Bhutani" is not another name for...

        • Jingpho
          Jingpho language
          The Jingpho language or Kachin language is a Tibeto-Burman language mainly spoken in Kachin State, Burma and Yunnan Province, China...

        • Karen
        • Kayah
          Kayah language
          Kayah, or Red Karen, is a Karen dialect continuum spoken by over half a million Kayah people in Burma.Eastern Kayah is reported to have been spoken by 260,000 in Burma and 100,000 in Thailand in 2000, and Western Kayah by 210,000 in Burma in 1987....

        • Kiranti languages
          Kiranti languages
          The Mahakiranti or Maha-Kiranti languages are a proposed intermediate level of classification of the Tibeto-Burman languages. They are the languages most closely related to the Kiranti languages proper, which are spoken by the ethnic Kirat...

        • Meitei
        • Mizo
          Mizo language
          The Mizo language is natively spoken by Mizo people in Mizoram, a state in the Indian Union; Chin State of Burma and in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. The language is also known as Lushai , as Lusei people are the first clan who have an external exposure...

        • Rahkine
        • Tibetan
          Tibetan language
          The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...

  • Dravidian languages
    Dravidian languages
    The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...

    • Tamil
      Tamil language
      Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...


South Asia

  • Indo-European languages
    Indo-European languages
    The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...

    • Indo-Iranian languages
      Indo-Iranian languages
      The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It consists of three language groups: the Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani...

      • Indo-Aryan languages
        Indo-Aryan languages
        The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...

        • Northern Zone
          Pahari languages
          The Pahari languages are a geographic group of Indic languages spoken in the lower ranges of the Himalayas, from Nepal in the east to the Indian states of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir in the west.-Classification:The Pahari languages fall into three groups:*Eastern, consisting...

          • Dogri
            Dogri language
            Dogri is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by about five million people in Pakistan and India, chiefly in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, but also in northern Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, other parts of Jammu and Kashmir, and elsewhere. Dogri speakers are called Dogras, and the Dogri-speaking...

          • Kashmiri
            Kashmiri language
            Kashmiri is a language from the Dardic sub-group and it is spoken primarily in the Kashmir Valley, in Jammu and Kashmir. There are approximately 5,554,496 speakers in Jammu and Kashmir, according to the Census of 2001. Most of the 105,000 speakers or so in Pakistan are émigrés from the Kashmir...

          • Nepali
            Nepali language
            Nepali or Nepalese is a language in the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family.It is the official language and de facto lingua franca of Nepal and is also spoken in Bhutan, parts of India and parts of Myanmar...

          • Sindhi
            Sindhi language
            Sindhi is the language of the Sindh region of Pakistan that is spoken by the Sindhi people. In India, it is among 22 constitutionally recognized languages, where Sindhis are a sizeable minority. It is spoken by 53,410,910 people in Pakistan, according to the national government's Statistics Division...

          • Saraiki

Northern Lahnda or modern Panjistani
  • Bengali
    Bengali language
    Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...

        • Western Zone
          • Gujarati
            Gujarati language
            Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...

          • Punjabi
            Punjabi language
            Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...

          • Urdu
        • Central Zone
          • Hindi languages
            Hindi languages
            The Hindi languages, also known as Madhya and the Central Zone of the Indo-Aryan languages, is a subset of the varieties of Hindi spoken across northern India that descend from the Madhya prakrits, and includes the official languages of India and Pakistan, Hindi and Urdu...

            • Western Hindi
              Western Hindi
              Western Hindi is a group of Hindi dialects that evolved out of the Apabhramsa form of Shaurseni prakrit. According to G. A. Grierson it comprises such varieties as Haryanvi or Bangaru , Brajbhakha , Bundeli Western Hindi is a group of Hindi dialects that evolved out of the Apabhramsa form of...

              • Khariboli
                Khariboli
                Khariboli , also Khari Boli, Khadiboli, Khadi Boli or simply Khari, is a Western Hindi dialect spoken mainly in the rural surroundings of Delhi, the northern areas of Western Uttar Pradesh and the southern areas of Uttarakhand in India...

              • Haryanvi
              • Kanauji
            • Eastern Hindi
              • Awadhi
                Awadhi language
                Awadhi is an Indo-Aryan language, part of the Hindi-Urdu continuum. It is spoken chiefly in the Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh, although its speakers are also found in Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Nepal. Furthermore, the Fiji Hindi dialect spoken by Indo-Fijians is considered a variant of Awadhi,...

              • Chhattisgarhi
                Chhattisgarhi language
                Chhattisgarhi is the official language in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh and has approximately 17.5 million speakers. It is an East Central Indo-Iranian language with heavy presence of vocabulary and linguistic features from Munda and Dravidian languages...

