World Language Map

Dravidian languages map

76 Dravidian languages are on the map, most of them in India. It divides into 4 main branches, the largest being South Dravidian (66 languages). The best-known members include Telugu, Tamil and Kannada. Only this family is drawn; tap the map to list every language at a spot.

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The filter only changes what is drawn. Tap the map to list every language at a spot, whichever family is shown. You can also pick any family from its own page.

Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

The Dravidian family at a glance

  • 76languages
  • 18drawn as areas
  • 58shown as points
  • 4main branches

Colours on the map mark the ten largest families; this page’s filter shows Dravidian alone. Areas are generalisations from published atlases and overlap with the areas of other families.

Biggest Dravidian languages

By approximate speaker counts from Wikidata, each with its source and year on its own page.

  1. Where is Telugu spoken? (about 82 million speakers)
  2. Where is Tamil spoken? (about 75 million speakers)
  3. Where is Kannada spoken? (about 43.6 million speakers)
  4. Where is Malayalam spoken? (about 37.1 million speakers)
  5. Where is Kurukh spoken? (about 2 million speakers)
  6. Where is Tulu spoken? (about 2 million speakers)
  7. Where is Brahui spoken? (about 1.8 million speakers)
  8. Where is Kui (India) spoken? (about 645,000 speakers)
  9. Where is Kuvi spoken? (about 350,000 speakers)
  10. Where is Pengo spoken? (about 350,000 speakers)

Branches of Dravidian

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • South Dravidian (66)
  • Central Dravidian (5)
  • North Dravidian (4)
  • Unclassified Dravidian (1)

Where Dravidian languages are spoken

Countries with the most Dravidian languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

All 76 Dravidian languages, A to Z

Questions about Dravidian languages

How many Dravidian languages are there?

76 living Dravidian languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 4 main branches, the biggest being South Dravidian (66 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Dravidian languages spoken?

India (75), Malaysia (2), Singapore (2), Pakistan (1), Afghanistan (1) and Iran (1) have the most Dravidian languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Dravidian languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Telugu (about 82 million), Tamil (about 75 million) and Kannada (about 43.6 million). These figures differ between sources and years.

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