geography 12 · Section 9 · Part 2

– Coimbatore, Ahmedabad – Surat, Delhi – Kanpur and Ludhiana – Jalandhar. In the agriculturally stagnant parts of the middle and lower Ganga Plains, Telengana, non-irrigated Western Rajasthan, remote hilly, tribal areas of north- east, along the flood prone areas of Peninsular India and along eastern part of Madhya Pradesh, the degree of urbanisation has remained low. Linguistic Composition India is a land of linguistic diversity. According to Grierson (Linguistic Survey of India, – ), there were languages and as many as dialects in the country. In the context of modern India, there are about scheduled languages and a number of non-scheduled languages. See how many languages appear on a Rs note. Among the scheduled languages, the speakers of Hindi have the highest percentage. The smallest language groups are Sanskrit, Bodo and Manipuri speakers ( ). However, it is noticed that the linguistic regions in the country do not have a sharp and distinct boundary, rather they gradually merge and overlap in their respective frontier zones. Linguistic Classification The speakers of major Indian languages belong to four language families, which have their sub-families and branches or groups. This can be better understood from Table . . Religious Composition Religion is one of the most dominant forces affecting the cultural and political life of the majority of Indians. Since religion virtually permeates into almost all the aspects of people’s family and community lives, it is important to study the religious composition in detail. Reprint -