5 Endangered Languages of India

Mahal



Mahal or Mahl is an Indo-Aryan language and is spoken by the people of Minicoy Island in the Union Territory of Lakshadweep, India. It has a written history of about eight hundred years ago. The oldest inscriptions found to date is on coral stones. Even though the Mahal language is based on Sanskrit foundations, since the 16^th Century Mahal is written in a unique script called Tana, which is from right to left (like Hebrew or Arabic). Mahal is descended from Maharashtri, a Prakrit of ancient and medieval India. According to German orientalist Wilhelm Geiger, Mahal is a daughter language of Sinhalese, which is predominantly spoken in Sri Lanka. Currently, most people who speak Mahal live in the Minicoy Island and is spoken by about 300,000 people in the Republic of Maldives.