            • Rajasthani languages
        • Eastern Zone (Magadhan)
          • Bengali-Assamese
            • Assamese
              Assamese language
              Assamese is the easternmost Indo-Aryan language. It is used mainly in the state of Assam in North-East India. It is also the official language of Assam. It is also spoken in parts of Arunachal Pradesh and other northeast Indian states. Nagamese, an Assamese-based Creole language is widely used in...

            • Bengali
              Bengali language
              Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...

            • Chittagonian
              Chittagonian language
              Chittagonian is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the people of Chittagong in Bangladesh and in much of the southeast of the country. It is closely related to Bangla, but is normally considered by linguists to be a separate language rather than a dialect of Bangla. It is estimated to have 14...

            • Sylheti
              Sylheti language
              Sylheti is the language of Sylhet, which is also known as the Surma Valley and is located in the north-eastern region of Bangladesh, and also spoken in parts of the Northeast Indian states of Assam and Tripura...

          • Bihari languages
            Bihar
            Bihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....

            • Angika
              Angika language
              Angika is an Indo-Iranian language of the Anga region of India, a 58,000 km² area approx. that falls within the states of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal....

            • Bhojpuri
              Bhojpuri language
              Bhojpuri is a language spoken in parts of north-central and eastern India. It is spoken in the western part of state of Bihar, the northwestern part of Jharkhand, and the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh , as well as adjoining parts of the Nepal Terai. Bhojpuri is also spoken in Guyana,...

            • Maithili
              Maithili language
              Maithili language is spoken in the eastern region of India and South-eastern region of Nepal. The native speakers of Maithili reside in Bihar, Jharkhand,parts of West Bengal and South-east Nepal...

            • Magahi
            • Sadri
              Sadri language
              Sadri is a branch of Prakrit language and is regarded as a sister language of Oriya, Bengali and Angika. It is spoken in the Indian states of Jharkhand, Orissa and the north of West Bengal, and in Bangladesh....

          • Oriya Languages
            • Halbi
              Halbi language
              Halbi is an Eastern zone Indo-Aryan language of the Oriya subgroup, spoken by about 500,000 individuals across the central part of India. It is considered a dilect of Oriya language by linguist.It uses SOV word order , makes strong use of affixes, and places adjectives before nouns...

            • Oriya
              Oriya language
              Oriya , officially Odia from November, 2011, is an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. It is mainly spoken in the Indian states of Orissa and West Bengal...

        • Southern Zone
          • Dhivehi
            Dhivehi language
            Maldivian is an Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by about 350,000 people in the Maldives where it is the national language. It is also the first language of nearly 10,000 people in the island of Minicoy in the Union territory of Lakshadweep, India where the Mahl dialect of the Maldivian...

          • Konkani
            Konkani language
            KonkaniKonkani is a name given to a group of several cognate dialects spoken along the narrow strip of land called Konkan, on the west coast of India. This is, however, somewhat an over-generalisation. Geographically, Konkan is defined roughly as the area between the river Damanganga to the north...

          • Marathi
            Marathi language
            Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...

          • Sinhala
  • Dravidian languages
    Dravidian languages
    The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...


Kannada
    • Northern languages
      • Kurukh–Malto
        • Kurukh
          Kurukh language
          Kurukh , also called Kurux, Kuṛux or Kuruḵẖ, is a Dravidian language spoken by the Oraon and Kisan tribal peoples of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and West Bengal, India, as well as in northern Bangladesh. It is most closely related to Brahui and Malto...

        • Malto
          • Kumarbhag Paharia
            Kumarbhag Paharia language
            The Kumarbhag Paharia language is spoken in the Jharkhand and West Bengal states of India, and tiny pockets of Orissa state. It is a member of the Northern branch of the Dravidian language family, along with the Kurukh language and the Brahui language spoken in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan...

          • Sauria Paharia
            Sauria Paharia language
            The Sauria Paharia language is spoken in the Bihar and West Bengal states of India, and some pockets of Bangladesh.Most of the speakers are in India with around 110,000...

      • Brahui
    • Central languages
      • Kolami–Parji
        • Kolami
          Kolami language
          Kolami is a tribal Central Dravidian language used in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra states of India. It takes route from the central branch of Dravidian Language tree and falls under Kolami–Paraji group of languages....

        • Ollari
      • Telugu–Kui
        • Gondi–Kui
          • Gondi
            Gondi language
            Gondi is spoken by the Gondi people. It is a Central-Dravidian language, spoken by about two million people chiefly in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattishgarh and in various adjoining areas of neighbouring states...

          • Maria
            Maria language
            Maria language may refer to:*Maria language *Maria language...

          • Pardhan
            Pardhan language
            Pardhan is a South-Central Dravidian language spoken in India, mostly in Andhra Pradesh, Adilbad District; Madhya Pradesh, Seoni, Mandla, Chhindawara, Hoshangabad, Betul, Balaghat, Jabalpur districts; Chhattisgarh, Raipur, Bilaspur districts; Maharashtra, Bhandara, Garhchiroli, Nagpur, Wardha, and...

