6. Linguistic demographics
Main article: List of languages by number of native speakers in India
The table immediately below excludes Mao-Maram, Paomata and Purul subdivisions of Senapati District of Manipur
state due to cancellation of census results.
Languages of India by number of native speakers at the 2001 census
Rank Language Speakers Percentage (%)
1 Hindi dialects 422,048,642 41.030
2 Bengali 83,369,769 8.110
3 Telugu 74,002,856 7.190
4 Marathi 71,936,894 6.990
5 Tamil 60,793,814 5.910
6 Urdu 51,536,111 5.010
7 Gujarati 46,091,617 4.480
8 Kannada 37,924,011 3.690
9 Malayalam 33,066,392 3.210
10 Odia 33,017,446 3.210
11 Punjabi 29,102,477 2.830
12 Assamese 13,168,484 1.280
13 Maithili 12,179,122 1.180
14 Bhili/Bhilodi 9,582,957 0.930
15 Santali 6,469,600 0.630
16 Kashmiri 5,527,698 0.540
17 Nepali 2,871,749 0.280
18 Gondi 2,713,790 0.260
19 Sindhi 2,535,485 0.250
20 Konkani 2,489,015 0.240
21 Dogri 2,282,589 0.220
22 Khandeshi 2,075,258 0.200
23 Kurukh 1,751,489 0.170
24 Tulu 1,722,768 0.170
25 Meitei (Manipuri) 1,466,705 0.140
26 Bodo 1,350,478 0.130
27 Khasi – Garo 1,128,575 0.112
28 Mundari 1,061,352 0.105
29 Ho 1,042,724 0.103