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[1] 422,048,642 337,272,114[2] 40.0% 336 M
Bengali 230,000,000 200,595,738 28.30% 320 M
Punjabi 130,000,000 100,017,615 20.87% 113 M
Telugu 70,002,856 65,595,738 8.30% 70 M
Marathi 71,936,894 62,481,681 7.45% 68.0 M
Tamil 60,793,814 53,006,368 6.32% 66.0 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 3.91% 40.3 M
Malayalam 33,066,392 30,377,176 3.62% 35.7 M
Oriya 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
Sinhalese 19,017,446 28,061,313 3.35% 32.3 M
Assamese 13,168,484 13,079,696 1.56% 15.4 M
Maithili[3] 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[dubious ][4] 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%