List of languages by number of native speakers in India

The Republic of India is home to several hundred languages. Most Indians speak a language belonging to the families of the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European (c. 77%), the Dravidian (c. 20.61%), the Austroasiatic (precisely Munda and Khasic) (c. 1.2%), or the Sino-Tibetan (precisely Tibeto-Burman) (c. 0.8%), with some languages of the Himalayas still unclassified. The SIL Ethnologue lists 424 living languages in India.^[2]

States and union territories of India by the spoken first language^{[1][note 1]}

Overview

India has not had a national language since its independence in 1947. However, Rule 1976 (As Amended, 1987) of the Constitution of India, mandates Hindi and English as the "Official Languages" required "for Official Purpose of the Union." Business in the Indian parliament is transacted in either Hindi or in English. English is allowed for official purposes such as parliamentary proceedings, judiciary, communications between the Central Government and a State Government.

States within India have the liberty and powers to select their own official language(s) through legislation. In addition to the two Official Languages, the constitution recognizes 22 regional languages, named in a specific list as "Scheduled Languages". (Hindi is but English is not.) India's Constitution includes provisions detailing the languages used for the official purposes of the union, the languages used for the official purposes of each state and union territory and the languages used for communication between the union and the states.

Hindi is the most widely spoken language, mostly prevalent in the northern parts of India. The Indian census takes the widest possible definition of "Hindi" as a broad variety of the "Hindi Belt".^[3] According to 2001 Census, 53.6% of the Indian population declared that they speak Hindi as either their first or second language, in which 41% of them have declared it as their native language.^[4][5][6] 12% of Indians declared that they can speak English as a second language.^[7]

Fastest growing languages of India — Hindi (first), Kashmiri (second), Gujarati & Meitei/Manipuri (third), Bengali (fourth) — based on 2011 census of India

Hindi is the fastest growing language of India, followed by Kashmiri in the second place, with Meitei (officially called Manipuri) as well as Gujarati, in the third place, and Bengali in the fourth place, according to the 2011 census of India.^[8]

Thirteen languages account for more than 1% of Indian population each, and between themselves for over 95%; all of them are "scheduled languages of the constitution". Scheduled languages spoken by fewer than 1% of Indians are Santali (0.63%), Kashmiri (0.54%), Nepali (0.28%), Sindhi (0.25%), Konkani (0.24%), Dogri (0.22%), Meitei (0.14%), Bodo (0.13%) and Sanskrit (In the 2001 census of India, 14,135 people reported Sanskrit as their native language).^[9] The largest language that is not "scheduled" is Bhili (0.95%), followed by Gondi (0.27%), Khandeshi (0.21%), Tulu (0.17%) and Kurukh (0.10%).

As per 2011 census, 26% of Indians are bilingual and 7% are trilingual.^[10]

India has a Greenberg's diversity index of 0.914—i.e. two people selected at random from the country will have different native languages in 91.4% of cases.^[11]

As per the 2011 Census of India, languages by highest number of speakers are as follows: Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Urdu, Kannada, Odia, Malayalam.^[12][13]

List of languages by number of native speakers

Ordered by number of speakers as first language.

More than one million speakers

The 2011 census recorded 31 individual languages as having more than 1 million native speakers (0.1% of total population). The languages in bold are scheduled languages (the only scheduled language with less than 1 million native speakers is Sanskrit). The first table is restricted to only speaking populations for scheduled languages.

