I read an old thread where one asked regarding the indian languages and he similarity between them. The person also asked why it was common for an Indian (from India) to speak more than one language.
Indian languages can simply be classified based on the 4 different regions:
1) North - Punjabi, Sindhi, Hindi, Kashmiri
2) South - Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malyalam
3) East - Assamese, Manipuri, Naga, Bengali, Oriya and other indigenous langauges
4) West - Konkani, Gujurati, and Marathi.
In reality there tons of other languages which are nationally recognized but I don't know them to be honest. The Northern, Eastern and Western languages are all indo-european in nature and are very similar to hindi in terms of a generalized structure and the vocabulary but they are also very different in many aspects. That being said, learning Hindi will get you a discount in learning other related languages).
These languages are NOT dialects. Each one of these languages has tons of other dialects...so you can imagine how many languages are spoken in India.
The only regions in India where pure European languages are spoken are in the former colonies (ie. Pondicherry - french colony; goa - portugues, parsi and dutch colony; dadra and nager haveli - portuguese colony)
In fact these places have incoporated tons and tons of foreign words. For eg. I speak a dialect known as Kiristave (similar to Varli) and they come under the Konkani language group. However it's very different from konkani, in that the word-structure follows that of other romance languages (but there are also sentences which also don't do that). This can be very frustrating for a person who is learning it (in fact even for other indians). Also kiristave uses so many cases, and it's vocabulary is so diversified (farsi/persian and portuguese loan words).
The language in fact sounds so exotic to Indians themselves, because it sounds like a hybrid of persian, portuguese, konkani and hindi (and indeed it is).
Here's an example of how different the languages and even dialects can be:
I am going there:
Main udhar jaa rahaa hun (hindi)
Mozhui allyi vaybo (kiristave)
Maze akkai jaiza (varli)
Nenu akkada vel tunna nu (telugu)
I am going to go to the shop tomorrow and buy some groceries.
Main kal shop ko jake sabzi kharidunga. (or) kal main shop ko jaunga, sabzi kharidne keyliye (or) main kal sabzi kharidunga (hindi)
Amza manyane shop kiz vayzau azh sheheban comprisho. (or) Mazhui shop kiz manyane bis vayzish men sheheban comprisho sulat. (kiristave)
Amza kal shop kai jaiza aur sabzi karideza (varli)
Nenu repu shop ki velli gorceries kontanu (telugu)
So as you can see how different the languages can be and how different their dialects can sound.
Indian languages can simply be classified based on the 4 different regions:
1) North - Punjabi, Sindhi, Hindi, Kashmiri
2) South - Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malyalam
3) East - Assamese, Manipuri, Naga, Bengali, Oriya and other indigenous langauges
4) West - Konkani, Gujurati, and Marathi.
In reality there tons of other languages which are nationally recognized but I don't know them to be honest. The Northern, Eastern and Western languages are all indo-european in nature and are very similar to hindi in terms of a generalized structure and the vocabulary but they are also very different in many aspects. That being said, learning Hindi will get you a discount in learning other related languages).
These languages are NOT dialects. Each one of these languages has tons of other dialects...so you can imagine how many languages are spoken in India.
The only regions in India where pure European languages are spoken are in the former colonies (ie. Pondicherry - french colony; goa - portugues, parsi and dutch colony; dadra and nager haveli - portuguese colony)
In fact these places have incoporated tons and tons of foreign words. For eg. I speak a dialect known as Kiristave (similar to Varli) and they come under the Konkani language group. However it's very different from konkani, in that the word-structure follows that of other romance languages (but there are also sentences which also don't do that). This can be very frustrating for a person who is learning it (in fact even for other indians). Also kiristave uses so many cases, and it's vocabulary is so diversified (farsi/persian and portuguese loan words).
The language in fact sounds so exotic to Indians themselves, because it sounds like a hybrid of persian, portuguese, konkani and hindi (and indeed it is).
Here's an example of how different the languages and even dialects can be:
I am going there:
Main udhar jaa rahaa hun (hindi)
Mozhui allyi vaybo (kiristave)
Maze akkai jaiza (varli)
Nenu akkada vel tunna nu (telugu)
I am going to go to the shop tomorrow and buy some groceries.
Main kal shop ko jake sabzi kharidunga. (or) kal main shop ko jaunga, sabzi kharidne keyliye (or) main kal sabzi kharidunga (hindi)
Amza manyane shop kiz vayzau azh sheheban comprisho. (or) Mazhui shop kiz manyane bis vayzish men sheheban comprisho sulat. (kiristave)
Amza kal shop kai jaiza aur sabzi karideza (varli)
Nenu repu shop ki velli gorceries kontanu (telugu)
So as you can see how different the languages can be and how different their dialects can sound.