A food delivery app launching in India faces a question few European companies ever consider. Should the interface appear in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Kannada or all of them? India's constitution recognises 22 scheduled languages, the census records more than a hundred languages with at least ten thousand speakers, and those languages are written in around a dozen different scripts.
For translators and the businesses that hire them, India is one of the most demanding markets in the world. It is also one of the fastest growing, as hundreds of millions of new internet users come online in languages other than English.
English is not enough
English plays a major role in Indian business, higher education and government. Yet only a minority of Indians speak it fluently. Most people prefer to read, search and shop online in their own language. Studies by industry groups have shown for years that Indian-language internet users now far outnumber English-language users, and their share keeps growing.
The Indian government has responded with its own initiatives. The National Language Translation Mission, known as Bhashini, aims to build open AI models and datasets for translation and speech recognition across Indian languages, so that public services and private apps can reach citizens in the language they use every day.
Why Indian languages are hard to translate
Many scripts, one country
Hindi, Marathi and Nepali use Devanagari. Bengali and Assamese share a related script. Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam each have their own. Punjabi uses Gurmukhi in India and Shahmukhi in Pakistan. Urdu uses a Perso-Arabic script written right to left. Each script requires proper font support, line breaking and text rendering, which many software products still handle poorly.
Code-mixing
Many Indians naturally mix English with their home language, often called Hinglish when combined with Hindi. A marketing message in formal, pure Hindi can sound stiff or even old-fashioned to a young urban audience. Translators must decide how much English to keep, which loanwords feel natural and when to switch registers.
Regional variation
Hindi spoken in Bihar differs from Hindi in Rajasthan or Mumbai. Tamil in Chennai differs from Tamil in Sri Lanka or Singapore. Good translation for India often means choosing a target region, not just a language.
Accent and spoken English
Indian English is a fully established variety with its own pronunciation, vocabulary and idioms. Words like "prepone", "co-brother" or "do the needful" are common in India and puzzling elsewhere. For voice-overs, call centres, e-learning and subtitles, understanding Indian accents and expressions matters as much as written translation. Accent coaches and language specialists help professionals communicate clearly with international clients without losing their natural voice.
Scaling translation across many languages
Translating a single document into Hindi is manageable. Translating an entire app, help centre and marketing campaign into ten Indian languages, then keeping all of them updated every month, is a different challenge. That is where software becomes essential.
Large organisations typically run this work through an enterprise translation management system. It assigns each language to the right translators, tracks progress, manages deadlines and connects directly to websites, apps and content platforms. Project managers can see at a glance which languages are complete and which still need review.
Translators themselves work in a translation CAT tool that supports Indian scripts, flags inconsistent terms and lets reviewers comment directly on segments. Smaller agencies and freelancers often prefer a lightweight TMS tool with built-in translation memory, so that recurring phrases in banking, insurance or e-commerce content are translated consistently across projects.
Businesses entering India often find that managing dozens of languages in-house is impractical, which is why many turn to professional translation services for scalable support. A reliable provider offers native linguists for each region, robust quality checks, and the technology to handle multiple scripts efficiently. Building glossaries early and maintaining consistency across all Indian languages becomes much easier with expert help. The right partner makes large-scale multilingual launches far less daunting.
Machine translation for Indian languages
Machine translation quality for major Indian languages has improved quickly, thanks to large multilingual models and public datasets. Hindi, Bengali and Tamil now produce usable drafts in many domains. Smaller languages such as Konkani, Santali or Manipuri still have far less data.
For legal, medical and financial content, human review remains essential in every Indian language. A mistranslated dosage or loan condition can have serious consequences.
Tips for businesses entering India
- Start with the languages of your priority regions rather than trying to cover all at once.
- Test whether your audience prefers pure or code-mixed language.
- Check that fonts, keyboards and layouts work properly in every script.
- Work with native translators who live in the target region.
- Build glossaries early and keep them updated.
- Localise voice and video content, not just text.
The diaspora angle
India's languages also travel. Large communities speaking Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu live in the UK, the United States, Canada, the Gulf states and Australia. Banks, healthcare providers and public services in those countries increasingly offer information in Indian languages too, which creates steady demand for translators who know both the language and the local context abroad.
A market built on languages
India's linguistic diversity is often presented as an obstacle. In practice, it is an opportunity. Companies that speak to customers in Tamil, Marathi or Odia stand out in markets where competitors only use English or Hindi. Translators and accent specialists who understand these languages deeply are increasingly in demand, both in India and abroad.
In India, reaching the next hundred million customers starts with speaking their language.
