Dravidian languages
(Redirected from Dravidian language)
| Dravidian | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: | South Asia |
| Linguistic classification: | Dravidian |
| Proto-language: | Proto-Dravidian |
| Subdivisions: |
Central
Eastern
Southern
|
| Ethnologue code: | 1282-16 |
| ISO 639-2 and 639-5: | dra |
 Places where Dravidian languages are spoken | |
The Dravidian languages are a language family spoken by the Dravidian peoples. The languages are mainly spoken in South India, western Bangladesh, northern Sri Lanka and southern Pakistan. There are about 26 languages in this family. A total of about 215 million people speak the Dravidian languages.
Dravidian languages probably used to be spoken over a larger area of the subcontinent. There are several ethnic groups in India, known as "Scheduled Tribes", that still speak their own Dravidian languages. Brahui, with 2,200,000 speakers, is a Dravidian language that is spoken in the Balochistan region of Pakistan. Kurukh language is spoken in parts of Nepal and Bhutan. The main Dravidian languages are below:
- Telugu: 85,000,000 speakers
- Tamil: 75,000,000 speakers
- Kannada: 49,000,000 speakers
- Malayalam: 38,000,000 speakers
- Brahui: 2,600,000 speakers
