query: languages_spoken_or_written vidyapati
supports: Sri Lanka (or ; Sinhalese:   ', Tamil:  "Ilakai"), officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon), is an island country in South Asia near south-east India. Sri Lanka has maritime borders with India to the northwest and the Maldives to the southwest. Sanskrit (English pronunciation:; written in Devanagari script ; : or ', originally ', "refined speech") is the primary sacred language of Hinduism and "Mahyna" Buddhism, a philosophical language in Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. It was also a literary language that was in use as a "lingua franca" in ancient and medieval South Asia. It is a standardised dialect of Old Indo-Aryan, originating as Vedic Sanskrit and tracing its linguistic ancestry back to Proto-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Indo-European. Today it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand. As one of the oldest Indo-European languages for which substantial written documentation exists, Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies. India, officially the Republic of India ("Bhrat Gaarjya"), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country (with over 1.2 billion people), and the most populous democracy in the world. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast; and Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia. Its capital is New Delhi; other metropolises include Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. Devanagari (, a compound of ""deva"" and ""ngar"" ; Hindi pronunciation: ), also called Nagari ("Ngar"), is an abugida (alphasyllabary) alphabet of India and Nepal. It is written from left to right, has a strong preference for symmetrical rounded shapes within squared outlines, and is recognisable by a horizontal line that runs along the top of full letters. In a cursory look, the Devanagari script appears different from other Indic scripts such as Bengali, Oriya, or Gurmukhi, but a closer examination reveals they are very similar except for angles and structural emphasis. Buddhism (or ) is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, whereafter it declined in India during the middle ages. Two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars: Theravada (Pali: "The School of the Elders") and Mahayana (Sanskrit: "The Great Vehicle"). Buddhism is the world's fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, known as Buddhists. The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering (approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface). It is bounded by Asia on the north, on the west by Africa, on the east by Australia, and on the south by the Southern Ocean or, depending on definition, by Antarctica. It is named after the country of India. The Indian Ocean is known as "Ratnkara", ""the mine of gems"" in ancient Sanskrit literature, and as "Hind Mahsgar", ""the great Indian sea"", in Hindi. Bengal (bgl; Bengali: ,  and ) is a region in Asia which is located in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Geographically, it is made up by the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta system, the largest such formation in the world; along with mountains in its north (bordering the Himalayan states) and east (bordering Northeast India and Burma). Malkohas are large birds in the cuckoo family Cuculidae, all in the genus Phaenicophaeus. The group name is derived from the Sinhala word for the red-faced malkoha; Mal-Koha meaning flower-cuckoo. These are all Asian tropical species. The genus name is derived from the Ancient Greek "phoiniko-" "crimson", and "phaes" "eyes" or "face", referring to the red-faced malkoha. However, the 'œ' was mistranscribed as 'æ'. Vedic Sanskrit is an Indo-European language, more specifically one branch of the Indo-Iranian group. It is the ancient language of the Vedas of Hinduism, texts compiled over the period of the mid-2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It was orally preserved, predating the advent of Brahmi script by several centuries. Vedic Sanskrit is an archaic language, whose consensus translation has been challenging. The cuckoos are a family of birds, Cuculidae, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes. The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals and anis. The coucals and anis are sometimes separated as distinct families, the Centropodidae and Crotophagidae respectively. Madhubani District is one of the thirty-eight districts of Bihar state, India, and Madhubani town is the administrative headquarters of this district. Madhubani district is a part of Darbhanga Division. The district occupies an area of 3,501 km² and has a population of 3,570,651. This is the centre of Mithila, a region where the main language is Maithili. Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked central Himalayan country in South Asia. It has a population of 26.4 million and is the 93rd largest country by area. Bordering China in the north and India in the south, east, and west, it is the largest sovereign Himalayan state. Nepal does not border Bangladesh, which is located within only 27 km (17 mi) of its southeastern tip. It neither borders Bhutan due to the Indian state of Sikkim being located in between. Nepal has a diverse geography, including fertile plains, subalpine forested hills, and eight of the world's ten tallest mountains, including Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Kathmandu is the nation's capital and largest city. It is a multiethnic nation with Nepali as the official language.  Chennai ; formerly known as Madras or ) is the capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal, it is one of the biggest cultural, economic and educational centres in South India. According to the 2011 Indian census, it is the sixth-largest city and fourth-most populous urban agglomeration in India. The city together with the adjoining regions constitute the Chennai Metropolitan Area, which is the 36th-largest urban area by population in the world. Chennai is among the most visited Indian cities by foreign tourists. It was ranked 43rd most visited city in the world for year 2015. The Quality of Living Survey rated Chennai as the safest city in India. Chennai attracts 45 percent of health tourists visiting India, and 30 to 40 percent of domestic health tourists. As such, it is termed "India's health capital". As a growing metropolitan city in a developing country, Chennai confronts substantial pollution and other logistical and socio-economic problems. Vidyapati ( 1352 -- 1448 ) , also known by the sobriquet Maithil Kavi Kokil ( the poet cuckoo of Maithili ) was a Maithili poet and a Sanskrit writer . He was born in the village Bisfi in Madhubani district of Mithila Region of India and died in the in Janakpur Metropolitan of Mithila Region of Nepal in exile . He was son of Ganapati . The name Vidyapati is derived from two Sanskrit words , Vidya ( knowledge ) and Pati ( master ) , connoting thereby , a man of knowledge . Vidyapati 's poetry was widely influential in centuries to come , in the Hindustani as well as Bengali , Maithili , less actively Nepali language and other Eastern literary traditions . Indeed , the language at the time of Vidyapati , the prakrit - derived late abahatta , had just began to transition into early versions of the Eastern languages , Maithili , Nepali Bengali , Odia , etc. Thus , Vidyapati 's influence on making these languages has been described as `` analogous to that of Dante in Italy and Chaucer in England . '' Couas are large, mostly terrestrial birds of the cuckoo family, endemic to the island of Madagascar. "Coua" derives from "koa", the Malagasy name for a cuckoo or coua, which is in turn an onomatopoeic of some species' call notes. Indonesia (or ; Indonesian: ), officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a unitary sovereign state and transcontinental country located mainly in Southeast Asia with some territories in Oceania. Situated between the Indian and Pacific oceans, it is the world's largest island country, with more than seventeen thousand islands. At , Indonesia is the world's 14th-largest country in terms of land area and world's 7th-largest country in terms of combined sea and land area. It has an estimated population of over 260 million people and is the world's fourth most populous country, the most populous Austronesian nation, as well as the most populous Muslim-majority country. The world's most populous island of Java contains more than half of the country's population. The Arabian Sea is a region of the northern Indian Ocean bounded on the north by Pakistan and Iran, on the west by northeastern Somalia and the Arabian Peninsula, and on the east by India. Historically the sea has been known by other names including the Erythraean Sea and the Persian Sea. Its total area is and its maximum depth is . The Gulf of Aden is in the southwest, connecting the Arabian Sea to the Red Sea through the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, and the Gulf of Oman is in the northwest, connecting it to the Persian Gulf. Maithils (Devnagri: , Tirhuta: ) are an Indo-Aryan ethno-linguistic group who speak the Maithili language and inhabit the Mithila region, which is now divided between Mithila, India (Northern Bihar) and Mithila, Nepal (eastern Terai).
candidates: bengali english greek hindi indonesian maithili language malagasy nepali pali persian sanskrit sinhala tamil
answer: maithili language