First, second, and third languages by number of speakers in India (2011 Census)

	First language speakers		Second language speakers[14]	Third language speakers[14]	Total speakers
Language	Figure[14]	% of total population			Figure[15][14]	% of total population
Hindi	322,230,097	43.63%	139,207,180	24,160,696	485,597,973	40.10%
Bengali	97,237,669	8.03%	9,037,222	1,008,088	107,237,669	8.85%
Marathi	83,026,680	6.86%	12,923,626	2,966,019	99,026,680	8.18%
Telugu	81,127,740	6.70%	11,946,414	1,001,498	94,127,740	7.77%
Tamil	69,026,881	5.70%	6,992,253	956,335	77,026,881	6.36%
Gujarati	55,492,554	4.58%	4,035,489	1,007,912	60,492,554	4.99%
Urdu[note 2]	50,772,631	4.19%	11,055,287	1,096,428	62,772,631	5.18%
Kannada	43,706,512	3.61%	14,076,355	993,989	58,706,512	4.84%
Odia	37,521,324	3.10%	4,972,151	31,525	42,551,324	3.51%
Malayalam	34,838,819	2.88%	499,188	195,885	35,538,819	2.93%
Punjabi	33,124,726	2.74%	2,300,000	720,000	36,074,726	2.97%
Assamese	15,311,351	1.26%	7,488,153	740,402	23,539,906	1.94%
Maithili	13,063,042	1.08%	400,200	120,222	13,583,464	1.12%
English	259,678	0.02%	83,125,221	45,993,066	129,259,678	10.67%

Table: Population ordered by number of native speakers

Rank	Language	1991 census of India[16] (total: 838,583,988)		2001 census of India[17] (total: 1,028,610,328)		2011 Census of India[18][19] (total: 1,210,854,977)[20]		Encarta 2007 estimate[21] Worldwide total
		Speakers	Percentage	Speakers	Percentage	Speakers	Percentage	Speakers
1	Hindi[note 3]	233,432,285	27.83%	257,919,635	25.07%	322,230,097	26.61%	366 million
2	Bengali	69,595,738	8.30%	83,369,769	8.11%	97,237,669	8.03%	207 million
3	Marathi	62,481,681	7.45%	71,936,894	6.99%	83,026,680	6.86%	68.0 million
4	Telugu	66,017,615	7.87%	74,002,856	7.19%	81,127,740	6.70%	69.7 million
5	Tamil	53,006,368	6.32%	60,793,814	5.91%	69,026,881	5.70%	66.0 million
6	Gujarati	40,673,814	4.85%	46,091,617	4.48%	55,492,554	4.58%	46.1 million
7	Urdu[note 2]	43,406,932	5.18%	51,536,111	5.01%	50,772,631	4.19%	60.3 million
8	Kannada	32,753,676	3.91%	37,924,011	3.69%	43,706,512	3.61%	35.3 million
9	Odia	28,061,313	3.35%	33,017,446	3.21%	37,521,324	3.10%	32.3 million
10	Malayalam	30,377,176	3.62%	33,066,392	3.21%	34,838,819	2.88%	35.7 million
11	Punjabi	23,378,744	2.79%	29,102,477	2.83%	33,124,726	2.74%	57.1 million
12	Assamese	13,079,696	1.56%	13,168,484	1.28%	15,311,351	1.26%	15.4 million
13	Maithili	7,766,921	0.926%	12,179,122	1.18%	13,583,464	1.12%	24.2 million
14	Bhili/Bhilodi			9,582,957	0.93%	10,413,637	0.86%
15	Santali	5,216,325	0.622%	6,469,600	0.63%	7,368,192	0.61%
16	Kashmiri			5,527,698	0.54%	6,797,587	0.56%
17	Gondi			2,713,790	0.26%	2,984,453	0.25%
18	Nepali	2,076,645	0.248%	2,871,749	0.28%	2,926,168	0.24%	16.1 million
19	Sindhi	2,122,848	0.253%	2,535,485	0.25%	2,772,264	0.23%	19.7 million
20	Dogri			2,282,589	0.22%	2,596,767	0.21%
21	Konkani	1,760,607	0.210%	2,489,015	0.24%	2,256,502	0.19%
22	Kurukh			1,751,489	0.17%	1,988,350	0.16%
23	Khandeshi			2,075,258	0.21%	1,860,236	0.15%
24	Tulu			1,722,768	0.17%	1,846,427	0.15%
25	Meitei (Manipuri)	1,270,216	0.151%	1,466,705*	0.14%	1,761,079	0.15%
26	Bodo	1,221,881	0.146%	1,350,478	0.13%	1,482,929	0.12%
27	Khasi			1,128,575	0.11%	1,431,344	0.12%
28	Ho			1,042,724	0.101%	1,421,418	0.12%
29	Garo			1,061,352	0.103%	1,145,323	0.09%
30	Mundari			889,479	0.086%	1,128,228	0.09%
31	Tripuri			854,023	0.083%	1,011,294	0.08%

