Languages of South Asia

Language families of South Asia

The names of each state in the script of the dominant language of that state

South Asia is home to several hundred languages. Most languages spoken in India belong either to the Indo-European (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 461 living languages for India.

Overview

Hindustani is the most widespread language of India. The Indian census takes the widest possible definition of "Hindi" as the broad variety of the Hindi languages. The native speakers of Hindi so defined account for 39% of Indians.

Indian English is recorded as the native language of 226,449 Indians in the 2001 census. English is the second "language of the Union" besides Hindi.

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 less than 1% of Indians are Santali (0.64%), Manipuri (0.14%), Bodo (0.13%), Dogri (0.01%, spoken in Jammu and Kashmir). The largest language that is not "scheduled" is Bhili (0.95%), followed by Gondi (0.27%), Tulu (0.17%) and Kurukh (0.099%)

List by number of native speakers

Further information: List of languages by number of native speakers

Ordered by number of speakers as first language. South Asian population in 2001 exhibited 19.4% of bilingualism and 7.2% of trilingualism, so that the total percentage of "native languages" is at about 127%.

More than one million speakers

The 2001 census recorded 29 individual languages as having more than 1 million native speakers (0.1% of total population).

Table: Ordered by number of native speakers

Language	2001 census[1] (total population 1,004.59 million)	1991 censusIndian Census [2] (total population 838.14 million)
	Speakers	Speakers	Percentage
Hindi	422,048,642	337,272,114	40.0%	336 M
Bengali	200,000,000	180,595,738	21.30%	290 M
Telugu	74,002,856	65,595,738	9.10%	83.7 M
Marathi	71,936,894	62,481,681	7.45%	68.0 M
Tamil	60,793,814	53,006,368	6.32%	69.8 M
Urdu	51,536,111	43,406,932	5.18%	60.3 M
Gujarati	46,091,617	40,673,814	4.85%	46.1 M
Kannada	37,924,011	32,753,676	3.9%	38 M
Malayalam	33,066,392	30,377,176	3.62%	35.7 M
Odia	33,017,446	28,061,313	3.35%	32.3 M
Sindhi	25,535,485	25,122,848	0.248%	32.3 M
Nepali	23,017,446	28,061,313	3.35%	32.3 M
Punjabi	29,102,477	23,378,744	2.83%	29 M
Sinhalese	14,007,446	13,081,313	2.35%	15 M
Assamese	13,168,484	13,079,696	1.56%	15.4 M
Maithili	12,179,122	1.18%
Bhili/Bhilodi	9,582,957	5,572,308	0.665%
Santali	6,469,600	5,216,325	0.622%
Kashmiri	5,527,698	0.54%
Gondi	2,713,790	2,124,852	0.253%
Konkani	2,489,015	1,760,607	0.210%
Dogri	2,282,589	0.22%
Khandeshi	2,075,258	0.21%
Kurukh	1,751,489	0.17%	1,426,618	0.170%
Tulu	1,722,768	0.17%	1,552,259	0.185%
Meitei (Manipuri)	1,466,705*	0.14%	1,270,216	0.151%
Bodo	1,350,478	0.13%	1,221,881	0.146%
Khasi	1,128,575	0.112%
Mundari	1,061,352	0.105%
Ho	1,042,724	0.103%

* 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

Kui	916,222
Garo	889,479
Kokborok	854,023
Mizo	674,756
Chakma	647,657
Halabi	593,443
Korku	574,481
Munda	469,357
Dhivehi	400,000
Mishing	390,583	0.047%
Karbi/Mikir	366,229	0.044%
Saurashtra	310,000	0.037%
Savara	273,168	0.033%
Koya	270,994	0.032%
English	226,449	0.027%
Kharia	225,556	0.027%
Khond/Kondh	220,783	0.026%
Nishi	173,791	0.021%
Ao	172,449	0.021%
Sema	166,157	0.020%
Kisan	162,088	0.019%
Adi	158,409	0.019%
Rabha	139,365	0.017%
Konyak	137,722	0.016%
Malto	108,148	0.013%
Thado	107,992	0.013%
Tangkhul	101,841	0.012%

10,000 to 100,000 speakers

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

See also

• Official languages of India
• Languages of India
• Languages of Pakistan
• Languages of Nepal
• Languages of Bangladesh
• Languages of Sri Lanka

References

• Data table of Census of India, 2001
• Language Maps from Central Institute of Indian Languages
• SCHEDULED LANGUAGES IN DESCENDING ORDER OF SPEAKERS' STRENGTH – 2001
• COMPARATIVE RANKING OF SCHEDULED LANGUAGES IN DESCENDING ORDER OF SPEAKERS' STRENGTH-1971, 1981, 1991 AND 2001
• Census data on Languages

External links

• Major Indian Languages
• Ethnologue report
• Central Institute of Indian Languages