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? for webmasters from India, how many languages are spoken?

by atvking
4 replies
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Hello,

I have a question for webmasters in India. How many languages are spoken today in India? If I had a product in English that I wanted to translate how many languages would I have to consider to cover most of India?

I know theres 100-s of them but I would like to know how many of them are popular or most spoken?

Thanks for any information!
  • Profile picture of the author David Beroff
    Wikipedia is your friend.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...akers_in_India
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  • Profile picture of the author atvking
    I know I went there first and now I am even more confused

    Man there's so many languages being spoken there and each is split up in to sub-languages I figured it would be easier to ask somebody who is a native
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  • Profile picture of the author bizgrower
    As I understand it from an Indian customer at my Hotel, India has sort of adopted English as their
    national language because of the many different dialects. He described as pretty much being a different dialect every block.

    So, maybe just Hindi and English will be all you need for most purposes and translation budgets.
    I think it might be like parts of Europe where, for example, people speak, write and read Swiss/German
    at home yet understand Swiss, French, and German very well.

    I suggest finding a local University with Indian students and get current information there. The University will have an office that serves international students and will be a resource for you.

    Dan
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    "If you think you're the smartest person in the room, then you're probably in the wrong room."

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  • Profile picture of the author seasoned
    As I recall, there are only a few DOZEN "OFFICIAL" languages in INDIA. I doubt even any INDIAN business supports all of them. Look at how complicated the signs look with maybe EIGHT!

    AND, MANY have their OWN script!

    As for NATIONAL language, IIRC, india has two. English and Hindi. English is simple, universal, and spoken to some degree, by much of the country. Hindi is, from what I understand, a simplified version of Sanscrit, which is the official language of the HINDU faith. Ironically, HINDI even has a commonality with URDU. A HINDU learning Hindi would be like a catholic learning latin, or a jewish person learning Hebrew,or a Christian learning greek..

    Steve
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