Founded in 1956, Department of Linguistics is a constituent unit of the K.M. Institute of Hindi and Linguistics and the founding department of the University. Prior to this, the University was a completely affiliating Institution. The research and study at the University Campus was initiated with the formation of the Department of Linguistics in the K.M. Institute. The department is also the second-oldest department of Linguistics after Deccan College, Pune to be established in independent India.

Since its inception, the department has worked incessantly towards the promotion of Indian languages and Linguistics across the globe. A tremendous amount of research has been conducted on different aspects of Indian languages, especially those spoken in the Northern parts of India. In current times, the department conducts a lot of research centred around the development of language resources and technologies for low-resource languages of India, language documentation and description and related areas.