Marathi is one of the official languages of India and widely spoken in the state of Maharashtra. It has about 65 million speakers worldwide. USA, UK, Canada, Pakistan, UAE, France, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Singapore are other countries where Marathi speakers live. ' Mumbai ' (Bombay) is the capital of Marathi-world.
Marathi evolved from Sanskrit. The earliest reference to spoken Marathi is found in the 8th century AD and of written Marathi from 11th century. Marathi uses modified Devnagari script. It has 11 vowels and 33 consonants. The language has a number of combinations of consonants. Unlike the Roman script, a vowel used after a consonant change form and gets attached to the consonant.