Marathi is the language that the people of Maharashtra speak and it belongs to the group of Indo-Aryan languages which form part of the larger of group of Indo-European languages.

Linguists tell us that all Indo-Aryan languages originated from Sanskrit. Three Prakrit languages, which are simpler in structure, emerged from Sanskrit : Saurseni, Magadhi and Maharashtri. Marathi is thought to descend from Maharashtri which was spoken by people that lived in the region of Maharashtra.

The history of the written form of Marathi began in the 11th century CE from stone inscriptions and copper plates. Long before this, Marathi was likely spoken by the people living in the region. The earliest reference to spoken Marathi is found in the 8th century poem “kuvalaymala” of Udyotansuri and it was the court language during the
reign of the Yadava Kings.

Several stone inscriptions written in Marathi have been found in Akshi in Raigad (former Colaba) district, Patan, Pandharpur, and Dive-Agra. Of particular note is the inscription found at the bottom of the statue of Gomateshwar (Bahubali) at Sravan Belgola in Karnataka. This inscription gives some information about the sculptor of the statue and the king who had it built.

The poet Jnaneshwar elevated Marathi to a higher cultural position by his bringing the sacred Geeta from Sanskrit to Marathi. The holy book was written in Sanskrit and was not easily accessible to the common Marathi speaking people.

Jnaneshwar wrote the book as Jnaneshwari which explains the Geeta in Marathi with his own poetic style. He proudly said about Marathi that ‘I will speak my Marathi (language) only with pride and I will give such Marathi words to the ardent listeners which will even win bets against the nectar.’

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