| Also Known As: Maitli,Bihari,Methli,Apabhramsa,Maitili,Apbhramsa,Tirahutia,Tirhuti,Tirhutia,Maithili
Description:
Maithili (मैथिली Maithilī) is a language spoken in the eastern part of India, mainly in the Indian state of Bihar and in the eastern Terai region of Nepal. It is an offshoot of the Indo-Aryan languages which are part of the Indo-Iranian, a branch of the Indo-European languages. Linguists consider Maithili to be an Eastern Indic language, and thus a different language from Hindi, which is Central Indic in origin. As per the 2001 census in India alone 12,179,122 people speak the Maithili language. While the official data, as per the 2001 census, put it at 12 million only, various organizations have strongly argued that the actual number of Maithili speakers is much more than the official data. In times, Maithili has been considered a "dialect" of both Hindi and Bengali but in 2003 it got the status of an independent language. An active movement was carried out to give the language an official status through its inclusion in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, so that it may be used in education, government, and other official contexts. In 2004, Maithili was given an official status. A very sweet language, Maithili has a very rich literary and cultural heritage.
Maithili..... full article at Wikipedia |
Location of Maithili Language Speakers
<googlemap zoom="1" width=400 height=300 lat="33.181580" lon="89.877610" type="map">
27.938868, 84.940756, Nepal
21.767890, 78.871761, India
49.837982, 105.820313, Asia</googlemap>
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