How to tell differences between Indian languages (their scripts)

Kshitij Rao
10 min readJul 10, 2021

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Hey! Welcome to my very first blog!!

So, telling the differences between Indian languages(scripts) may seem challenging at first, but with a little practice you can easily identify them.

I am NOT going to be covering all the language scripts in India, I will only be covering the majorly spoken ones.

I was also NOT be teaching you the names of each script (I will mention them but will not go into detail).

This blog is solely to differentiate between language scripts of India!

First, you will have to divide India into 2; the Northern Part and the Southern Part.

This is roughly the division between the North and South parts of India.

Keep in mind, North Indian languages are mostly, if not always influenced by Sanskrit and the South Indian languages are heavily influenced by Tamil.

Southern India is also more linguistically diverse than the North.

Here’s a picture to help you distinguish between Tamil and Sanskrit.

Sanskrit looks like:

Sanskrit letters

This is what the Sanskrit letters look like. This script is called ‘Devanagari’ script. (NOTE: Sanskrit isn’t used as a conversational language anymore, now-a-days it is used mainly for literature)

Sanskrit writing

Let’s move onto the next language, Tamil.

Tamil on the other hand looks like:

Tamil letters

As you might have noticed, Tamil looks nothing like Sanskrit.

Here are some Tamil writings to help you understand the differences even more.

Tamil writing

So, once we’ve got the differences laid out, we will now start by differentiating each Indian language and it’s script.

1. Hindi

Let’s start with Hindi.

Hindi is widely spoken all across Northern Parts of India. It is heavily influenced by Sanskrit. Hindi is a part of the Indo-European language family. It looks EXACTLY like Sanskrit, so unless you speak either Hindi or Sanskrit or both, chances are you probably won’t be able to differentiate between the two of them.

Hindi writing

Hindi looks almost identical to Sanskrit and has a lot of shared vocabulary.

Hindi is widely spoken in the Northern parts of India as a first language and is virtually understood by almost all citizens of India as a second language which is learnt in Schools, via Television, radio, etc.

Hindi speaking states of India

As you might have noticed from the above map of India, Hindi is generally spoken in Northern India.

Let’s move onto the next language, Tamil.

2. TAMIL

Tamil is spoken in the Southern part of India, it is one of the most ancient languages in the world. It is a part of the Dravidian languages.

Tamil writing

It is a popular language amongst the people in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. A dialect of Tamil is also spoken in Sri Lanka but we will not be discussing the differences or the similarities between the two.

Tamil speaking regions

Let’s move onto another Dravidian language spoken in the Southern part of India, Telugu.

3. TELUGU

Telugu is another Dravidian language spoken in the Southern part of India.

It is heavily influenced by Tamil and has a lot of shared vocabulary.
The Telugu script is very distinct and is easily identifiable.

Telugu writing

It is widely spoken in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telanaga (which were earlier a single state but due to regional disputes got divided).

Telugu speaking regions

Let’s move onto another South Indian language, Malayalam.

4. MALAYALAM

Malayalam is another language of Southern India spoken in the state of Kerala. It is also heavily inspired by Tamil.

On first glance Malayalam script might look similar if not totally identical to Tamil, if you’re not from Southern India you might even think they’re the same language.

Malayalam script

Malayalam might look VERY similar to Tamil, which is fair because they indeed are very similar.

One simple way to tell both the scripts apart is to remember the fact that Malayalam is more ‘round’ than Tamil.

An illustration between the differences might help you understand.

Differences between Tamil and Malayalam script

On the first glance it might not be so obvious and articulate.

It is alright to not understand the differences between the two, as many non-speakers of the two languages often confuse them for one another.

Malayalam is spoken in the state of Kerala in Southern India.

Malayalam speaking regions of India

As you might have noticed, Both the Tamil and Malayalam speaking regions are really close to each other and that is one of the reasons why both their scripts are almost indistinguishable to foreigners!

Let’s move on to another language spoken in the South, Kannada

5. KANNADA

Kannada is another language of the South widely spoken in the state of Karnataka.

It is also like all South Indian languages inspired by Tamil.

Kannada looks extremely similar to Telugu. Yes, it looks even more similar to Telugu than Malayalam looks to Tamil.

Kannada writing

If you’re confused between Kannada and Telugu scripts, don’t be. As a native Telugu speaker I can assure you that they look really alike, although we can tell them apart due to their subtle differences.

An illustration might help in the further explanation of my point.

Kannada and Telugu scripts

As you might have noticed both of them look VERY alike and I ( a native Telugu speaker) with very little practice can even read it fluently!

Kannada is spoken in the Karnataka state of India.

Kannada speaking regions of India

Kannada and Telugu speaking regions are closely situated and therefore influencing each others’ spoken and written languages.

Next up on the list is Odia.

6. ODIA

Odia is a very unique language, it is influenced by both Sanskrit (generally a North Indian language) and Tamil (a South Indian language).

It is a beautiful amalgamation of two of the oldest languages in the world. This is due to its location in the Center-ish part of India, creating ancient cross-roads between the South and the North (not entirely true).

Odia script might look familiar but it is distinct in it’s own way.

Odia writing

Odia is influenced by both Tamil and Sanskrit and one can clearly see the influence not just in the script but also in the speech.

Odia is spoken in the state of Odisha of India.

