Languages of Nepal


The 2011 National census lists 123 Nepalese languages spoken as a mother tongue in Nepal. The discovery of six additional languages since then brings the count to 129. Most belong to the Indo-Aryan and Sino-Tibetan language families. Nepali is the official language, but the other first languages are all recognized national languages.
The official language of Nepal is Nepali, formerly called Khas-Kura, then Gorkhali. According to the 2011 national census, the percentage of Nepali speaking people is about 44.6%. Maithili is the second most spoken language in Nepal at 11.67%. Most of the languages in Nepal are endangered because out of the 129 languages, only 19 of them have more than 100,000 speakers. They are spoken by 95.91% of the total population.
The 2019 annual report of the Language Commission of Nepal registered the discovery that year of the six languages not previously counted. The report was submitted to President Bidhya Bhandari and has been officially approved to be put in the next census. The languages are Rana Tharu, Nar Phu, Chum, Nubri, Poike and Serake. These languages are spoken in the districts of Kanchapur, Manang, Gorkha, Gorkha, Dolpa, and Mustang respectively.
Most of the languages are found exclusively in oral form. Of the languages that are written, most are written using the Devanagari script, with few exceptions such as Limbu, which uses the Limbu script.
According to the constitution of Nepal, "all languages spoken as the mother tongues in Nepal are the languages of the nation". Many of the languages also have various dialects. For example, the Rai language has about 30 dialects. Sometimes the distinction between dialects or completely different languages is unclear and might differ in opinions from person to person.

Classification

Nepal's languages are mostly either Indo-European or Sino-Tibetan, while only a very few of them are Austro-Asiatic and Dravidian.
Out of 123 languages of Nepal, the 48 Indo-European languages,which are of the Indo-Aryan sub-family, constitute the largest group in terms of the numeric strength of their speakers, nearly 82.1% of population. Nepali,Bhojpuri, Maithili, Awadhi, Tharu languages, Urdu, etc. fall in this group.
The Sino-Tibetan family of Nepal's languages forms a part of its Tibeto-Burman group. Though spoken by relatively fewer people than the Indo-European family, it includes a greater number of languages, about 63 languages. Languages belonging to this group are Tamang, Nepal Bhasa, Magar, Limbu language etc.
The small declining number of Dravidian languages are represented by Kurux, and the Munda languages of the Austroasiatic family by Santali and Mundari.
The indigenous languages of Nepal that predated the influx of Indic, Tibeto-Burman, and other families barely survive in the Kusunda language, which is nearly extinct today.
Nepal also has at several indigenous village sign languages: Jhankot Sign Language, Jumla Sign Language, and Ghandruk Sign Language, in addition to the Nepali Sign Language designed for national use.
Language familyNumberPercentage
Indo-European21,752,49682.10%
Sino-Tibetan4,584,87117.31%
Austro-Asiastic49,8580.19%
Dravidian33,6510.13%
Others/Not reported73,3750.27%
Total26,494,504100%

Constitution

Part 1 of the Constitution of Nepal 2015 contains these provisions about the languages of Nepal:
LanguageCountPercentage
Nepali8,682,49932.77%
Maithili195, 2870.73%
Bhojpuri159,5180.60%
Tharu84,7480.32%
English81,4470.30%
Bajjika60,8630.23%
Urdu45,7660.17%
Awadhi45,4280.17%
Magar42,9520.16%
Tamang33,4500.12%
Nepal Bhasa 32,5940.12%
Sanskrit2,9750.01%
Others190,3270.72%
Total10,883,804"""41.04%"""