Consider the following statements regarding the linguistic composition of India:
- The Indo-Aryan language family is the largest, accounting for over 70% of the total population of India.
- The Austric language family has the smallest proportion of speakers among the four major linguistic groups in the country.
- According to the 2011 Census, Bengali is the second-most spoken language in India by the number of native speakers.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Correct answer: D
Explanation
The Indo-Aryan family covers roughly 73% of India's population, comfortably over 70%, so statement 1 holds. Among the four major families (Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman/Sino-Tibetan and Austric), the Austric group has the smallest share of speakers, making statement 2 correct. The 2011 Census also ranks Bengali second after Hindi by native speakers, so statement 3 is right too.