"Languages of the Indian subcontinent" redirects here. For the Indian Republic, see
Languages of India .
Map of language families in South Asia .
A clickable map of the official language and lingua franca spoken in each state/province of South Asia excluding Afghanistan and the Maldives. Indo-Aryan languages are in green, Iranic languages in dark green, Dravidian languages in purple, and Tibeto-Burman languages in red.
South Asia is home to several hundred languages, spanning the countries of Afghanistan , Bangladesh , Bhutan , India , Maldives , Nepal , Pakistan , and Sri Lanka . It is home to the third most spoken language in the world, Hindi–Urdu ; and the sixth most spoken language, Bengali . The languages in the region mostly comprise Indo-Iranic and Dravidian languages, and further members of other language families like Austroasiatic , and Tibeto-Burman languages.
English is considered the international lingua franca of the South Asian countries . Since the colonial era, the South Asian languages have absorbed significant influences from the English language,[1] [2] [3] [4] with the most-spoken South Asian language Hindustani acquiring a new English-influenced variant known as Hinglish [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] which is spoken more in urban areas.[10]
^ Cheshire, Jenny (26 April 1991). English around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives . Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-316-58235-0 .
^ Rauch, Irmengard; Carr, Gerald F. (19 February 2018). Linguistic Method: Essays in Honor of Herbert Penzl . Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3-11-081566-5 .
^ Hodges, Amy; Seawright, Leslie (26 September 2014). Going Global: Transnational Perspectives on Globalization, Language, and Education . Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-6761-0 .
^ Kachru, Braj B. (1986). The Alchemy of English: The Spread, Functions, and Models of Non-native Englishes . University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-06172-1 .
^ Kothari, Rita; Snell, Rupert (2011). Chutnefying English: The Phenomenon of Hinglish . Penguin Books India. ISBN 978-0-14-341639-5 .
^ "Hindi, Hinglish: Head to Head" . read.dukeupress.edu . Retrieved 29 October 2023 .
^ Salwathura, A. N. "Evolutionary development of ‘hinglish’language within the indian sub-continent. " International Journal of Research-GRANTHAALAYAH . Vol. 8. No. 11. Granthaalayah Publications and Printers, 2020. 41-48.
^ Vanita, Ruth (1 April 2009). "Eloquent Parrots; Mixed Language and the Examples of Hinglish and Rekhti" . International Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter (50): 16–17.
^ Singh, Rajendra (1 January 1985). "Modern Hindustani and Formal and Social Aspects of Language Contact" . ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics . 70 (1): 33–60. doi :10.1075/itl.70.02sin . ISSN 0019-0829 .
^ Parshad, Rana D.; Bhowmick, Suman; Chand, Vineeta; Kumari, Nitu; Sinha, Neha (1 May 2016). "What is India speaking? Exploring the "Hinglish" invasion" . Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications . 449 : 375–389. doi :10.1016/j.physa.2016.01.015 . ISSN 0378-4371 . S2CID 59247503 .