Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/156

130 by intercourse with conquering nations, who, pouring down from the north-west, have in successive ages made themselves masters of great portions of the land. In all of them Sanscrit, the sacred and classic language of the Hindus, forms a large element, but in a constantly diminishing proportion as you journey from the north to the south. Persian and Arabic also enter largely into the composition of the languages of the north and north-west.

The most important languages of India may be briefly mentioned:

The Hindi, and its cognate dialects, composed of Persian, Arabic, and Sanscrit, with an ancient Hindu tongue, is spoken by the inhabitants of a great part of Northern India. Including the several dialects, it is spoken by about 50,000,000 of people.

Bengali is spoken by the 30,000,000 inhabitants of the valley of the Lower Ganges, including Bengal, of which Calcutta is the metropolis. It is almost wholly Sanscrit.

Mahratti is the language of about 10,000,000 of the inhabitants of the Bombay presidency in the west.

Oriyah, spoken in Orissa, south of Bengal, contains much Sanscrit, but less than the Bengali.