Languages of IndiaLanguages spoken in the Republic of India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians; both families together are sometimes known as Indic languages. Languages spoken by the remaining 2.31% of the population belong to the Austroasiatic, Sino–Tibetan, Tai–Kadai, and a few other minor language families and isolates. According to the People's Linguistic Survey of India, India has the second highest number of languages (780), after Papua New Guinea (840).
Dungan peopleDungan is a term used in territories of the former Soviet Union to refer to a group of Muslim people of Hui origin. Turkic-speaking peoples in Xinjiang Province in Northwestern China also sometimes refer to Hui Muslims as Dungans. In both China and the former Soviet republics where they reside, however, members of this ethnic group call themselves Hui because Dungans are descendants of historical Hui groups that migrated to Central Asia.
Cham scriptThe Cham script is a Brahmic abugida used to write Cham, an Austronesian language spoken by some 245,000 Chams in Vietnam and Cambodia. It is written horizontally left to right, just like other Brahmic abugidas. The Cham script is a descendant of the Brahmi script of India. Cham was one of the first scripts to develop from a script called the Pallava script some time around 200 CE. It came to Southeast Asia as part of the expansion of Hinduism and Buddhism.
SoraniSorani Kurdish or Central Kurdish (کوردیی ناوەندی/Kurdî Nawendî), also called Sorani (سۆرانی/Soranî), is a Kurdish dialect or a language that is spoken in Iraq, mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the provinces of Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan in western Iran. Sorani is one of the two official languages of Iraq, along with Arabic, and is in administrative documents simply referred to as "Kurdish".
ChavacanoChavacano or Chabacano tʃabaˈkano is a group of Spanish-based creole language varieties spoken in the Philippines. The variety spoken in Zamboanga City, located in the southern Philippine island group of Mindanao, has the highest concentration of speakers. Other currently existing varieties are found in Cavite City and Ternate, located in the Cavite province on the island of Luzon. Chavacano is the only Spanish-based creole in Asia.
DariDari (ˈdɑːri,_ˈdæ-; endonym: دری d̪ɐˈɾiː), also known as Dari Persian (Dari: فارسی دری, , fʌːɾˈsiːjɪ d̪ɐˈɾiː or , fʌːɾˈsiːjɛ d̪ɐˈɾiː), is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language; it is known as Afghan Persian or Eastern Persian in many Western sources. As Professor Nile Green remarks, "the impulses behind renaming of Afghan Persian as Dari were more nationalistic than linguistic" in order to create an Afghan state narrative.
Geʽez scriptGeʽez (Gəʽəz, ˈɡɨʕɨz) is a script used as an abugida (alphasyllabary) for several Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It originated as an abjad (consonant-only alphabet) and was first used to write the Geʽez language, now the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Catholic Church, the Ethiopian Catholic Church, and Haymanot Judaism of the Beta Israel Jewish community in Ethiopia.
Songhay languagesThe Songhay, Songhai or Ayneha languages (sõʁaj, soŋaj or soŋoj) are a group of closely related languages/dialects centred on the middle stretches of the Niger River in the West African countries of Mali, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. In particular, they are spoken in the cities of Timbuktu, Djenné, Niamey and Gao. They have been widely used as a lingua franca in that region ever since the era of the Songhai Empire. In Mali, the government has officially adopted the dialect of Gao (east of Timbuktu) as the dialect to be used as a medium of primary education.
Balti languageBalti (Nastaʿlīq script: , Tibetan script: སྦལ་ཏི།, ) is a Tibetic language natively spoken by the ethnic Balti people in the Baltistan region of Gilgit−Baltistan, Pakistan, Nubra Valley of the Leh district and in the Kargil district of Ladakh, India. The language differs from Standard Tibetan; many sounds of Old Tibetan that were lost in Standard Tibetan are retained in the Balti language. It also has a simple pitch accent system only in multi-syllabic words while Standard Tibetan has a complex and distinct pitch system that includes tone contour.
Nubian languagesThe Nubian languages (lughāt nūbiyyah) are a group of related languages spoken by the Nubians. In the past, Nubian languages were spoken throughout much of Sudan, but as a result of Arabization they are today mostly limited to the Nile Valley between Aswan (southern Egypt) and Al Dabbah. Nubian is not to be confused with the various Nuba languages spoken in villages in the Nuba mountains and Darfur. More recent classifications, such as those in Glottolog, consider that Nubian languages form a primary language family.
