List of Indian languages by number of native speakers

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India is home to several hundred languages. Most languages spoken in India belong either to the Indo-Aryan (ca. 74%), the Dravidian (ca. 24%), the Austroasiatic (Munda) (ca. 1.2%), or the Tibeto-Burman (ca. 0.6%) families, with some languages of the Himalayas still unclassified. The SIL Ethnologue lists 415 living languages for India.

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Hindi (the standard Khariboli dialect besides many mutually intelligible dialects) is the most widespread language of India. Indian English ranks only as 40th as first language, but is spoken as a second language by an estimated 350 million Indians (as of 2005[1]). English is the second "language of the Union" besides Hindi, and the original language of the Indian constitution. In Mughal times, Persian played an important role as a language of government, education and trade and is still a classical language of study in many Indian schools.

Twelve languages account for more than 1% of Indian population each, and between themselves for over 95% of Indians; all of them are "scheduled languages of the constitution".

Scheduled languages spoken by less than 1% of Indians are Santali (0.62%), Sindhi (0.25%), Nepali (0.25%), Meitei (0.15%), Bodo (0.25%), Dogri (spoken in the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir) and Sanskrit (as a Classical Language of India). The largest language that is not "scheduled" is Bhili (0.67%), followed by Gondi (0.25%), Tulu (0.19%) and Kurukh (0.17%).

Further information: List of languages by number of native speakers

Ordered by number of speakers as first language. Indian population in 1991 exhibited 19.4% of bilingualism and 7.2% of trilingualism, so that the total percentage of "native languages" is at about 127%.

Table: Ordered by number of native speakers
Rank Language 1991 census[2] [3]
(total population 838.14 million)		 2001 census[4]
(total population 1,004.59 million)		 Encarta estimate (2007)
Speakers Percentage Speakers Percentage Speakers
1 Hindi[1] 337,272,114 40.0% 336 M
2 Bengali 69,595,738 8.30% 69.9M
3 Telugu 66,017,615 7.87% 69.7 M
4 Marathi 62,481,681 7.45% 68.0 M
5 Tamil 53,006,368 7.32% 66.0 M
6 Urdu 43,406,932 5.18% 60.3 M
7 Gujarati 40,673,814 4.85% 46.1 M
8 Kannada 32,753,676 3.91% 35.3 M
9 Malayalam 30,377,176 3.62% 35.7 M
10 Oriya 28,061,313 3.35% 32.3 M
11 Punjabi 23,378,744 2.79% 57.1 M
12 Assamese 13,079,696 1.56% 15.4 M
13 Bhili/Bhilodi 5,572,308 0.665%
14 Santali 5,216,325 0.622%
15 Gondi 2,124,852 0.253%
16 Sindhi 2,122,848 0.253%
17 Nepali 2,076,645 0.248%
18 Konkani 1,760,607 0.210%
19 Tulu 1,552,259 0.185%
20 Kurukh 1,426,618 0.170%
21 Meitei (Manipuri) 1,270,216 0.151%
22 Bodo 1,221,881 0.146%

Number of speakers Percentage
23 Khandeshi 973,709 0.116%
24 Ho 949,216 0.113%
25 Khasi 912,283 0.109%
26 Mundari 861,378 0.103%
27 Kokborok 694,940 0.083%
28 Garo 675,642 0.081%
29 Kui 641,662 0.077%
30 Mizo 538,842 0.064%
31 Halabi 534,313 0.064%
32 Korku 466,073 0.056%
33 Munda 413,894 0.049%
34 Mishing 390,583 0.047%
35 Karbi/Mikir 366,229 0.044%
36 Savara 273,168 0.033%
37 Koya 270,994 0.032%
38 Kharia 225,556 0.027%
39 Khond/Kondh 220,783 0.026%
40 English 178,598 0.021%
41 Nishi 173,791 0.021%
42 Ao 172,449 0.021%
43 Sema 166,157 0.020%
44 Kisan 162,088 0.019%
45 Adi 158,409 0.019%
46 Rabha 139,365 0.017%
47 Konyak 137,722 0.016%
48 Malto 108,148 0.013%
49 Thado 107,992 0.013%
50 Tangkhul 101,841 0.012%

1991 census SIL estimate
51 Kolami 98,281 (0.012%) 115,000 (1997) Northwestern: 50,000; Southeastern: 10,000
52 Angami 97,631 (0.012%) 109,000 (1997)
53 Kodagu 97,011 (0.012%) 122,000
54 Dogri 89,681 (0.011%) (Pakistan+India: 2.1 million)
55 Dimasa 88,543 (0.011%) 106,000
56 Lotha 85,802 (0.010%) 80,000
57 Mao 77,810 (0.009%) 81,000
58 Tibetan 69,146 (0.008%) 124,280 (1994)
59 Kabui (Rongmei) 68,925 (0.008%) 59,000 (1997)
60 Phom 65,350 (0.008%) 34,000 (1997)

The following are SIL Ethnologue estimates:

  1. ^ includes Western Hindi, Eastern Hindi, Bihari languages, Rajasthani languages and Pahari languages.

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