INDIAN LANGUAGES. The languages of India are both numerous and important. Cust in his book on the Modern Languages of the East Indies (London, 1878) enumerates nearly two hundred and fifty Indian languages, and some three hundred dialects. Of nese languages divi sions are: First, the group of Aryan tongues spoken throughout the entire northern half and central portion of India; second, the unrelated Dravidian group (q.v.) in the south; third, the Kolarian languages scattered here and there in Central Hindustan; fourth. the Tibeto-Burmese family of non-Aryan tongues, distributed over the vast area which the name implies; fifth, the Khari. an isolated language near Bhutafi. To these may be added likewise two Indo-Chinese spoken families, namely, the Thar, under which comes the Siamese. and the Mon-Annam family, which takes in the Cambodian and Annamite. It may furthermore be stated, for completeness, that the languages of the great Malayan family spoken in Sumatra. Java. Borneo, and the Celebes. and even in the Philippines, have certain Indian affinities or show the influence of the various tongues of India.
The Aryan group of languages in India has preeminence alike for the number and the char acter of the people that speak those dialects, and for the genius of the languages themselves. as well as for the long historical development of this branch, and for the literature attached to it. In point of time the Aryan division of Indian tongues covers a period of culture extending from at least a thousand years before t he Christian Era clown to the present time. Broadly viewed, these periods may be recognized in the history of this division of (1) elld Indian, com prising the earliest Vedic dialect and the historic form of the speech known as Sanskrit (q.v.) :
(2) Middle Indian. which embraces Prakrit (q.v.) and Pali (q.v.), both of which are de scended rather from the Vedic dialect. or its kin, than from the classical Sanskrit: (3) In dian, including the modern vernaculars of the more cultivated peoples of The gen eral characteristics of the Vedic idiom, together with certain peculiarities of the epic speech, and the classical development of the language. will be found in the article on SA NSKRIT LAN GUAGE. Under the Middle I nd inn or Prakrit group are comprised the Maharashtri dialect. or Prakrit par excellence, with its .Taiga varieties, likewise the Mag,adhi or Ardha-Magadhi, the Sau raseni, which is found in the dramas, the zIpa bhrani,§a and the P8i§aci. The New India group, geographically arranged. Oakes in the vernaculars of Assam, Nepal. and Kashmir (the latter called Kasmiri), also Uriya, Bengali, Behari, Hindi, the dialects of the Punjab and of Sindh, likewise Gujarati, Narathi, the Singhalese of Ceylon, :Maldive, and Gypsy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. The standard work on the Bibliography. The standard work on the Aryan languages of India is Griersom Linguistic Surrey of India (Calcutta, 1898). Consult also: Beanies, Comparative Grammar of the Mod ern Languages of India (3 vols., London, 1872 79) ; Cast, Modern Languages of the East Indies (London, 1878) ; and for the phonology, Gray, Indo-Iranian Phonology, with special reference to the Middle and Yew Indo-Iranian Languages (New York, 1902).