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I think the numbers are somewhat disputed. The People's Linguistic Survey of India says there are at least 780, with ~220 having died out in the last half centu

I think the numbers are somewhat disputed. The People's Linguistic Survey of India says there are at least 780, with ~220 having died out in the last half century.[1] The Anthropological Survey of India reported 325 languages.[2] The discrepancies are made particularly tricky because of the somewhat ambiguous distinction between languages and dialects. [1] http://blogs.reuters.com/india/2013/09/07/india-speaks-780-languages-220-lost-in-last-50-years-survey/ http://blogs.reuters.com/india/2013/09/07/india-speaks-780-l... [2] http://books.google.com/books?id=VjGdDo75UssC&pg=PA145 http://books.google.com/books?id=VjGdDo75UssC&pg=PA145

qntm 12y ago
So, this person thinks there are 229 languages in India, but actually there's a minimum of 325, possibly twice that?
- rpedroso 12y ago
  I'm not an anthropological linguist, so I can't say with any authority. I only listed two figures there, but there are many more disputed figures.[1] There are a lot of difficulties classifying languages in India because the line between language and dialect can be tricky to pin down. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India#Inventories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India#Inventories