Oriya (also called Odia) is an Indian Language, part of the Eastern Indo-Aryan family and one of India’s 22 official languages. It is the official language of the state of Orissa, where most of its estimated 31 million speakers live. About 3 in 10 of Orissa’s inhabitants speak it natively, and the rest can speak it as a second language. The pronunciation of Oriya is most similar to Sanskrit, the result of its descendancy directly from Purva Magadhi (Prakrit) predominant 1,500 years ago on India’s eastern coast. Oriya closely resembles Bangali, Maithili and Assamese. It is notable among Indian languages for its apparent lack of influence from either Arabic or Persian. Labor migration from Orissa to other cities has also spread Oriya to neighboring regions, where it is spoken in small colonies. Eight major dialects of Oriya have been identified. Oriya has its own script.