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 are scheduled languages (the only scheduled language with less than 1 million native speakers is Sanskrit). The first table is restricted to only speaking populations for scheduled languages.
First language speakers
Second language
speakers[12]
Third language
speakers[12]
Total speakers
Language
Figure[12]
% of total
population
Figure[13][12]
% of total
population
Hindi [note 2]
528,347,193
43.63%
139,207,180
24,160,696
691,347,193
57.09%
Bengali
97,237,669
8.03%
9,037,222
1,008,088
107,237,669
8.85%
Telugu
81,127,740
6.70%
11,946,414
1,001,498
94,127,740
7.77%
Marathi
83,026,680
6.86%
12,923,626
2,966,019
99,026,680
8.18%
Tamil
69,026,881
5.70%
6,992,253
956,335
77,026,881
6.36%
Gujarati
55,492,554
4.58%
4,035,489
1,007,912
60,492,554
4.99%
Urdu [note 3]
50,772,631
4.19%
11,055,287
1,096,428
62,772,631
5.18%
Kannada
43,706,512
3.61%
14,076,355
993,989
58,706,512
4.84%
Odia
37,521,324
3.10%
4,972,151
31,525
42,551,324
3.51%
Malayalam
34,838,819
2.88%
499,188
195,885
35,538,819
2.93%
Punjabi
33,124,726
2.74%
2,300,000
720,000
36,074,726
2.97%
Assamese
15,311,351
1.26%
7,488,153
740,402
23,539,906
1.94%
English
259,678
0.02%
83,125,221
45,993,066
129,259,678
10.67%
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers_in_India
There are more people in Kannada than in Canada.
Wonder how many bar rats there are in Bharat.
One thing we can say about the President of Bharat is that Murmu will never wear a mumu; most of the time she will be a sari sight.