          • Nagarcha
            Nagarchal language
            Nagarchal is a Dravidian language in India. According to the 1971 census, there were 7091 speakers of the language, but they have shifted to Hindi and Gondi. The Nagarchal speakers live in the Balaghat, Chhindwara, Mandla and Seoni districts of Madhya Pradesh, the Durg District of Chhattisgarh, the...

    • Southern languages
      • Kannada
        Kannada language
        Kannada or , is a language spoken in India predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas and number roughly 50 million, is one of the 30 most spoken languages in the world...

      • Telugu
        Telugu language
        Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...

      • Malayalam
        Malayalam language
        Malayalam , is one of the four major Dravidian languages of southern India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. It is spoken by 35.9 million people...

      • Tamil
        Tamil language
        Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...



The above are the four major South Indian languages, however due its to close historic relationship and intermingling of people there has been a plethora of language mixtures which have evolved into new languages with peculiar grammar features such as:
    • Kannada-Tamil
    • Tamil–Malayalam
    • Tulu
      Tulu language
      The Tulu language |?]]]) is a Dravidian language spoken by 1.95 million native speakers mainly in the southwest part of Indian state Karnataka known as Tulu Nadu. In India, 1.72 million people speak it as their mother tongue , increased by 10 percent over the 1991 census...

    • Tulu-Kannada
    • Kodava Takk
    • Kannada-Telugu

Southwest Asia

  • Afroasiatic
    • Semitic
      Semitic
      In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...

      • Arabic
      • Aramaic
      • Hebrew
  • Indo-European languages
    Indo-European languages
    The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...

    • Indo-Iranian languages
      Indo-Iranian languages
      The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It consists of three language groups: the Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani...

      • Iranian
        Iranian languages
        The Iranian languages form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn is a subgroup of Indo-European language family. They have been and are spoken by Iranian peoples....

        • Persian
          Persian language
          Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

        • Kurdish
          Kurdish language
          Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....

        • Lori
        • Balochi
          Balochi language
          Balochi is a Northwestern Iranian language. It is the principal language of the Baloch of Balochistan, Pakistan, eastern Iran and southern Afghanistan. It is also spoken as a second language by some Brahui. It is designated as one of nine official languages of Pakistan.-Vowels:The Balochi vowel...

        • Pashto
          Pashto language
          Pashto , known as Afghani in Persian and Pathani in Punjabi , is the native language of the indigenous Pashtun people or Afghan people who are found primarily between an area south of the Amu Darya in Afghanistan and...


Others

  • Andamanese languages
    Andamanese languages
    The Andamanese languages form a proposed language family spoken by the Andamanese peoples, a group of Negritos who live in the Andaman Islands, a union territory of India. Its validity is disputed...

     (suggested as part of an Indo-Pacific languages
    Indo-Pacific languages
    Indo-Pacific is a hypothetical language macrofamily proposed in 1971 by Joseph Greenberg. Supporters of Indo-Pacific see it as an extremely ancient and internally diverse family...

     group)
  • Kusunda language
    Kusunda language
    Kusunda is a language isolate spoken by a handful of people in western Nepal. It has only recently been described in any detail.For decades the Kusunda language was thought to be on the verge of extinction, with little hope of ever knowing it well...

     (isolate)
  • Burushaski language
    Burushaski language
    The Burushaski or Burushko language , is a language isolate . It is spoken by some 87,000 Burusho people in the Hunza, Nagar, Yasin, and Ishkoman valleys, and some parts of the Gilgit valley, in Gilgit–Baltistan in Pakistan and by about 300 Burusho people in Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, India...

     (isolate)

See also

  • Classification schemes for Southeast Asian languages
    Classification schemes for Southeast Asian languages
    Below is a list of different classification schemes for Southeast Asian languages. Language families represented include:*Tai–Kadai*Austronesian*Austro-Asiatic*Hmong–Mien*Sino-Tibetan-Macrofamilies:...

  • Dene–Caucasian languages
  • East Asian languages
    East Asian languages
    East Asian languages describe two notional groupings of languages in East and Southeast Asia:* Languages which have been greatly influenced by Classical Chinese and the Chinese writing system, in particular Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese .* The larger grouping of languages includes the...

  • Eurasiatic languages
    Eurasiatic languages
    Eurasiatic is a language macrofamily proposed by Joseph Greenberg that includes many language families historically spoken in northern Eurasia. The eight branches of Eurasiatic are Etruscan, Indo-European, Uralic–Yukaghir, Altaic, Korean-Japanese-Ainu, Gilyak, Chukotian, and Eskimo–Aleut, spoken in...

  • Languages of India
    Languages of India
    The languages of India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-European languages—Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian languages...

  • List of extinct languages of Asia
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