Multilingualism in India

The Constitution of India designates the official languages of India as Hindi and English.[1] The number of bilingual speakers in India is 314.9 million, which is 26% of the population in 2011.[2]

A danger sign in India containing 8 language, all using different scripts.

Multilingualism

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Hindi

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Hindi is one of the official languages of India and had 528 million native speakers as of the 2011 Census. About 139 million Indians speak Hindi as a second language and 24 million speak it as their third language.

First, second, and third languages by number of speakers in India (2011 Census)[3][4]
Language First language
speakers[5]
First language
speakers as a percentage
of total population
Second language
speakers [6]
Third language
speakers [6]
Total speakers Total speakers as a
percentage of total
population
Hindi 528,347,193 43.63 139,000,000 24,000,000 692,000,000 57.1
English 259,678 0.02 83,000,000 46,000,000 129,000,000 10.6
Bengali 97,237,669 8.3 9,000,000 1,000,000 107,000,000 8.9
Marathi 83,026,680 7.09 13,000,000 3,000,000 99,000,000 8.2
Telugu 81,127,740 6.93 12,000,000 1,000,000 95,000,000 7.8
Tamil 69,026,881 5.89 7,000,000 1,000,000 77,000,000 6.3
Gujarati 55,492,554 4.74 4,000,000 1,000,000 60,000,000 5
Urdu 50,772,631 4.34 11,000,000 1,000,000 63,000,000 5.2
Kannada 43,706,512 3.73 14,000,000 1,000,000 59,000,000 4.94
Odia 37,521,324 3.2 5,000,000 390,000 43,000,000 3.56
Malayalam 34,838,819 2.97 500,000 210,000 36,000,000 2.9
Punjabi 33,124,726 2.83 2,230,000 720,000 36,600,000 3
Assamese 15,311,351 1.26 7,488,153 740,402 23,539,906 1.94
Sanskrit 0[7][8][9] 0 1,230,000 1,960,000 3,190,000 0.19

Multilingualism by state

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Combined percentages of first, second and third language speakers of Hindi and English in India from the 2011 Census.[10]

 
Trilingualism is common in Railway Stations of India. This signboard of a ticket counter in Bhubaneswar Railway Station has text in Odia, Hindi and English.
 
Multilingualism is also common in the international airports in India. The signboard is displayed in the Imphal International Airport in Meitei, Hindi and English.
Hindi and English Proficiency in 2011[6]
State or union territory Hindi English
India 57.11% 10.62%
Andaman and Nicobar Islands 79.87% 21.94%
Andhra Pradesh (incl. Telangana) 12.59% 13.06%
Arunachal Pradesh 62.76% 23.08%
Assam 25.24% 8.05%
Bihar 89.37% 2.72%
Chandigarh 94.05% 41.62%
Chhattisgarh 93.64% 2.29%
Dadra and Nagar Haveli 57.50% 10.34%
Daman and Diu 76.19% 15.38%
Delhi 96.75% 31.72%
Goa 53.34% 41.80%
Gujarat 43.63% 12.44%
Haryana 95.34% 15.59%
Himachal Pradesh 96.57% 10.64%
Jammu and Kashmir (incl. Ladakh) 38.00% 15.98%
Jharkhand 85.43% 5.15%
Karnataka 12.27% 11.83%
Kerala 9.12% 20.15%
Lakshadweep 17.87% 19.30%
Madhya Pradesh 95.74% 5.44%
Maharashtra 52.09% 14.32%
Manipur 18.44% 31.62%
Meghalaya 13.95% 15.61%
Mizoram 7.01% 15.50%
Nagaland 15.89% 32.57%
Odisha 18.76% 17.23%
Puducherry 3.87% 28.10%
Punjab 51.04% 30.05%
Rajasthan 95.04% 4.55%
Sikkim 47.96% 27.69%
Tamil Nadu 2.11% 18.49%
Tripura 9.95% 7.53%
Uttar Pradesh 97.40% 6.42%
Uttarakhand 97.19% 8.36%
West Bengal 13.83% 6.70%

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Constitutional Provisions: Official Language Related Part-17 of The Constitution Of India". Department of Official Language, Government of India. Archived from the original on 1 February 2016. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
  2. ^ "Hindi migrants speaking Marathi rise to 60 lakh". The Times of India.
  3. ^ "How languages intersect in India". Hindustan Times. 22 November 2018.
  4. ^ "How many Indians can you talk to?".
  5. ^ ORGI. "Census of India: Comparative speaker's strength of Scheduled Languages-1951, 1961, 1971, 1981, 1991 ,2001 and 2011" (PDF).
  6. ^ a b c "Census of India Website : Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India". www.censusindia.gov.in. Archived from the original on 13 November 2019.
  7. ^ "Searching for Sanskrit Speakers in the Indian Census". The Wire. Retrieved 9 February 2021.
  8. ^ "The Myth of 'Sanskrit Villages' and the Realm of Soft Power". The Wire. Retrieved 9 February 2021.
  9. ^ Sreevatsan, Ajai (10 August 2014). "Where are the Sanskrit speakers?". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 9 February 2021.
  10. ^ Sen, Sumant (4 June 2019). "Hindi the first choice of people in only 12 States". The Hindu.