* Excludes figures of Paomata, Mao-Maram and Purul sub-divisions of Senapati district of Manipur for 2001.
** The percentage of speakers of each language for 2001 has been worked out on the total population of India excluding the population of Mao-Maram, Paomata and Purul subdivisions of Senapati district of Manipur due to cancellation of census results.

100,000 to one million speakers

Rank	Language	2001 census
		Speakers	Percentage
32	Kui	916,222	0.089%
33	Lushai/Mizo	674,756	0.066%
34	Halabi	593,443	0.058%
35	Korku	574,481	0.056%
36	Miri/Mishing	551,224	0.054%
37	Munda	469,357	0.046%
38	Karbi/Mikir	419,534	0.041%
39	Koya	362,070	0.035%
40	Ao	261,387	0.025%
41	Savara	252,519	0.025%
42	Konyak	248,109	0.024%
43	Kharia	239,608	0.023%
44	English	226,449	0.022%
45	Malto	224,926	0.022%
46	Nissi/Dafla	211,485	0.021%
47	Adi	198,462	0.019%
48	Thado	190,595	0.019%
49	Lotha	170,001	0.017%
50	Coorgi/Kodagu	166,187	0.016%
51	Rabha	164,770	0.016%
52	Tangkhul	142,035	0.014%
53	Kisan	141,088	0.014%
54	Angami	132,225	0.013%
55	Phom	122,508	0.012%
56	Kolami	121,855	0.012%
57	Khond/Kondh[22]	118,597	0.012%
58	Dimasa	111,961	0.011%
59	Ladakhi	104,618	0.010%
60	Sema	103,529	0.010%

List of mother tongues by number of speakers

Each of the languages of the 2001 census subsumes one or more mother tongues. Speaker numbers are available for these mother tongues and they are also included in the speaker numbers for their respective language. For example, the language Telugu (with a total of 81,127,740 speakers) includes the mother tongues of Telugu (with 80,912,459 speakers), Vadari (198,020 speakers) and "Others" (17,261 speakers).^[23] The General Notes from the 2001 census define "mother tongue" as "the language spoken in childhood by the person's mother to the person. If the mother died in infancy, the language mainly spoken in the person's home in childhood will be the mother tongue."^[24]

The following table lists those mother tongues that have more than one million speakers according to the 2011 census:^[25]

