Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken mainly in the Indian state of Maharashtra and neighbouring states. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra as well as in the neighbouring state of Goa. An estimated 70 million native Marathi speakers can be found in the world today, with approximately 20 million additional second-language Marathi speakers, bringing the total number to about 90 million.
It is believed to be 1300 years old and evolved from Sanskrit through Prakrit and Apabhramsha. Like many Indian languages, Marathi has many dialects. The standard Marathi is based on the Pune region dialect which is used in academia and print media. This standardized dialect is also considered a posh language in the region.
