Concept:The largest linguistic group in India is determined by the percentage of the population speaking its languages.
Explanation:Indo-Aryan is a branch of the Indo-European language family.
It was brought to India by the Aryans.
Approximately
74% of Indians speak languages from this group.
It is divided into three stages: Old, Middle, and Modern Indo-Aryan.
Old Indo-Aryan includes Vedic Sanskrit (around
1500 BCE).
Middle Indo-Aryan includes Prakrit and Pali (used in Buddhist texts).
Modern Indo-Aryan languages include Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Odia, and Urdu.
These are mainly spoken in northern, western, and eastern India.
The other groups are smaller:
The Sino-Tibetan group is spoken in the Northeast and parts of Bihar and Bengal, but by a much smaller population.
The Austric (or Austrie) group includes Munda languages like Santhali, spoken by tribal communities in central and eastern India.
The Dravidian group covers about
25% of the population, mainly in southern India (e.g., Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam).
Therefore, the Indo-Aryan group is the largest.
Answer:Indo-Aryan