List of Indian Official languages

The official languages of the Republic of India are Standard Hindi and English. According to the article 343 (1), "The Official Language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script." The individual states can legislate their own official languages, depending on their linguistic demographics. For example, the state of Andhra Pradesh has Telugu as its sole official language, the state of Tamil Nadu has Tamil as its sole official language and the state of Karnataka has Kannada as its sole official language, while the state of Jammu and Kashmir has Kashmiri, Urdu, and Dogri as its official languages.

Article 345 of the Indian constitution provides recognition to "official languages" of the union to include Standard Hindi or any one or more of the languages adopted by a state legislature as the official language. Until the Twenty-First Amendment of the Constitution in 1967, the country recognised 14 official regional languages. The Eighth Schedule and the Seventy-First Amendment provided for the inclusion of Sindhi, Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali, thereby increasing the number of official regional languages of India to 18. Individual states, whose borders are mostly drawn on socio-linguistic lines, are free to decide their own language for internal administration and education.

The following table lists the official languages, aside from English, set out in the eighth schedule as of May 2008:

1
Language Assamese/Axomiya
Family Indo-Aryan, Eastern
State(s) Assam, Arunachal Pradesh

2
Language Bengali
Family Indo-Aryan, Eastern
State(s) West Bengal, Tripura, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and also few regions of Assam

3
Language Bodo
Family Tibeto-Burman
State(s) Assam

4
Language Dogri
Family Indo-Aryan, Northwestern
State(s) Jammu and Kashmir

5
Language Gujarati
Family Indo-Aryan, Western
State(s) Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Gujarat

6
Language Standard Hindi
Family Indo-Aryan, Central
State(s) Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, the national capital territory of Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand

7
Language Kannada
Family Dravidian
State(s) Karnataka.

8
Language Kashmiri
Family Indo-Aryan, Dardic
State(s) Jammu and Kashmir

9
Language Konkani
Family Indo-Aryan, Southern
State(s) Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala

10
Language Maithili
Family Indo-Aryan, Eastern
State(s) Bihar

11
Language Malayalam
Family Dravidian
State(s) Kerala, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Puducherry

12
Language Manipuri (also Meitei or Meithei)
Family Tibeto-Burman
State(s) Manipur

13
Language Marathi
Family Indo-Aryan, Southern
State(s) Maharashtra, Goa, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka

14
Language Nepali
Family Indo-Aryan, Northern
State(s) Sikkim, West Bengal, Assam

15
Language Oriya
Family Indo-Aryan, Eastern
State(s) Orissa

16
Language Punjabi
Family Indo-Aryan, Northwestern
State(s) Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab

17
Language Sanskrit
Family Indo-Aryan
State(s) non-regional

18
Language Santhali
Family Munda
State(s) Santhal tribals of the Chota Nagpur Plateau (comprising the states of Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa)

19
Language Sindhi
Family Indo-Aryan, Northwestern
State(s) non-regional

20
Language Tamil
Family Dravidian
State(s) Tamil Nadu, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Puducherry;

21
Language Telugu
Family Dravidian
State(s) Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry;

22
Language Urdu
Family Indo-Aryan, Central
State(s) Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh