India is a land of rich cultural heritage and myriad facets. The cultural heritage of India has a number of aspects to it and linguistic heritage is probably the one, which is most fascinating of all. Linguistic heritage of India is where one can trace the history of different languages spoken in India.
India with its diverse history and rich cultural heritage is one of the few nations, which is multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic. But the present day languages spoken in India have evolved over a period of time of Indian history. Foreign invaders also added a new dimension to the linguistic heritage of India. But most of the languages spoken in India in one way or the other belong to two main families of languages, which are the Dravidian and Aryan. Both the Dravidian and Aryan languages have different scripts. There are other languages that belong to the Sino-Tibetan-Mongoloid family. These languages are mostly spoken in the east of India.
Most of the South Indian languages that are spoken today belong to the Dravidian family, while in the northern side of India, the language belongs to the Aryan family. But it is interesting to note here how different invaders during different periods in Indian history affected and enriched the Indian languages. For example invaders from Central Asia added Persian words while the British contributed a number of English words.
After the independence of India, policy makers decided to make Hindi as the official language of India, however they declared that English could also be used for official purposes. The reason for choosing Hindi as the official language was that it was the most commonly spoken language and its association with the freedom movement of India. The Constitution of India recognises 18 Indian languages.
Some of the popular languages spoken in different parts of India include Hindi, English, Tamil, Bengali, Assamese, Malayalam, Gujarati, Punjabi and Urdu. Most of the sacred books of Hindus are written in Sanskrit while that of Muslims in Arabic. Come on a heritage tour of India and discover the linguistic heritage of India with Heritage in India.
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