23 official languages, 4,000 recognized regional dialects and languages: a true Tower of Babel. Yet two languages dominate: Hindi and… English. 41% of the population speaks Hindi, 10% English. The country's elite, the upper bourgeoisie, and young students speak it fluently. But for many Indians who don't speak Hindi, it serves as a common tongue. Favored in urban settings, English is spoken almost everywhere across the territory, except for a few rare isolated regions.

After independence in 1947, the use of English in official texts was supposed to end in 1965, replaced solely by Hindi. But in 1963, Parliament enacted a law maintaining English in official contexts, to facilitate comprehension of texts for Dravidian speakers.

You will thus be surprised to encounter two educated Indians, one from Delhi and the other from Kolkata, speaking exclusively in English. Hindi is spoken in Delhi, Bengali in Kolkata.

The Great Families of Indian Languages

All languages are grouped into two major families, as dissimilar as French and Finnish:

Indo-Aryan languages: 74% of the population (Northern India)

Dravidian languages: 24% of the population (Southern India)

Austro-Asiatic languages (aboriginal tribes) and Tibeto-Burman languages (Ladakh–Zanskar): 2% of the population

Sanskrit, the ancestor of Hindi, language par excellence of religious texts, remains the preserve of a few scholars. From its alphabet, the characters of Hindi derive directly.

For the Western tourist, the prevalence of English in major urban centers proves a genuine advantage. At train stations, for example, signage written in Hindi or Dravidian languages is accompanied by Roman characters.

Provided you speak and understand English reasonably well, communicating in India presents no great difficulties.