By Quick facts
- Name in Marathi
- मराठी (marāṭhī)
- Language family
- Indo-European › Indo-Aryan
- Writing system
- Devanagari — abugida (syllabic), left to right
- Where it began
- The Deccan (standard based on Pune)
- Main countries
- India
- ISO 639-3 code
mar
Where Marathi ranks
Marathi is the 16th most-spoken language in the world by total speakers [1,2]. Here it is among its neighbours in the ranking, on one scale.
- 13Japanese126M
- 14Nigerian Pidgin121M
- 15Egyptian Arabic118M
- 16Marathi99M
- 17Vietnamese97M
- 18Telugu96M
- 19Swahili95M
“How are you?” in Marathi
आपण कसे आहात?
āpaṇ kase āhāt?
Formal; to a man informally: तू कसा आहेस? (tū kasā āhes?)
How are you?
Phrases: Omniglot — Useful phrases in Marathi [11]. Other languages' phrases come from the sources on their own pages. Synthetic voice (ElevenLabs Eleven v3, voice “Sia”). Pronunciation is approximate and may not match a native speaker; Cantonese and Wu Chinese are not voiced because the model reads Chinese characters with Mandarin sounds.
A short history
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language of western and central India; its standard speech is based on that of Pune, and it became the official language of Maharashtra[3]. Its literature reaches back to the 13th century[3].
Alongside Devanagari, Marathi was written for administration in Modi, a cursive script designed to be written without lifting the pen, until the 20th century[4,5]. On 3 October 2024 the Government of India conferred classical-language status on Marathi[6].
The design of Devanagari
An abugida: every consonant carries an inherent 'a', other vowels are signs attached around it, and a virama removes the vowel. Consonant clusters fuse into conjuncts, and letters hang from a horizontal headline[7,8]. It descends from Brahmi through the Gupta script[8,9].
Abugida (syllabic). Each consonant carries a vowel, changed by marks attached to it.
- Kind
- Abugida (syllabic)
- Direction
- Left to right
- Took shape
- In use from the 7th century CE and in its present form by about the 11th century
- Line of descent
- Brahmi → Gupta → Nagari → Devanagari
- Traditional surface
- Paper
- Own digits
- ० १ २ ३ ४ ५ ६ ७ ८ ९
- Also writes
- हिन्दी Hindiभोजपुरी Bhojpuri
- Brahmi
- Gupta
- Nagari
- Devanagari
Ordered by the mouth
Consonants are arranged by where they are made in the mouth, from the throat (क ka) to the lips (म ma), each row running from unvoiced to nasal. The alphabet is a phonetics chart inherited from Sanskrit grammarians[7,10].
Hanging from a line
A horizontal headline, the shirorekha, joins the letters of a word; the letters hang below it rather than standing on a baseline[8].
Written before, said after
The i sign ि is drawn to the left of its consonant but pronounced after it, so कि is ki. Unicode stores text in spoken order and leaves the reordering to the font, which is why early phones showed broken Hindi[7].
Letters that fuse
Clusters join into conjuncts: क + ष makes क्ष (kṣa), and ज + ञ makes ज्ञ (jña), shapes that look nothing like their parts[7].
A letter Hindi lacks
Marathi uses ळ (ḷa), a retroflex l that standard Hindi does not have[7].
Modi: built for speed
Modi letters were shaped so a scribe could keep the pen on the page, making it ideal for clerks and record-keepers[4].
Explore the letters
a
The independent vowel; inside words it is silent, built into every consonant
1 / 18 · playing — pick a letter to stop
Numbers in Devanagari
Marathi's relatives among the 38
Marathi belongs to the Indo-European family (Indo-Aryan). These are the other languages with 50 million or more speakers in the same family; the closest — in the same branch — come first.
- हिन्दीHindiSame branch: Indo-Aryan · 611M
- বাংলাBengaliSame branch: Indo-Aryan · 274M
- اُردُوUrduSame branch: Indo-Aryan · 246M
- پنجابیWestern PunjabiSame branch: Indo-Aryan · 90M
- ગુજરાતીGujaratiSame branch: Indo-Aryan · 62M
- EnglishEnglishGermanic · 1.5B
- españolSpanishRomance · 561M
- françaisFrenchRomance · 334M
- portuguêsPortugueseRomance · 269M
- русскийRussianBalto-Slavic · 210M
- DeutschGermanGermanic · 133M
- فارسیPersian (Iranian)Iranian · 82M
- italianoItalianRomance · 66M
- भोजपुरीBhojpuriIndo-Aryan (Bihari) · 53M
Marathi across the hub
The main page compares all 38 languages. Each link opens it on Marathi.
- Preview it in the explorer →with all 38 side by side
- Hear it in the voice tour →“How are you?” in every language, spoken in turn
- Trace its script's family tree →from the first alphabets and Chinese oracle bones
- Compare its digits →ten ways to write 0–9
- See its share of speakers →an interactive breakdown by script, family and region
Frequently asked questions
How many people speak Marathi?
About 99 million people speak Marathi: 83 million as a first language and 16 million as a second, according to Ethnologue's 2026 figures. That makes it the 16th most-spoken language in the world by total speakers.
What script is Marathi written in?
Marathi is written in Devanagari, an abugida: each consonant carries a vowel, changed by marks attached to it. It runs left to right.
How do you say "How are you?" in Marathi?
In Marathi, "How are you?" is आपण कसे आहात? (āpaṇ kase āhāt?). Formal; to a man informally: तू कसा आहेस? (tū kasā āhes?)
Where is Marathi spoken?
Marathi is spoken mainly in India. It began in the Deccan (standard based on Pune).
How old is the Marathi script?
Devanagari has been in use since the 7th century CE and reached its present form by about the 11th century. Its family line runs Brahmi → Gupta → Nagari → Devanagari.
Sources
- Ethnologue — What are the top 200 most spoken languages? (2026)
- Wikipedia — List of languages by total number of speakers (Ethnologue 2026 figures, retrieved October 2026)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Marathi language
- Omniglot — Modi alphabet
- The Unicode Standard 17.0, chapter 15: South and Central Asia-IV (Kaithi, Modi)
- Press Information Bureau, Government of India — Classical language status for Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali (3 Oct 2024)
- The Unicode Standard 17.0, chapter 12: South and Central Asia-I (Devanagari, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Devanagari
- Omniglot — Gupta script
- Omniglot — Devanagari alphabet
- Omniglot — Useful phrases in Marathi
Checked October 25, 2026. Speaker numbers are Ethnologue's 2026 estimates, which count each language separately (Arabic and Chinese varieties are listed one by one). Maps shade whole countries, not regions within them. Found an error? Tell us.
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