Odia speaking regions of India

The next South-Indian language we’re going to cover is Marathi.

7. MARATHI

Marathi is another language spoken in the South. It has more influence from Sanskrit than Tamil.

It has a lot of shared vocabulary with Hindi.

Marathi writing

Marathi uses the same script as Hindi, which is the Devanagari script.

Marathi is spoken in mostly spoken in the state of Maharashtra.

Marathi speaking region of India

The next language we’re going to discuss is Gujarati.

8. GUJARATI

Gujarati is a language spoken in the North-West part of India. It is a popular language with multiple communities all across the planet. It is one of the most recognizable Indian languages.

It is heavily inspired by Sanskrit and the influence is evident in both the written and the spoken versions of the language. Gujarati is written in the Gurmukhi script.

Gujarati script

Gujarati on the first glance might look similar to Hindi, which is a reasonable observation because it indeed is really similar to Hindi.

The main difference between Hindi and Gujarati writing is that Gujarati doesn’t have a ‘line’ on the top of its letters. Hindi and most languages inspired by Hindi have a ‘line’ on top of its letters but not Gujarati. That is the easiest way to tell both the languages apart.

Gujarati is widely spoken in the state of Gujarat.

Gujarati speaking region of India

The next language we will be covering is Punjabi.

9. PUNJABI

Punjabi is a language spoken all across the sub-continent. It is not only spoken in India but also in the Sindh region of Pakistan. It is easily one of the most popular languages across the planet with Punjabi movies and songs being consumed world-wide.

Punjabi in India, uses a script which is heavily inspired by Sanskrit. Whereas, Punjabi in Pakistan is known to use the Nastaliq script. I will only be covering the Indian version of Punjabi because I am not educated on the Pakistani side of things.

Punjabi writing

Punjabi is spoken across 2 countries, India and Pakistan.

Any Hindi speaker can understand about 70% of the sentences in Punjabi due to similarities in both the languages and due to exposure to Punjabi media via the internet.

Punjabi speaking regions of the sub-continent

Next language up on the list is Bengali.

10. BENGALI

Bengali is another language spoken across 2 countries in the Indian sub-continent. It is spoken not only in India but also in Bangladesh.

Bengali is called “bangla” in its native tongue and “desh” in Bangla/Bengali means “country”, Hence, Bangladesh= Bangla country.

Bengali is a widely spoken language with very distinct sounds and script.

Bengali writing

Bengali is widely regarded as a language of literature by Non-Banglaphones. Bengali is spoken in the ‘Bengal’ region of the sub-continent. Bangladesh earlier used be a part of India, but due to regional conflicts split up and is a country of its own.

Bengali speaking region of India

As you might have noticed it is spoken all across the heart of India.

Next and the final language I’m going to cover is Urdu.

11. URDU

Urdu, is a very special language. It is phonetically identical to Hindi. Hindi and Urdu are mutually intelligible and speakers of either languages have no problem communicating with one another. The main differences in Urdu and Hindi arise when the written form of the language is introduced.

Hindi is written in a Devanagari script whereas Urdu is written in Nastaliq script.

Hindi and Urdu fall under the “Hindustani” branch of languages.

Urdu writing

Urdu’s script is the most distinct of all Indian languages. Urdu’s script was clearly influenced by Persian and Arabic. This script was usually learnt by the Muslims. However, it would be completely wrong to declare that ‘Urdu is a Muslim language’ and ‘Hindi is a Hindu language’. That statement isn’t true at all. Hindi and Urdu, as previously mentioned fall under the “Hindustani” branch of languages. Both Hindi and Urdu are the same language (phonetically speaking), but when it comes to the literary form, Urdu and Hindi do have a lot of differences. Urdu is also spoken in India and is also a official language in a lot of states. I should also mention the fact that Urdu is the lingua-franca of Pakistan and is taught in schools as majority of the population in Pakistan do not speak Urdu as a first language. One of the most spoken languages in Pakistan is ‘Punjabi’ and Urdu is spoken as a first language by less than 2% of the population. People do however learn and embrace Urdu as a second language through the means of education and media.

There are no maps accurately depicting the Urdu speaking regions, but it is safe to say that every person who speaks Hindi can easily converse with a person speaking Urdu without any issues (also true the other way around).

I have not covered the other languages of India as I am not really educated about them. Those languages might include- Kashmiri, Assamese, Manipuri, Tulu, Haryanvi and many other languages. That is due to the fact that I have never personally met the speakers of those languages and I’ve never really done any research on them. I would love to update my blog as I learn more about the languages and I appreciate if you’ve read the entire thing. I’m happy if I was able to educate you guys about the languages of India.

That marks the end of my very first blog. Thank you for your time and I would love to hear your thoughts. Please do e-mail me and I do write back to all my readers. All sorts of criticism is appreciated and I will be making edits as I learn more about the languages of India, i.e. if I can actually edit the blog once I’ve published it. Please do let me know if there are any inaccuracies in the blog.

My current e-mail is:

kshitijrao777@gmail.com

Thank you for reading, have a great day!

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Kshitij Rao
Kshitij Rao

Written by Kshitij Rao

Hello there! Welcome to my blogging profile. I'm 17 years old and from India. I would love to share my thoughts on the topics I'm really interested in!

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