South Asia

Northern Pashto

also: Yusufzai Pashto, Peshawari Pashto

The Pashto of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan and parts of eastern Afghanistan. The literary basis of Pakistani Pashto, with the characteristic /ʃ/-realisation of the historical retroflex sibilant.

Eastern Balochi

also: Pakistani Balochi

The Balochi of Pakistan's Balochistan, centred on Quetta. The largest Balochi variety by speakers and the basis of most Balochi-language broadcasting and publishing.

Khariboli

also: Standard Hindi, Dehlavi

The variety spoken around Delhi and the western Doab. Forms the basis of Modern Standard Hindi and shares its core grammar with Standard Urdu.

Awadhi

also: Avadhi

Spoken across the Awadh region of central Uttar Pradesh. Carries a major literary tradition through Tulsidas' Ramcharitmanas.

Bhojpuri

Spoken across eastern Uttar Pradesh, western Bihar, and parts of southern Nepal. Carried abroad by indenture-era diasporas to Mauritius, Fiji, Suriname, and Trinidad.

Braj Bhasha

also: Braj

The variety of the Braj region around Mathura and Vrindavan. A major literary medium of medieval Hindi devotional poetry, especially the bhakti tradition.

Haryanvi

also: Bangaru

The Western Hindi variety of Haryana and adjacent districts of Delhi. Distinct from Khariboli in vowels, perfective forms, and rural vocabulary.

Bundeli

also: Bundelkhandi

Spoken in the Bundelkhand region straddling Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, around Jhansi. Carries a strong oral epic tradition.

Marwari

The Rajasthani variety of the Marwar region around Jodhpur. Often classified separately from Hindi in linguistic literature, but commonly grouped with the wider Hindi-belt continuum.

Indian English

The pluricentric variety of English used across India. Shaped by long contact with Hindi and other Indian languages, with its own pronunciation, grammar, and lexical norms.

Standard Bengali

also: West Bengal Bengali, Kolkata Bengali

The variety of West Bengal centred on Kolkata. The basis of literary Bengali and the medium of a major modern literature including the works of Tagore.

Bangladeshi Bengali

also: Bāṅlā, Dhaka Bengali

The Bengali of Bangladesh, with Dhaka as its national centre. Closely related to the West Bengal standard but with its own pronunciation, vocabulary, and Persian-Arabic loan stratum.

Sylheti

A Bengali variety of the Sylhet region of north-eastern Bangladesh. Often classified as a separate language; the dominant heritage variety of the British Bangladeshi community.

Standard Tamil

also: Chennai Tamil

The Chennai-area variety of Tamil that forms the basis of the modern spoken standard. Tamil itself has one of the longest continuous literary traditions in the world.

Sri Lankan Tamil

also: Jaffna Tamil, Eelam Tamil

The Tamil of northern and eastern Sri Lanka. Often described as more conservative than Indian Tamil, retaining several features lost in the Chennai variety.

Madurai Tamil

The Tamil of Madurai and the broader southern Tamil Nadu region. Carries a distinctive lexicon and intonation widely featured in Tamil cinema.

Coastal Telugu

also: Andhra Telugu

The Telugu of the coastal Andhra region around Vijayawada. Forms the basis of the literary standard and of much of Telugu cinema.

Telangana Telugu

also: Hyderabadi Telugu

The Telugu of Telangana, centred on Hyderabad. Distinguished from Coastal Telugu in lexicon and shaped by long contact with Dakhini Urdu.

Standard Marathi

also: Puneri, Pune Marathi

The Pune-area variety of Marathi that forms the literary and educational standard across Maharashtra.

Varhadi

also: Vidarbha Marathi

The Marathi of the Vidarbha region in eastern Maharashtra. Distinct from Standard Marathi in pronouns, verb endings, and Hindi-contact vocabulary.

Majhi Punjabi

also: Standard Punjabi

The Majhi variety of central Punjab on both sides of the India-Pakistan border. The basis of the literary standard for both Gurmukhi-script Indian Punjabi and Shahmukhi-script Pakistani Punjabi.

Lahnda

also: Western Punjabi, Saraiki cluster

The Western Punjabi cluster of Pakistan, including Saraiki and Hindko. Often classified as a distinct language group rather than a Punjabi dialect.

Doabi

The Punjabi of the Doaba region between the Beas and Sutlej rivers. The variety with the largest Sikh diaspora footprint, especially in the United Kingdom and Canada.

Standard Gujarati

also: Surati / Charotari

The Gujarati of central and southern Gujarat around Ahmedabad and Vadodara. The basis of the literary and broadcast standard.

Kathiawari Gujarati

The Gujarati of the Kathiawar peninsula in western Gujarat. Distinct in vowels, verb endings, and a number of regional vocabulary items.

Dzongkha

A Tibetic language and the official language of Bhutan, derived from Old Tibetan. Closely related to Standard Tibetan but increasingly diverging through political separation.

Newar

also: Nepal Bhasa, Newari

A Tibeto-Burman language of the Newar people of the Kathmandu valley. The historical lingua franca of medieval Nepal, with an extensive literary tradition.

Urdu

The Hindustani national language of Pakistan and one of India's scheduled languages. Linguistically the same spoken language as Standard Hindi, distinguished by its Perso-Arabic script and Persian-Arabic literary register.

Nepali

also: Nepāli

An Indo-Aryan language and the official language of Nepal. Also a scheduled language of India, with substantial communities in Sikkim, West Bengal, and Bhutan.

Sinhala

also: Sinhalese

An Indo-Aryan language and the majority language of Sri Lanka, descended from settlers from northern India in the 1st millennium BCE. Geographically far removed from its closest Indo-Aryan relatives.

Dhivehi

also: Maldivian

An Indo-Aryan language and the official language of the Maldives. Closest living relative of Sinhala, with which it shares a 12th-century separation date.

Sindhi

An Indo-Aryan language of Sindh province in Pakistan, with substantial communities in India after Partition. Around 25 million speakers; written in both Perso-Arabic and Devanagari scripts.

Kashmiri

also: Koshur

A Dardic Indo-Aryan language of the Kashmir valley, traditionally written in a Perso-Arabic script (Naskh) but also in Devanagari and the Sharada heritage script.

Burushaski

A language isolate spoken in the Hunza, Yasin, and Nagar valleys of Gilgit-Baltistan, northern Pakistan. Around 100,000 speakers; the most-spoken language isolate of Asia.