Description

Odia About this sound oḍiā (help·info)) is a language spoken by 4.2% of India's population. It is an Indo-Aryan language that is spoken mostly in eastern India, with around 33 million native speakers globally. It is the predominant language of the Indian state of Odisha, where native speakers make up 80% of the population, and also is spoken in parts of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. Odia is one of the many official languages of India; it is the official language of Odisha and the second official language of Jharkhand.The language is also spoken by a sizeable population of at least 10 million people in Chhattisgarh.[citation needed] Odia is the sixth Indian language to be designated a Classical Language in India on the basis of having a long literary history and not having borrowed extensively from other languages.