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.

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 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 recognises 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". 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. 2001 census data 12% of Indians declared that they can speak English as a second language.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. . Siemens AG, Munich.)

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.————

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 2011 census of India, 24,821 people reported Sanskrit as their native language). 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.https://censusindia.gov.in/census.website/data/census-tables Table C-17

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.

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.Statement 4 : Scheduled Languages in descending order of speakers' strength – 2011

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, for all tables, are the 22 scheduled languages.

The first table is restricted to only speaking populations for the 22 scheduled languages and English. In this table, only 2 languages, namely Sanskrit and English, have less than 1 million native speakers.

+ First, second, and third languages by number of speakers in India (2011 Census) First language speakers Second languagespeakers Third languagespeakers Total speakers Language Figure% of totalpopulation Figure% of totalpopulationHindi528,347,19343.63%138,909,60824,307,234691,564,03557.11%Bengali97,237,6698.03%9,095,8101,138,764107,472,2438.88%Marathi83,026,6806.86%13,001,0793,031,02799,058,7868.18%Telugu81,127,7406.70%12,167,6091,206,25494,501,6037.80%Tamil69,026,8815.70%6,668,000900,98576,595,8666.33%Gujarati55,492,5544.58%4,017,825778,93060,289,3094.98%Urdu50,772,6314.19%11,348,9781,117,83663,239,4455.22%Kannada43,706,5123.61%13,609,7091,434,57858,750,7994.85%Odia37,521,3243.10%4,670,796397,21342,589,3333.52%Malayalam34,838,8192.88%581,591218,93235,639,3422.94%Punjabi33,124,7262.74%2,237,126719,90136,081,7532.98%Assamese15,311,3511.26%7,583,346734,37923,629,0761.95%Maithili13,583,4641.12%651,98748,84314,284,2941.18%Santali7,368,1920.61%278,44876,6637,723,3030.64%Kashmiri6,797,5870.56%127,03970,1976,994,8230.58%Nepali2,926,1680.24%366,648143,7983,436,6140.28%Sindhi2,772,2640.23%281,17748,5913,102,0320.26%Dogri2,596,7670.21%126,33440,8832,763,9840.23%Konkani2,256,5020.19%238,34587,1342,581,9810.21%Meitei1,761,0790.15%384,357101,6902,247,1260.19%Bodo1,482,9290.12%57,58320,1321,560,6440.13%English259,6780.02%82,717,23945,562,173128,539,09010.62%Sanskrit24,8210.002%1,134,3621,963,6403,122,8230.26%

+ Table: Population ordered by number of native speakersRank Language 1991 census of IndiaComparative Speaker's Strength of Scheduled Languages -1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001 , Census of India, 1991(total: 838,583,988)2001 census of IndiaAbstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues – 2000 , Census of India, 2001(total: 1,028,610,328) 2011 Census of IndiaStatement 1 : Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues – 2011 (total: 1,210,854,977)Statement 2 : Distribution of population by Scheduled and other Languages India, States and Union Territories – 2011 Encarta 2007 estimateWorldwide total Speakers Percentage Speakers Percentage Speakers Percentage Speakers 1 Hindi 329,518,087 39.29% 422,048,642 41.1% 528,347,193 43.63% 366 million 2 Bengali 69,595,738 8.30% 83,193,311 8.09% 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 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%49Chakma176,4580.017% 50 Lotha 170,001 0.017% 51 Coorgi/Kodagu 166,187 0.016% 52 Rabha 164,770 0.016% 53 Tangkhul 142,035 0.014% 54 Kisan 141,088 0.014% 55 Angami 132,225 0.013% 56 Phom 122,508 0.012% 57 Kolami 121,855 0.012% 58 Khond/Kondhdifferent from Kui language 118,597 0.012% 59 Dimasa 111,961 0.011% 60 Ladakhi 104,618 0.010% 61 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).The data are from http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/C-16/DDW-C16-STMT-MDDS-0000.XLSX. 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."

The following table lists those mother tongues that have more than one million speakers according to the 2011 census: + Mother tongues with more than one million speakers Rank Mother tongue 2011 census Includedin language Speakers Percentage 1 Hindi % 2 Bengali % 3 Marathi % 4 Telugu % 5 Tamil % 6 Gujarati % 7 Urdu % 8 Bhojpuri % Hindi 9 Kannada % 10 Malayalam % 11 Odia % 12 Punjabi % 13 Rajasthani % Hindi 14 Chhattisgarhi % Hindi 15 Assamese % 16 Maithili % 17 Magahi % Hindi 18 Haryanvi 0.810% Hindi 19 Khortha/Khotta 0.664% Hindi 20 Marwari 0.647% Hindi 21 Santali 0.576% 22 Kashmiri 0.541% 23 Bundeli/Bundel khandi 0.465% Hindi 24 Malvi 0.430% Hindi 25 Sadan/Sadri 0.359% Hindi 26 Mewari 0.348% Hindi 27 Awadhi 0.318% Hindi 28 Wagdi 0.280% Bhili/Bhilodi 29 Lamani/Lambadi 0.271% Hindi 30 Pahari 0.269% Hindi 31 Bhili/Bhilodi 0.265% 32 Hara/Harauti 0.243% Hindi 33 Nepali 0.242% 34 Gondi 0.236% 35 Bagheli/Baghel Khandi 0.221% Hindi 36 Sambalpuri 0.217% Odia 37 Dogri 0.214% 38 Garhwali 0.205% Hindi 39 Nimadi 0.191% Hindi 40 Surjapuri 0.186% Hindi 41 Konkani 0.177% 42 Kumauni 0.172% Hindi 43 Kurukh/Oraon 0.163% 44 Tulu 0.152% 45 Manipuri 0.145% 46 Surgujia 0.144% Hindi 47 Sindhi 0.139% 48 Bagri 0.137% Punjabi 49 Ahirani 0.135% Khandeshi 50 Banjari 0.131% Hindi 51 Brajbhasha 0.129% Hindi 52 Dhundhari 0.122% Hindi 53 Bodo/Boro 0.120% Bodo 54 Ho 0.117% 55 Gojri/Gujjari/Gujar 0.101% Hindi 56 Mundari 0.093% 57 Garo 0.093% 58 Kangri 0.092% Hindi 59 Khasi 0.086% 60 Kachchhi 0.085% Sindhi61Mahasu Pahari1,000,0000.081%

Notes

See also Languages with official status in India List of endangered languages in India

References

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