Language endangerment in India is of two broad categories: 1) languages that are endangered due to certain speech communities are biologically endangered viz., Andamanese, Jarawas, Onges, Sentenalese and Shompens in the Union Territory of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and 2) languages that are endangered due to other reasons viz., i) speech communities having considerably very small population of few hundreds to few thousands like the Idu Mishmis in Arunachal Pradesh  (around eight thousand only), most of the Dravidian languages spoken in the Nilgiri hills etc.,  ii) languages spoken only in the home domain and such speech communities being surrounded by communities speaking other languages that are considered more prestigious and used in domains of vital importance like education, administration, trade, mass media etc., iii) certain speech communities that are scattered in larger geographical areas that are ruled by different national or provincial governments professing different language policies like the Kurux speaking Oraons (around three million in population) living in the Indian States of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, and Assam and in the Union Territory of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, (-they are found in Nepal and Bangladesh too), iv) speech communities using their mother tongues only as spoken languages like many of the Arunachal languages, v) certain speech communities that are coerced to  consider their own languages and cultures inferior to other dominant languages and cultures, vi) extensive bilingualism and multilingualism practiced by various communities resulting in the mother tongue being sparsely used, vii) the members of a speech community resorting to communicate with other members of the same community who have already lost the ancestral mother tongue in a common language other than the mother tongue, viii) the poor socio-economic conditions of  communities that do not permit them to fight for their linguistic rights and ix) tribal communities like those in Central India having lost their lands and well defined territories to the new non-tribal communities becoming dependent on them for jobs and survival. 

We can observe all types of language endangerment in India that are listed in the UNESCO Redbook On Endangered Languages.  We can list languages that are nearly extinct (for instance, Andamanese which has only around forty members as a community and the younger generation do not have good control over the language – they use more and more of Hindi), languages that are seriously endangered like the ones spoken by biologically endangered groups, endangered languages like Idu Mishmi etc., with less than ten thousand speakers  and potentially endangered languages like Kurux spoken by Oraons in Central India which has a population of little more than three million but only 1.4 million have returned Kurux as the mother tongue.