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India has many languages spoken by different people all over the country, and it doesn’t have a national language. Instead, India has an official language; according to article 343 of the Indian constitution, Hindi in the Devanagari script shall be the country’s official language. English used to be the official language of India before the government of India established the constitution on 26th January 1965; when the British took over the country, naturally, their government used English for everything. Today Hindi is the official language to be used by the government of India because of how prominently spoken language it is all over the country. Even though British rule is over, today, English is used as the provisional sub-official language because of globalisation.
The Official Language of India
As per article 343 of the Indian constitution, Hindi is the official language, and English comes in as a sub-official language of India which is used for communicating with non-Hindi-speaking states or countries. Even though the country’s official languages are Hindi and English, all over the country, several languages are scheduled as official languages in various states of the country. Currently, the country’s constitution recognises a total of twenty-two regional languages as the official scheduled languages that the people speak.
Below is the list of languages recognised by the government of India to be official languages in alphabetical order:
| Sr. No. | Language | Reorganisation in the states |
| 1 | Assamese | Assam, Arunachal Pradesh |
| 2 | Bengali | West – Bengal, Tripura |
| 3 | Bodo | Assam |
| 4 | Dogri | Language of Jammu & Kashmir |
| 5 | Gujarati | Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, Gujarat |
| 6 | Hindi | Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, Gujarat, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Uttarakhand |
| 7 | Kannada | Karnataka |
| 8 | Kashmiri | Jammu and Kashmir |
| 9 | Konkani | Maharashtra, Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, Goa, Kerala and Karnataka |
| 10 | Maithili | Jharkhand and Bihar |
| 11 | Malayalam | Kerala, Puducherry and Lakshadweep |
| 12 | Manipuri | Manipur |
| 13 | Marathi | Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, Maharashtra and Goa |
| 14 | Nepali | Sikkim and West Bengal |
| 15 | Odia | Language of Odisha |
| 16 | Punjabi | Language of Chandigarh and Punjab while also being second official language of Haryana and Delhi |
| 17 | Sanskrit | Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh |
| 18 | Santali | Language of Santali people of Jharkhand but also spoken in Bihar, Assam, Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Tripura, Odisha and West Bengal |
| 19 | Sindhi | Ulhasnagar, Maharashtra and Gujarat |
| 20 | Tamil | Puducherry, Tamil Nadu |
| 21 | Telugu | Puducherry, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh |
| 22 | Urdu | Telangana, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh |
Prominently spoken official languages
Hindi
Hindi is the most prominent language spoken among the Indian people. Even though there is no official language in the country, for many years, many people debate has gone on to make Hindi the national language of the country, but nothing has happened yet. Hindi is spoken by about half of the population of the country; at least 44% of the population speaks Hindi. Hindi is also the third most spoken language in the entire world. Central and northern states house many Hindi speakers in the country.
Bengali
Bengali is the second most prominent language spoken by the people of India, the people mainly speak it in West Bengal, but it is also said in many northeastern states as well as Jharkhand and Andaman and the Nicobar Islands. Bengali is the official language of West Bengal, but it also serves as a second official language of a few states.
Marathi
The official language of Maharashtra has the third most significant number of native speakers, making it one of the most prominently spoken languages in the country. According to the census of 2011, there were about 99 million speakers of the Marathi language. Marathi is also the second-oldest Indo-Aryan language of India.
Tamil and Telugu
Tamil and Telugu are both Dravidian languages spoken widely in the states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, and Puducherry. These are the two languages of classical status, and the native speakers of these languages reside almost all over the parts of south India and around the world. Telugu is the fourth most spoken language, and Tamil is the fifth most spoken language in the country.
Urdu
Urdu used to be among the country’s most spoken languages before independence; after the independence of India, the usage of Urdu was minimised, but it is still prominently used in states like Uttar Pradesh and Jammu Kashmir. Urdu and Hindi both languages are almost the same when spoken.
