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Languages of India
LANGUAGES OF INDIA NEWS
How Persian became the language of colonial India’s religious surveys
May 16, 2026 4:47 pm
Historian Jean Arzoumanov’s discovery of an 18th-century Jain text in Persian reveals a forgotten era where Hindu scholars used the ‘Islamic’ lingua franca to help British officers survey India’s faiths.
When Persian served in Bengal as the language of power and culture
April 21, 2026 10:35 pm
Persian once functioned as the dominant language of public administration, revenue accounting, and courtly communication in Bengal
From ‘kagaz’ to ‘naan’: How Persian became the ‘English of the era’ and wove itself into India’s cultural DNA
April 13, 2026 12:46 pm
Persian has deeply influenced India’s language and literature for centuries, and everyday speech, shaping administration, poetry, and vocabulary in Hindi, Urdu, and regional cultures.
Bihar govt to establish two vernacular academies for Prakrit and Pali to preserve ancient languages
December 13, 2025 9:07 am
These two academies will work under the administrative control of the newly created department of Higher Education, according to a notification issued by the Cabinet Secretariat department on December 10.
Why the Hindi vs Urdu debate is inaccurate
September 23, 2025 9:13 am
Urdu is known to have originated in the armed forces of the Mughal Empire, and was in no way tied to religion.
When did Kannada begin? Tracing the origins of a language and script
June 13, 2025 4:57 pm
Historians have noted that long before any available palaeographic evidence of Kannada script in the region where it is predominantly spoken today, it was Prakrit and Sanskrit that were the languages of the elite and the powerful.
Brahui, Malto, Kurux: The histories and the unsettling futures of the North Dravidian languages
June 17, 2025 3:01 pm
Although often associated with Southern India, the Dravidian language family includes 27 languages, spoken by 220 million people across South Asia and beyond. This is a story on the North Dravidian language family and its presence in India & Pakistan
UPSC Issue at a Glance | India’s Linguistic Landscape: From constitutional safeguards to endangered languages
June 06, 2025 12:33 pm
"Kos-kos par badle paani, chaar kos par baani" — this age-old saying beautifully captures the essence of India’s unmatched linguistic richness. With many languages spoken, multilingualism is seen as the backbone of India's democracy. Here's what you need to know about India's language landscape.
Knowledge Nugget | Demand for inclusion of Kokborok and Bhojpuri in Eighth Schedule of Constitution: A must-know for UPSC Exam
June 03, 2025 11:03 am
Recently the Kokborok Sahitya Parishad sought the inclusion of the Kokborok language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, and a similar demand was made for Bhojpuri earlier. Here's all you need to know about it. Also, go 'Beyond the Nugget' to learn about the Classical languages.
‘Some suggest we might lose a quarter of all living languages by end of the century’: Author Laura Spinney
May 09, 2025 1:14 pm
Author Laura Spinney weighs in on the linguistic expansion of Indo-European languages thousands of years ago, examining the alignment between archaeology, genetics, and linguistics.
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