how many major languages are there in india
Languages of India According to Census of India of 2001, India has 122 major languages and 1599 other languages. However, figures from other sources vary, primarily due to differences in definition of the terms "language" and "dialect". The 2001 Census recorded 30 languages which were spoken by more than a million native speakers and 122 which were spoken by more than 10,000 people.[13] Two contact languages have played an important role in the history of India: Persian[14] and English.[15] Persian was the court language during the Mughal period in India. It reigned as an administrative language for several centuries until the era of British colonisation.[16] English continues to be an important language in India. It is used in higher education and in some areas of the Indian government. Hindi, the most widely spoken language in a large region of India today, serves as the lingua franca across much of North and Central India.[17] However, there have been anti-Hindi agitations in South India, most notably in the states of Tamil Nadu.[18] There is also opposition in non-Hindi belt states towards imposition of Hindi in these areas.[19][20]
Hindi Hindi is written in the Devanagari script, an abugida. Devanagari consists of 11 vowels and 33 consonants and is written from left to right. Unlike for Sanskrit, Devanagari is not entirely phonetic for Hindi, especially failing to mark schwa dropping in spoken Standard Hindi.[38]