India’s spectacular linguistic diversity is one of its most defining characteristics as a civilization. The complex trajectory of our languages is intertwined with the evolution of the Indian identity, imagination, and intellectual history. Our languages are a repository of human ideas and experiences across millennia and remain at the core of intense deliberations on what constitutes the ‘idea of India’. Yet to map their evolution is a monumental endeavour—the number of languages to have existed and the ones that continue to be in use are far too many to determine a particular point of origin or reconstruct the story in its entirety.