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13 Our Culture and

Heritage

Culture heritage of India

Historical monuments and paintings

Festivals of India

India is an ancient land over the countries, people from different lands have
chosen to make India their home. They brought with them their customs and

traditions. Over time, these mixed with the local traditions of India. As a result of
this intermixing of culture, today India has a rich and unique culture and heritage.

Let us learn some more about it.

Our Languages

Our country has a number of languages. Almost every state has its own language.
As of May 2008 there are 22 officially recognise or schedule language in India.

These are:

1. Assamese 2. Bengali 3. Bodo 4. Dogri

5. Gujarati 6. Hindi 7. Kannada 8. Kashmiri

9. Konkani 10. Maithili 11. Malayalam 12. Manipuri

13. Marathi 14. Nepali 15. Odia (formerly Oriya)

16. Punjabi 17. Sanskrit 18. Santhali 19. Sindhi

20. Tamil 21. Telugu 22. Urdu

Hindi is understood and spoken by the largest number of people in our country.
It was therefore, chosen as the official language of the Government of India; and

English was chosen as the second official language of the Indian Government.

One language may be spoken in different ways in different parts of the country. For

example, Hindi is spoken in several ways. Different forms of the same language are

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