Hindi and its various dialects continue to be the most spoken language in India, with more than 43% of the country declaring it their mother-tongue.
While the speakers of several South Indian languages, and English, grow faster than the previous decades, they are losing their share in the overall percentage of speakers in the country.
The Data was released by the office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Among India’s 22 scheduled languages, Sanskrit is the least spoken.
The ancient language speaking population is just 0.00198 per cent of India's total population of 121 crore.
It is preceded by Bodo, Manipuri, Konkani and Dogri in terms of the number of speakers.
English, an unscheduled language, is mother tongue to around 2.6 lakh people.
The Census records a ‘mother tongue’ as the “the language spoken in childhood by the person’s mother to the person”.