'Lk NRU. its hundreds of millions of inhabitants, there is as great a diversity of lan guages in India as there is variety in the people.; they/I.-eh-pg. By far the larger majority, over 210,000.000, speak lam.rtur•es or dialects belong ing to the Indo-Germanic group of tongues, and related. though perhaps not by direct descent. to the ancient Vedic dialect. This Indo-Aryan is therefore first ill importance, and three periods or stages limy be r, cognized in its historical develot •nt. Th.. of thee k called the I (hi Indic am] in. eludes the Vedic dialect, Pali. in the broad sense now given to this term, and the literary or classic sansl:rit. The second period ellIbrileeS I he Middle Indian Prakrits. (See The third, termed New Indian, includes the modern Indian vernaculars, \Odell are in the 111:1ill Iles sccnded 1'111111 popular PI:11:rif dialect., and are spoken largely in the north. east, and central of India. l'uder this de,ignali,•11 1:a:miri, and the speech of over 20.000.0u° the north and %vest ; next, the ne'. spoken by S10010100, and vatted I Mit Or 11in/111A:111i when 1111111iXed swill Persian and Arable; again Otijarati and Alarathi, the chief languages of the Bom bay l'i.esidency, rind claiming nearly :10.11110,
tam speakers; furthermore, Bengali, the ver nacular of more than 411,000.011) inilis blinds in the east, together Willi rriyll :11141 Bellari. likewise in Eastern India : also Nepali. the language of Nepal, and _\ssaini, still farther to the east. Separate articles regarding the characteristics of thee Various vernacalars will be found under the individual names. Among the non•.1ryan languages the most important family is the 1)ravidian (q.v.), the tongue of some 50.0111),(1110 people. inhabiting the peninsular por• of India. The ur Altinda branch numbers atto•t 3.000,nnu speakers, while the Ti beto-Burman family has more 111:111 \\lee re, many. The Khasi group (Assam) and the :Mon-Aimani and Shan families aggregate together over half a million speakers. In addition to this the of Iranian languages (q.v.) is represented on the borders of Afghanistan and Ilaluchistall, mid ill the speech of the t he 1 ist ie slat isties lit tinlia include. moreover, the languages, like English. German. French. etc.. which are Used by Europeans resident in India, and similarly such other languages as may be by various Asiatics living al the time in- Hindustan. (See