Marathi language

Marathi (English pronunciation: ⁱ/məˈrɑːti/; मराठी Marāṭhī [məˈɾaʈʰi]) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken predominantly by Marathi people of Maharashtra. It is the official language and co-official language in Maharashtra and Goa states of Western India respectively, and is one of the 23 official languages of India. There were 73 million speakers in 2001; Marathi ranks 19th in the list of most spoken languages in the world. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India. Marathi has some of the oldest literature of all modern Indo-Aryan languages, dating from about 900 AD. The major dialects of Marathi are Standard Marathi and the Varhadi dialect. There are other related languages such as Khandeshi, Dangi, Vadvali and Samavedi. Malvani Konkani has been heavily influenced by Marathi varieties.

Marathi is strongly influenced by Sanskrit & is the Indo-Aryan language with 50% of vocabulary identical to the Sanskrit language . Additionally, it has some special grammatical features derived from Sanskrit that are not retained in other major Indian languages. For example, Marathi has inclusive as well as exclusive forms of 'we' and also a neuter gender which is rarely present in languages like Hindi and Punjabi and absent in Bengali. Also, it is one of the three Indo-Aryan languages retaining Sanskrit letter ळ (the others are Gujarati and Punjabi).