List of languages by number of native speakers in India explained

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.^[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".^[2] 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.^[3] ^[4] ^[5] 12% of Indians declared that they can speak English as a second language.^[6]

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.^[7]

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).^[8] 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.^[9]

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.^[10]

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.^[11] ^[12]

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 language speakers! rowspan="2"
Language	Third language speakers	Figure^[13]	% of total population	Figure^[14]	% of total population
Second language speakers	Third language speakers	Total speakers
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	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^[15] (total: 838,583,988)		2001 census of India^[16] (total: 1,028,610,328)		2011 Census of India^[17] ^[18] (total: 1,210,854,977)^[19]		Encarta 2007 estimate^[20] Worldwide total
		Speakers	Percentage	Speakers	Percentage	Speakers	Percentage	Speakers
1	Hindi	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	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				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				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				1,751,489	0.17%	1,988,350	0.16%
23				2,075,258	0.21%	1,860,236	0.15%
24				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				1,128,575	0.11%	1,431,344	0.12%
28				1,042,724	0.101%	1,421,418	0.12%
29				1,061,352	0.103%	1,145,323	0.09%
30				889,479	0.086%	1,128,228	0.09%
31				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
Rank	Language	Speakers	Percentage
32		916,222	0.089%
33		674,756	0.066%
34		593,443	0.058%
35		574,481	0.056%
36		551,224	0.054%
37	Munda	469,357	0.046%
38		419,534	0.041%
39		362,070	0.035%
40		261,387	0.025%
41		252,519	0.025%
42		248,109	0.024%
43		239,608	0.023%
44		226,449	0.022%
45		224,926	0.022%
46		211,485	0.021%
47		198,462	0.019%
48		190,595	0.019%
49		170,001	0.017%
50		166,187	0.016%
51		164,770	0.016%
52		142,035	0.014%
53		141,088	0.014%
54		132,225	0.013%
55		122,508	0.012%
56		121,855	0.012%
57	Khond/Kondh^[21]	118,597	0.012%
58		111,961	0.011%
59		104,618	0.010%
60		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).^[22] 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."^[23]

The following table lists those mother tongues that have more than one million speakers according to the 2011 census:^[24]

Rank
Mother tongue	2011 census		Included in language
Mother tongue	Speakers	Percentage	Included in language
1			%
2			%
3			%
4			%
5			%
6			%
7			%
8			%	Hindi
9			%
10			%
11			%
12			%
13			%	Hindi
14			%	Hindi
15			%
16			%
17			%	Hindi
18			0.810%	Hindi
19			0.664%	Hindi
20			0.647%	Hindi
21			0.576%
22			0.541%
23			0.465%	Hindi
24			0.430%	Hindi
25			0.359%	Hindi
26			0.348%	Hindi
27			0.318%	Hindi
28			0.280%	Bhili/Bhilodi
29			0.271%	Hindi
30			0.269%	Hindi
31			0.265%
32			0.243%	Hindi
33			0.242%
34			0.236%
35			0.221%	Hindi
36			0.217%	Odia
37			0.214%
38			0.205%	Hindi
39			0.191%	Hindi
40			0.186%	Hindi
41			0.177%
42			0.172%	Hindi
43			0.163%
44			0.152%
45			0.145%
46			0.144%	Hindi
47			0.139%
48			0.137%	Punjabi
49			0.135%	Khandeshi
50			0.131%	Hindi
51			0.129%	Hindi
52			0.122%	Hindi
53			0.120%	Bodo
54			0.117%
55			0.101%	Hindi
56			0.093%
57			0.093%
58			0.092%	Hindi
59			0.086%
60			0.085%	Sindhi

References

General references

External links

Web site: Major Indian Languages. Discover India. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20070101015404/http://www.indojin.com/discoverindia/indianlang.htm. 1 January 2007.
https://web.archive.org/web/20050109084200/http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=India Ethnologue report
Central Institute of Indian Languages]

Notes and References

Web site: Lewis, M. Paul . Simons, Gary F. . Fennig, Charles D.. 2014. Ethnologue: Languages of the World (Seventeenth edition) : India. SIL International. Dallas, Texas. 29 December 2023.
Web site: How a Bihari lost his mother tongue to Hindi.
Web site: These four charts break down India's complex relationship with Hindi.
Web site: Nearly 60% of Indians speak a language other than Hindi.
http://www.censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/Statement5.aspx 2001 census data
In 1991, there were 90,000,000 "users" of English. (Census of India Indian Census, 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 . Siemens AG, Munich.)
—Web site: What census data reveals about use of Indian languages . 2023-11-16 . . en.
—Web site: 2018-06-28 . Hindi Added 100Mn Speakers In A Decade; Kashmiri 2nd Fast Growing Language . 2023-11-16 . en.
—Web site: Hindi fastest growing language in India, finds 100 million new speakers .
—Web site: Hindi grew rapidly in non-Hindi states even without official mandate . 2023-11-16 . . en.
Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20071130133947/http://www.censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/Statement5.htm . 2007-11-30 . dead . COMPARATIVE SPEAKERS' STRENGTH OF SCHEDULED LANGUAGES -1971, 1981, 1991 AND 2001 . censusindia.gov . 2015-10-13 . Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India . New Delhi, India.
https://censusindia.gov.in/census.website/data/census-tables Table C-17
Book: Paul. Lewis M.. Simons. Gary F.. Fennig. Charles D. Fennig. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 2015. SIL International. Eighteenth. Summary by country. https://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/country.
News: Jain . Bharti . Hindi mother tongue of 44% in India, Bangla second most-spoken . 27 June 2018 . The Economic Times . 27 June 2018.
http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/Language-2011/Statement-4.pdf Statement 4 : Scheduled Languages in descending order of speakers' strength – 2011
Web site: C-17 POPULATION BY BILINGUALISM AND TRILINGUALISM. Ministry of Home Affairs. Government of India. 2019-10-16. https://web.archive.org/web/20191113211224/http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/C-17.html. 2019-11-13. dead.
Web site: Indiaspeak: English is our 2nd language – Times of India.
http://www.censusindia.gov.in/%28S%28z5ltjf55h4fqb4u2sybp3i55%29%29/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/Statement5.aspx Comparative Speaker's Strength of Scheduled Languages -1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001
http://www.censusindia.gov.in/%28S%282scoev45b4mhlg45mz5jq345%29%29/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/Statement1.aspx Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues – 2000
Web site: Language . Census of India . . 13 May 2019 . New Delhi . 15 . PDF . 2011 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180627091302/http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011Census/C-16_25062018_NEW.pdf . 27 June 2018.
http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011Census/Language-2011/Statement-1.pdf Statement 1 : Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues – 2011
http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/Language-2011/Statement-2.pdf Statement 2 : Distribution of population by Scheduled and other Languages India, States and Union Territories – 2011
Web site: Languages Spoken by More Than 10 Million People – Table – MSN Encarta . https://web.archive.org/web/20071203134724/http://encarta.msn.com/media_701500404/Languages_Spoken_by_More_Than_10_Million_People.html . 2007-12-03 . dead .
different from Kui language
The data are from http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/C-16/DDW-C16-STMT-MDDS-0000.XLSX.
Web site: Census Data 2001 General Notes. https://web.archive.org/web/20130222050810/http://www.censusindia.gov.in:80/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/gen_note.html . 22 February 2013 .
Web site: 2011 Census tables: C-16, population by mother tongue. Census of India Website. 4 November 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20191210063438/http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/C-16.html. 10 December 2019.