Marathi is language spoken in the state of Maharashtra, India. Its script is Devanagari, the same as that used by Hindi and Sanskrit. It is supposed to be derived from Sanskrit (like many other languages in India). It is spoken by about 90 million people and is about 1000 years old.
A huge volume of literature has been written in Marathi in the last seven centuries. The saint-poet Dnyaneshwar is considered the first major literateur in the Marathi language. The oldest known written Marathi is about 1000 years old. Prominent contemporary Marathi authors include P.L. Deshpande, Jaywant Dalawi, and Wyankatesh Madgoolkar.