Maharashtra Language

Mumbai is a multilingual city and language, like religion is one of the key way to slice and dice the city's innumerable cultural groups in a bid to make some sense of them. Most of the city's inhabitants speak several languages, sometimes all at the same time. Language has been a sensitive subject in Mumbai since the language riots of 1955, when Bombay State was in the process of being divided on linguistic grounds into the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. The Shiv Sena has continued to make political capital out of the language issue by championing the rights of the Marathi-speaking majority.

There are two official languages in Mumbai - Marathi and English. The majority of the population speaks some form of Hindi, about half speak Marathi, a quarter speak Gujarati, and an eighth Urdu. Other languages you'll hear quite frequently include Konkani, Malayalam and Punjabi. Hindus tend to speak Marathi, Hindi and/or Gujarati; Muslims tend to speak Urdu and/or Gujarati; Jains speak Gujarati; Parsis speak English and Gujarati; and Christians often speak Konkani or English.

Marathi is the language of governance, Gujarati tends to be the language of commerce, English is used in the judicial system and among the educated elite, and everyone talks to everyone else in Bombay Hindi. Bombay Hindi is a distinctive bastardized form of Hindi and is the foster tongue of this city of migrants. It's a perfect example of Mumbai's hybrid heritage and the creative zing that makes the city tick. Bombay Hindi is liberally sprinkled with doses of Marathi, Gujarati and English and is guaranteed to horrify purists and entrance linguistic anthropologists. Trying to keep up with Bombay Hindi slang is a full-time job, best done in the vicinity of the college crowd.

English is understood widely enough to be a second lingua franca in South Mumbai. Most street signs, business names and restaurant menus are in English and you won't have to look very far for someone who is willing to engage you in conversation. Spelling and diction, as elsewhere in India, can be a tad surreal. For an introduction to Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati.