India: Languages

The following list depicts some of the many languages present in India and the percentages of people who speak them.

Hindi 41%,
Bengali 8.1%,
Telugu 7.2%,
Marathi 7%,
Tamil 5.9%,
Urdu 5%,
Gujarati 4.5%,
Kannada 3.7%,
Malayalam 3.2%,
Oriya 3.2%,
Punjabi 2.8%,
Assamese 1.3%,
Maithili 1.2%,
other 5.9%.


English in India

The official language of India is Hindi. For English speaking travel, you may notice that there is no English language listed.

English has the associate status of India; however is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication.

English rises in India

In 2008, The Washington Post published an article called, “In India, Dreams Unfold in English- Boom is Driving Language Classes” which was by Rama Lakshmi.

She states that since the India economy has been booming, there have been more and more Indians trying to learn English.

“Bhopal, a provincial city of more than 1.5 million, is now thick with storefront schools that promise English proficiency.”

With the economic boom in India, do you think that it is a good idea that all people in India should be taught English to become even more globalized?