India is a land of linguistic diversity.

(i)According to Grierson (Linguistic Survey of India, 1903 –1928) there were 179 languages and as many as 544 dialects in the country.

(ii)In the context of modern India, there are about 18 scheduled languages (1991 census) and a number of nonscheduled languages.

(iii)Among the scheduled languages, the speakers of Hindi have the highest percentage (40.42). The smallest language groups are Kashmiri and Sanskrit speakers (0.01 per cent each).

(iv)However, it is noticed that the linguistic regions in the country do not maintain a sharp and distinct boundary, rather they gradually merge and overlap in their respective border zones.

(v)The speakers of major Indian languages belong to four language families, which have their sub-families and branches or groups.