Mother tongues with more than one million speakers

Rank	Mother tongue	2011 census		Included in language
		Speakers	Percentage
1	Hindi	322,200,000	46.6%
2	Bengali	96,180,000	7.94%
3	Marathi	82,800,000	6.84%
4	Telugu	80,910,000	6.68%
5	Tamil	68,890,000	5.69%
6	Gujarati	55,040,000	4.55%
7	Urdu	50,730,000	4.19%
8	Bhojpuri	50,580,000	4.18%	Hindi
9	Kannada	43,510,000	3.59%
10	Malayalam	34,780,000	2.87%
11	Odia	34,060,000	2.81%
12	Punjabi	31,140,000	2.57%
13	Rajasthani	25,810,000	2.13%	Hindi
14	Chhattisgarhi	16,250,000	1.34%	Hindi
15	Assamese	14,820,000	1.22%
16	Maithili	13,350,000	1.10%
17	Magahi	12,710,000	1.05%	Hindi
18	Haryanvi	9,807,000	0.810%	Hindi
19	Khortha/Khotta	8,039,000	0.664%	Hindi
20	Marwari	7,832,000	0.647%	Hindi
21	Santali	6,973,000	0.576%
22	Kashmiri	6,554,000	0.541%
23	Bundeli/Bundel khandi	5,626,000	0.465%	Hindi
24	Malvi	5,213,000	0.430%	Hindi
25	Sadan/Sadri	4,346,000	0.359%	Hindi
26	Mewari	4,212,000	0.348%	Hindi
27	Awadhi	3,851,000	0.318%	Hindi
28	Wagdi	3,394,000	0.280%	Bhili/Bhilodi
29	Lamani/Lambadi	3,277,000	0.271%	Hindi
30	Pahari[note 4]	3,254,000	0.269%	Hindi
31	Bhili/Bhilodi	3,207,000	0.265%
32	Hara/Harauti	2,944,000	0.243%	Hindi
33	Nepali	2,926,000	0.242%
34	Gondi	2,857,000	0.236%
35	Bagheli/Baghel Khandi	2,679,000	0.221%	Hindi
36	Sambalpuri	2,630,000	0.217%	Odia
37	Dogri	2,597,000	0.214%
38	Garhwali	2,482,000	0.205%	Hindi
39	Nimadi	2,309,000	0.191%	Hindi
40	Surjapuri	2,256,000	0.186%	Hindi
41	Konkani	2,147,000	0.177%
42	Kumauni	2,081,000	0.172%	Hindi
43	Kurukh/Oraon	1,977,000	0.163%
44	Tulu	1,842,000	0.152%
45	Manipuri	1,761,000	0.145%
46	Surgujia	1,738,000	0.144%	Hindi
47	Sindhi	1,679,000	0.139%
48	Bagri	1,657,000	0.137%	Punjabi
49	Ahirani	1,636,000	0.135%	Khandeshi
50	Banjari	1,581,000	0.131%	Hindi
51	Brajbhasha	1,556,000	0.129%	Hindi
52	Dhundhari	1,476,000	0.122%	Hindi
53	Bodo/Boro	1,455,000	0.120%	Bodo
54	Ho	1,411,000	0.117%
55	Gojri/Gujjari/Gujar	1,228,000	0.101%	Hindi
56	Mundari	1,128,000	0.093%
57	Garo	1,125,000	0.093%
58	Kangri	1,117,000	0.092%	Hindi
59	Khasi	1,038,000	0.086%
60	Kachchhi	1,031,000	0.085%	Sindhi

Notes

1. Some languages may be over- or under-represented as the census data used is at a state-level. For example, while Urdu has 52 million speakers (2001), in no state is it a majority language.
2. Although linguistically Modern Standard Hindi and Urdu together is classified as a single language called Hindustani, the government classifies them as separate languages instead of different standard registers of the same language due to socio-political reasons.
3. Hindi does not merely refer to "Modern Standard Hindi" (which is based on Dehlavi dialect of Kauravi), but also broadly many "Hindi languages", which includes Western Hindi (apart from Urdu), Eastern Hindi, Bihari languages except for Maithili, the Rajasthani languages, and the Pahari languages apart from Nepali and (in 2001) Dogri, whether or not the included varieties were reported as "Hindi" or under their individual names during census.
4. "Pahari" as ambiguous, but in the census returns the language name most commonly comes from the Western Pahari area.^[26]

See also

• Languages with official status in India
• List of endangered languages in India

