South Asian Studies
Official/Government Languages of South Asia
Map created by Joseph Westendorf.
Hindi and English are both officially listed as the official languages of the government of India, there has been debate over whether one of them should be the official language of India. Afghanistan accepts both Pashto & Dari. In Pakistan, Urdu is the national language, while both Urdu and English are 'Official' languages.
Language Families
"Language Families of South Asia," Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
There are over 100 different languages spoken in South Asia, with Hindi the most-widely used language, with over 600 million speakers. Bengali follows with 200 million speakers, followed by Urdu. Hindi and Urdu are sometimes called twins because both languages come from the same original language. English is an official language in both India and Pakistan, and is used primarily for business purposes. While Sri Lanka has 2 official languages, Sinhala is the most frequently spoken one, spoken by 75% of the population. Dari is the lingua franca of Afghanistan even though more people speak Pashto. These languages are considered difficult for English speakers to learn.
Languages of India
Language region map of India by their most commonly spoken first language, by Filpro, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Hindi Is Our Ground, English Is Our Sky by Call Number: Ebook Central Academic CompleteISBN: 1782382321Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Rutgers Language Books
Hindi by Call Number: Ebook central academic complete, ebook central college completeISBN: 9027293147Publication Date: 2006-10-31
Bengali by Call Number: Ebook Central Academic CompleteISBN: 9789027238191Publication Date: 2012-11-13
Course in Nepali by Call Number: Alexander Library PK2596.M38 1998ISBN: 9780700710706Publication Date: 1998-06-01
Descriptive Grammar of Pashto and Its Dialects by Call Number: Ebook Central Academic CompleteISBN: 9781614513032Publication Date: 2013-11-28
Urdu for Children, Book 1 by Call Number: Ebook Central Academic CompleteISBN: 0773580557Publication Date: 1997-01-01
Urdu for Children, Book Ii, 3 Book Set, Part One by Call Number: Ebook Central Academic CompleteISBN: 0773580468Publication Date: 2004-01-01
Rutgers Resources
South Asian Languages at Rutgers:
For more resources on Persian (also known as Dari), go to the Middle Eastern Library guide.
Ethnologue: Languages of the World : this database provides information on 7000 living languaes around the world including numerous languages across South Asia.
Other Language Resources
Resources for learning Hindi: Expansive list of resources from the University of Washington.
Virtual Hindi: Virtual Hindi lessons from NYU.
Learning Hindi: Has 130 short lessons in Hindi.
Urdu: A wide variety of tools to learn Urdu from Colombia University.
Urdu language and culture resources: From the University of Iowa.
Bengali language and culture resources: List of resources from the University of Iowa.
Burmese Language: Short online lessons from Northern Illinois University.
The US government's old courses with the Foreign Service Institute and Defense Language Institute are in the public domain, and cover some South Asian Languages: