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List of languages by number of native speakers in India

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

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]

Overview

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India has not had a national language since its independence in 1947. However, Rule 1976 (As Amended, 1987) of the Constitution of India, mandates 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

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Ordered by number of speakers as first language.

More than one million speakers

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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 26.61% 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

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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

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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 26.6%
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

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  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. ^ a b 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]

There is no National Language (Rashtra Bhasa) of the Republic of India (Bharat Ganarajya).

The 11 Classical Languages (Sashtriya Bhasa) of the Republic of India (Bharat Ganarajya): Assamese, Bengali (Bangla), Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Pali, Prakrit, Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu. Classical language means a language more than 1000 years old i.e. most senior (very rich) language.

The 22 Scheduled (8th Schedule) Languages (Official Languages or Raj Bhasa) of the Republic of India (Bharat Ganarajya): Assamese, Bengali (Bangla), Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi (Hindustani), Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithali, Malayalam, Marathi, Manipuri (Meitei), Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and
Urdu (Hindustani)

The 2 Official Languages (Raj Bhasa) of the Government of India (Bharat Sarkar): English, and Hindi (Hindustani)

The word Vanga is Sanskrit (ancient Aryan or Central Asian language) pronunciation of the Dravidian (ancient South Indian or South Asian language) word Bong. The word Bangla/Bangal/Bangali is Persian/Arabic pronunciation of the Dravidian word Bong. Similarly, the word Hindu/Hindi/Hind/Hindustani/Hindustan is Persian/Arabic pronunciation of the Sanskrit word Sindhu/Sindhi/Sindh.

The word Bengali/Bengal/Bengalis is English pronunciation of the Dravidian word Bong. Similarly, the word Indus/Indian/India is English/Greek pronunciation of the Sanskrit word Sindhu/Sindhi/Sindh.

Bengali (1400 years old language) is the oldest most spoken classical language in South Asia (Indian sub continent) with 30 crores native speakers (6th most spoken native language in the World after Chinese, Spanish, English, Arabic and Hindi) in 2024, whereas Hindi (200 years old language) is the youngest most spoken general language in South Asia (Indian sub continent) with 35 crores native speakers (5th most spoken native language in the World after Chinese, Spanish, English and Arabic) in 2024.

See also

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References

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  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. ^ a b c d 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

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