References

1. "50th Report of the Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities in India (July 2012 to June 2013)" (PDF). Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities, Ministry of Minority Affairs, Government of India. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 December 2014. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
2. Lewis, M. Paul; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2014). "Ethnologue: Languages of the World (Seventeenth edition) : India". Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
3. "How a Bihari lost his mother tongue to Hindi".
4. "These four charts break down India's complex relationship with Hindi".
5. "Nearly 60% of Indians speak a language other than Hindi".
6. 2001 census data Archived 2013-02-22 at the Wayback Machine
7. In 1991, there were 90,000,000 "users" of English. (Census of India Indian Census Archived 2006-12-23 at the Wayback Machine, Issue 10, 2003, pp. 8–10, (Feature: Languages of West Bengal in Census and Surveys, Bilingualism and Trilingualism) and Tropf, Herbert S. 2004. India and its Languages Archived 2008-03-08 at the Wayback Machine. Siemens AG, Munich.)
8. —"What census data reveals about use of Indian languages". Deccan Herald. Retrieved 2023-11-16.
   —"Hindi Added 100Mn Speakers In A Decade; Kashmiri 2nd Fast Growing Language". 2018-06-28. Retrieved 2023-11-16.
   —"Hindi fastest growing language in India, finds 100 million new speakers".
   —"Hindi grew rapidly in non-Hindi states even without official mandate". India Today. Retrieved 2023-11-16.
9. "COMPARATIVE SPEAKERS' STRENGTH OF SCHEDULED LANGUAGES -1971, 1981, 1991 AND 2001". censusindia.gov. New Delhi, India: Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Archived from the original on 2007-11-30. Retrieved 2015-10-13.
10. https://censusindia.gov.in/census.website/data/census-tables Table C-17
11. Paul, Lewis M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D. Fennig, eds. (2015). "Summary by country". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (Eighteenth ed.). SIL International.
12. Jain, Bharti (27 June 2018). "Hindi mother tongue of 44% in India, Bangla second most-spoken". The Economic Times. Retrieved 27 June 2018.
13. Statement 4 : Scheduled Languages in descending order of speakers' strength – 2011
14. Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs. "C-17 POPULATION BY BILINGUALISM AND TRILINGUALISM". Archived from the original on 2019-11-13. Retrieved 2019-10-16.
15. "Indiaspeak: English is our 2nd language – Times of India".
16. Comparative Speaker's Strength of Scheduled Languages -1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001 Archived 2013-02-22 at the Wayback Machine, Census of India, 1991
17. Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues – 2000 Archived 2013-10-14 at the Wayback Machine, Census of India, 2001
18. "Language" (PDF). Census of India. New Delhi: Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India. 2011. p. 15. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 June 2018. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
19. Statement 1 : Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues – 2011 Archived 2018-06-27 at the Wayback Machine
20. Statement 2 : Distribution of population by Scheduled and other Languages India, States and Union Territories – 2011 Archived 2018-07-08 at the Wayback Machine
21. "Languages Spoken by More Than 10 Million People – Table – MSN Encarta". Archived from the original on 2007-12-03.
22. different from Kui language
23. The data are from http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/C-16/DDW-C16-STMT-MDDS-0000.XLSX. Archived 2018-07-08 at the Wayback Machine
24. "Census Data 2001 General Notes". Archived from the original on 22 February 2013.
25. "2011 Census tables: C-16, population by mother tongue". Census of India Website. Archived from the original on 10 December 2019. Retrieved 4 November 2018.
26. Masica, Colin P. (1991). The Indo-Aryan languages. Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge University Press. p. 439. ISBN 978-0-521-23420-7.

General references

• Data table of Census of India, 2001
• Language Maps from Central Institute of Indian Languages
• Scheduled Languages in descending order of speaker's strength – 2001
• Comparative ranking of scheduled languages in descending order of speaker's strength-1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001
• Census data on Languages
• C-16 Population By Mother Tongue – Town Level
• C-16 Population By Mother Tongue

External links

• "Major Indian Languages". Discover India. Archived from the original on 1 January 2007.
• https://web.archive.org/web/20050109084200/http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=India Ethnologue report
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20041213203632/http://www.ciil.org/ Central Institute of Indian Languages