|  Languages
of Darjeeling
Darjeeling being a land of polyglot population
has several numbers of languages and dialects. Apart form different
languages several branches of Indo-Aryan family, several dialects
of Austric and Dravidian families are spoken both in the hills
and in the plains. However, the dialects and languages falling
under the Tibeto-Burman branch of Sino-Tibetan speech family
are of great importance because of its dialectal variation.
According to the Census of 1961, as many
as 119 mother tongue groups were enumerated in Darjeeling
district. Among them 16 languages could not be classified
by the Linguistic Survey of India.
In Darjeeling hills Nepali
speakers under Indo-Aryan language family form the largest group.
More that 75% people speak in this language especially in three
hill sub-divisions of Darjeeling district namely Darjeeling,
Kurseong and Kalimpong
sub division. While Hindi and Bengali under the same language
family form the major group in Siliguri
sub-division in the plains.
 Among
the various branches of Tibeto-Burman language family, there
are Lepcha, Tibetan, Sherpa
and Bhutia languages having
their own linguistic identity. Whereas, the Tamang, Mongar,
Limbu, Newars are some of the majore dialects falling under
the same category. However, these dialects are rapidly loosing
their identity because of the influence of Nepali language.
Beside the Tibetan, Bhutia and Sherpa of Tibeto-Burman
language family there are speakers of the Sino-Tibetan Speech
family i.e. Garwali, Ladakhi etc of North Himalayan regions.
Of the Indo-Aryan speech family, Nepali belongs to Himalayan
group, Bengali to the Eastern group and Hindi to the western
and central group.
Because of colonial influence a large number
of people in Modern Darjeeling district can speak English, which
has been officially recognized by the government of India. English
is largely used in different official work and also is a popular
medium in schools.
Source : The District Gazetteers of
Darjeeling, Govt of West Bengal has been instrumental for making
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