Choose the right group of states where Dravidian language is spoken majorly.
Choose the right group of states where Dravidian language is spoken majorly.
Options
Official answer
The correct option is C — Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka.
Why this is correct:
- All three states are majority speakers of Dravidian-family languages — Tamil (Tamil Nadu), Malayalam (Kerala) and Kannada (Karnataka).
- The Dravidian family is India's second-largest language family after Indo-Aryan, concentrated in peninsular/southern India.
Marking scheme
- 1.1 mark: correct identification of Option C (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka) as the group where Dravidian language is spoken majorly.
Hint
Check every state in the option — even one Indo-Aryan (Hindi/Marathi) speaking state in the group makes the whole option wrong.
Quick oral answer
Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka are Dravidian-language states because their majority languages — Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada — all belong to the Dravidian language family.
Common mistakes
- 1.Including Maharashtra or Madhya Pradesh in the Dravidian group because they are geographically close to southern India, without checking their actual majority language.
- 2.Confusing the Dravidian family with the Indo-Aryan family, since both have several major regional languages.
Analysis and explanation
The Indian population is classified into four major language families — Austric, Dravidian, Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European (the largest). The Dravidian family is spoken mainly in the four southern states: Tamil Nadu (Tamil), Kerala (Malayalam), Karnataka (Kannada) and Andhra Pradesh/Telangana (Telugu).
Why the distractors fail:
- Option A (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra) fails because Maharashtra's majority language is Marathi, which belongs to the Indo-European (Indo-Aryan) family, not Dravidian.
- Option B (Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh) fails for the same reason — Maharashtra breaks the group even though Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are genuinely Dravidian-speaking.
- Option D (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh) fails because Madhya Pradesh's majority language is Hindi, an Indo-Aryan language, even though Andhra Pradesh and Telangana correctly speak Telugu (Dravidian).
Only Option C contains three states that are ALL genuinely Dravidian-majority, making it the only fully correct set.
Interesting facts
Dravidian languages are spoken by roughly a quarter of India's population, making it the second-largest language family after Indo-European.
Unlike most of India's Indo-Aryan languages, Dravidian languages are believed to predate the Indo-Aryan migration into the subcontinent and are linguistically unrelated to Sanskrit-derived languages.
Question details
Q9 of 36 questions
- Board
- CBSE
- Class
- Class 12
- Subject
- Geography
- Year
- 2026
- Section
- Section A
- Marks
- 1
- Type
- MCQ
- Chapter
- Population: Distribution, Density, Growth and Composition (India: People and Economy)
- Topic
- Linguistic Classification of Population
- Bloom's level
- remember
- Syllabus topic
- Unit 1: Population — Composition of Population: Linguistic Classification (Dravidian Language Family)
- Author
- CBSE
- Reviewed by
- Padhantu Academic Team
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Frequently asked questions
Which are the four major language families of India?
The four major language families recognised in the Census classification are Austric, Dravidian, Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European, with Indo-European (which includes Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi) being the largest, and Dravidian (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam) the second largest.
Why is Andhra Pradesh classified as Dravidian but Madhya Pradesh is not?
Andhra Pradesh's majority language, Telugu, belongs to the Dravidian family, while Madhya Pradesh's majority language, Hindi, belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family — classification is based on the actual majority language spoken, not geographic proximity.